Classroom interactions

Christie (2005) emphasizes that the main phase of class teaching often involves an overt direction from teachers in a process of task-based pursuit, during which students shift towards successful learning through interactions. Similarly, Rose and Martin (2012) note that the task, together with teachers’ focus and evaluation, are the central elements of a learning activity. Teachers should be aware of students’ groups and create a suitable classroom culture to provide students with various opportunities to engage with new ideas via task organization (Mercer, 1994). According to who is involved in the interactions, the major classroom interaction forms can be summarized as teacher-

student (T-S, when the teacher only seeks answers from individual students), teacher-students (T- Ss, when a teacher talks with the whole class) and student-student (S-S, e.g.: group and pair work) interactions. To balance various interaction activities based on the purposes of each task or activity, namely participant structures, is an approach suggested by Hammond and Gibbons (2005). In this sense, task-based interaction with teacher guidance is the core of learning activities. Therefore, in order to help students become independent writers for a target genre, the teacher participants were expected to have certain tasks designed for students’ collaborative study with peers, or by active negotiation with the teachers. Moreover, all interaction processes should be followed by teachers’ constant evaluation and guidance.

Analysis of interview and observational data suggested three salient themes with regard to classroom interactions: Teachers’ stated beliefs and their real pedagogical decisions with reference to classroom interactions were inconsistent; asking individual students to answer questions was the dominant form of classroom interactions; and following the steps in the process approach to teaching writing was regarded as an effective writing strategy.

Firstly, teachers asserted the importance of employing different types of classroom interactions to interact with students when they were interviewed. However, findings obtained from teaching plans and classroom observations did not provide consistent evidence. When interviewed, Amy and Jane emphasized group discussion as an important classroom activity in teaching writing. Amy described that “discussion is still the main way used in teaching writing” (Amy, Int.1T). Yet only one group discussion was found in Kate’s teaching plan, and that was also the only S-S interaction activity of all teachers’ teaching designs. The notion of teaching is a process of decision-making (Leinhardt & Green, 1986). Richards (1998) argues that experienced teachers draw less on making decisions at the planning stage. Rather, they have more interactive decision- making in their teaching. In the experienced teachers’ classrooms in the present study, apart from the implementation of a group discussion in Kate’s classroom as it was planned, randomly asking individual students to answer questions was the only interactive style that was observed.

To understand the relationship between teachers’ statements and their real classroom teaching, Baker (2014) and Borg (2006) highlighted the importance of examining TC in relation to teachers’ actual teaching practices. Limited information on teachers’ application of classroom interactions in variety and frequency might reflect teachers’ limited attention to interaction activities in their teaching practices to a degree. It might also suggest that to develop students’ communicative competence was not the teachers’ primary concern, although it is the main goal of the current CECR. Teachers’ teaching practice seemed to have been divorced from their knowledge of the curriculum.

Secondly, a closer examination of teachers’ classroom interactions proved that T-S interaction was the primary interaction pattern. In addition to this, teachers’ attitudes towards such activity appeared extremely different. The majority of the teachers (Amy, Cathy, Jane & Patty) interacted with five to ten individual students throughout the whole classroom observations. Two typical characteristics were found from those interactions. First, asking individuals to answer questions was the dominant pattern of those interactions, and the most popular interaction purpose was to stimulate students’ memory regarding writing tasks in the CETs. The conversations in the following excerpt were in evidence.

Excerpt 1 (The dialogue Jane had with the fifth student, S5 in her class)

Task: Commenting on the model texts on the writing task of CET4 in 2009

1 Jane S5, 你怎么评论这篇文章? [how do you comment on this article?] S5: 应该还不错。[It’s not bad.]

2 Jane “应该还不错”。那你给它大概几分？ [“Not bad”… then what mark do

you offer?]

S5: 大概 11 分 12 分左右…… [Between 11 and 12…]

3 Jane 你们认为average level 就是 11 分是哇？[Do you agree that the average level is 11?]

Ss: 10 分以下……5 分……[Less than 10… should be 5…]

4 Jane 接下来大家以第一段为例都来看一下。[Let’s read the first paragraph as an example...]

In Excerpt 1, Jane attempted to provide students with a more concrete sense of good CET written texts by showing CET model texts with various ranks. It seemed that Jane did not care about S5’s or Ss’ (the students of the whole class) response very much in this dialogue. Whether this task was at a level of difficulty which would properly challenge the students was not regarded as important, as no explanation was required from the students. Sharpe (2001) points out that asking different kinds of questions is a way of successfully providing assistance to students. Nevertheless, supporting students was sometimes not likely to be the teacher participants’ interactive purpose, as can be seen in the T-S exchanges in Excerpt 1. Jane intended to provide the students with an idea of what constitutes a well-written CET text.

The teaching practices of Kate and Mike are two extremely different cases in terms of applying interaction activities, and as such make for notable comparisons. Kate was the teacher who applied one group discussion in teaching practice. She was also the teacher who adopted the most opportunities to interact with individual students. Twenty-one out of 25 students in her class were invited to respond to her questions in pre-workshop teaching. On the contrary, Mike was the teacher who dominated the whole class, and presented writing knowledge without any interaction with his students. It is likely that Kate held more positive beliefs towards classroom interaction than Mike.

To some extent, the significant difference between teachers’ performance in interaction activities reflected teachers’ beliefs in its pedagogical effectiveness. In CLT, a series of tasks are supposed to be set for students to help them acquire communicative competence (X. Li, 1984). By using different types of interaction activities, teachers are able to adjust the levels of support they provide to students according to students’ needs, and push students to work independently (Maloch, 2002). Among the various elements which create obstacles in achieving Chinese students’ communicative competence, teachers are the most important element in changing any unfavourable conditions (Liao, 1996). Observational data revealed the lack of variety in forms of interaction, and the existence of considerable difference between teachers’ performance as

discussed above. Kate’s performance provided evidence of her strong belief in the benefits of students’ engagement. By contrast, Mike’s performance suggested that he believed teachers should play traditional roles as knowledge providers, where the students were receivers of knowledge. However, the current thesis takes the view that students learn more effectively through active engagement in communicating with language than passively receiving information from teachers (Snow, 1996). Therefore, Kate’s students tended to access more effective learning opportunities, compared with the students in Mike’s class.

The last theme was related to teachers’ belief in the usefulness of the process approach in teaching writing. However, this belief was not fully consistent with the observed results because, as the main component of the process approach, the teachers’ roles as providers of guidance in interactions were not evident in classroom teachings. The main point which distinguishes the process approach from other approaches is its view of writing as a process of pre-writing, drafting, revising and publishing. This routine of learning and teaching writing was reported as a helpful strategy in teachers’ interviews, although the teachers did not explicitly note it as the process approach. For instance, Kate and Patty argued that to make students engage in a process of writing, revising, rewriting…was “the best way” (Patty, Int.1T) to support students’ writing development. Jane’s view was similar. As she put it: “After writing, [students] may discuss with their peers as well as their teachers…based on the peers’ and the teacher’s feedback, they can rewrite with more careful consideration…to practice writing repeatedly” (Jane, Int.1T).

Nevertheless, this writing process was not as obvious in the classroom observations as was commented by the teachers. In the process approach, writing is learned through many interaction activities with peers (Susser, 1994). Yet except for one group discussion (in Kate’s class), no interaction occurred between students. In return, information in relation to teachers’ intervention and guidance during students’ writing learning process was limited. The characteristics of the process approach were not clearly observed in the observations might be due to inadequate observation opportunities. There was also a possible inconsistency between teachers’ statements

and their actual classroom practices because the time assigned to teaching writing was very limited.

The last feature of the process approach to be considered was related to the writing techniques. To master control of writing techniques is set as the goal of the process approach (Hyland, 2003b). It was discussed in Section 5.2.2 that writing techniques drew most of the teachers’ attention (Amy, Cathy, Jane & Kate).

To sum up, teachers’ beliefs that writing was a process of pre-writing, drafting, revising and publishing demonstrated that they valued the process approach, though it was not evident in their teaching practices, and it was possible that they were unaware of the underlying principles.