CRMEF, Beni Mellal Prof.

Ouahidi
Classroom Interaction
“Telling is not teaching; listening is not learning; teaching is listening; learning is talking”
–Deborah Meier–
Do you agree or disagree with these statements? Discuss in pairs
1. The teacher should speak as much as possible in classroom time.
2. It is more important for learners to listen and speak to the teacher than for
learners to listen and speak to each other.
3. People usually learn best by listening to the teacher explaining things.
4. People usually learn best by trying things out and finding out what works.
5. TTT is all the time bad.
6. Students learn more when they listen to the teacher for the whole class time.
7. Pairwork activities are a waste of time.
8. Including many interaction patterns in our lessons can add variety and interest to
them
9. Teacher-student’s interaction is traditional and should be left altogether.
10. In whole class interaction, the teacher reinforces a sense of competition among
the students.
11. It is suitable for activities where the teacher is acting as a controller.
12. The teacher does not involve all the students in the learning activity or task.
13. Individual students have the chance to say anything on their own.
14. It may not encourage students to take responsibility for their own learning.
15. When assigning individual activities, the teacher is implicitly supporting
introversion.
16. Monitoring individual activities is time and effort consuming
17. Only through individual activities a teacher can judge students’ performance.
18. Individual activities endorse ‘estrangement’.
19. We can put our students in groups, since this will allow them to do a range of
activities and tasks.
20. Teacher loses control over the class when the students are divided into groups.
21. It encourages broader skills of cooperation and negotiation.
22. Only one student is active while the other members of the group are passive
 CRMEF, Beni Mellal Prof. Ouahidi
Classroom Interaction
“Telling is not teaching; listening is not learning; teaching is listening; learning is talking”
–Deborah Meier–
Interaction is more than action followed by reaction. Interaction means acting
reciprocally, acting upon each other. The teacher acts upon the class, but the class
reaction modifies his next action and so on. The class reaction becomes in itself an
action, evoking a reaction in the teacher, which influences his subsequent action. There
is a constant pattern of mutual influence and adjustment. Interaction is a twoway
process. It can be a positive state or a negative one. Every interaction situation has the
potential for cooperation or conflict.
Classroom interaction is a method of promoting the development of the two most
crucial language skills, speaking and listening, among students. This device assists the
student in becoming capable of critical thinking and sharing their opinions with their
classmates.
In effective classroom sessions, students should be active participants and take part in
discussions, investigations, and experiments that will broaden their knowledge and
skills. Whether through whole group discussion and small group work, or independent
practice.
Importance of Classroom Interaction
Gebhard (2005) states that classroom interaction helps:
● Reduce the central position of the teacher

● Provide chances for students to express themselves in meaningful ways

● Give opportunities to students to negotiate meaning with each other

● Fulfil the objectives of the lesson

● Encourage participation

There are four modes of interaction observed during the teaching learning
process. (Moore, 1989)
Individual Work
Individual work is when the teacher assigns a task that learners work on by themselves.
It is an opportunity for students to explore the language on their own. Some examples of
activities that are best conducted individually are reading and writing tasks, or
comprehension exercises.
Collaboration
Activities that require two-way communication are best implemented through group
work and pair work. This interaction pattern is student-centered as the students get to
play with the language. This type of student-to-student interaction provides students
with more speaking time and is a great way of getting the student to use and actively
produce the target language. Activities that lend themselves to this type of interaction
include role-plays or dialogues, reading circles, matching or review games, practice
conversation, to name a few.
An unsuccessful group can be described as follows:
- the individuals in the class do not cohere into a group,
- there is an uncomfortable, tense or negative atmosphere,
- some members of the group will not participate in group activities and some other
members will tend to dominate group activities at the expense of shyer members,
- group members are not interested in each other and they are not self-reliant but
dependent on the teacher,
- members of the group lack responsibility: they are reluctant to make an effort or to
take the initiative.
A successful group will be one where:
- the group is cohesive and the members have a definite sense of themselves as a group,
- there is a positive and supportive atmosphere: members have a positive self-image
which is reinforced by the group,
- group members are interested in each other and feel they have something in common,
- the group is self-reliant and has a sense of responsibility; it is able to overcome
problems and difficulties without the teacher,
- the members of the group trust each other,
- group members are open-minded, flexible, receptive to new ideas, they empathize with
each other.
Whole class grouping (Frontal/Lockstep)
Activities such as class debates, discussions, or review games, are examples of full-class
interactions. These activities are a great way to end a lesson or unit, and also serve as an
alternative formative assessment method. Full-class interaction allows for different
communication patterns, not only between the teacher and student, but also between
students and their teacher, and among students and their peers. Similar to group work
or pair work, this type of interaction pattern promotes the production of the target
language.
This work-form is used at the presentation stage of the lesson when students need the
same input. It reinforces a sense of belonging among the group members, something
which teachers need to foster (Williams and Burden 1997:79).
Advantages of whole class grouping:
- it is suitable for activities where the teacher is acting as a controller,
- an ideal way of showing pictures, texts or audio/video tape,
- it is cost efficient as well,
- it is the preferred class style where students and teachers feel secure when the whole
class is working in lockstep and under the direct authority of the teacher.
Disadvantages of whole class grouping:
- individual students do not have much of a chance to say something on their own,
- a lot of students are inhibited to participate in front of the whole class since they do not
want to take the risk of public failure,
- this work-form does not encourage students to take responsibility for their own
learning, it is the teacher who is responsible here for the learning process,
- frontal activities are not suitable for communicative language teaching specifically for
task-based sequences, communication between individuals is more difficult in a group of
twenty or thirty than it is in groups of four or five.
Individualised learning
Individualised learning is a vital step in the development of learner autonomy. Students
do exercises on their own in class; teachers are able to spend time working with
individual students. If we wish students to work on their own in class, we can allow
them to read privately and then answer questions individually, students can write
compositions, essays on their own as well etc.
Advantages of individualized learning:
- it allows teachers to respond to individual student differences in terms of pace of
learning, learning styles, and preferences,
- this work-form is less stressful for students than performing in a whole class setting,
- it will develop learner’s autonomy and will promote skills of self-reliance.
Disadvantages of the work-form:
- this work-form does not encourage cooperation between students and it does not
develop a sense of belonging,
- it demands more time from the tutor than interacting with the whole class.
Pair work
In pair work, students can practice language together, they can take part in information-
gap activities, they can write dialogues, they can work simultaneously with other pairs.
Advantages of pair work:
- it increases student talking time one student gets in the class,
- it makes for teachers possible to work with one or two pairs while the other students
go on working,
- this work-form is quick and easy to organize.
Disadvantages of pair work:
- pair work is very noisy, sometimes teachers lose control of their class,
- students often use their native language, - not each mistake or error can be corrected in
pair work,
- students would rather relate to the teacher as individuals than interact with another
learner who is just as weak linguistically as he is.
Group work
Students in groups can write a group story or they can role play a situation involving
four or five students. Small groups of around four or five students provoke greater
involvement and participation than larger groups.
Advantages of group work:
- like pair work it dramatically increases the amount of talking for individual students,
- personal relationships are less problematic here, there is a greater chance of different
opinions and varied contributions than in pair work,
- there are plenty of chances to cooperate and negotiate with one another than in pair
work, - it promotes learner’s autonomy.
Disadvantages of group work:
- it can be noisy,
- some teachers can lose control over the class,
- sometimes groups are fossilized, some of the students are passive whereas others may
dominate,
- it can take longer to organize groups than pairs.
SST vs TTT
TTT STT
-It exposes students to a source of -Students learn by speaking and actively
natural, correct English that is specifically participating in the class.
geared to the students' ability. Very few -It enhances true communication and
other resources can provide such autonomous learning.
comprehensible language input. -It motivates students and creates
-It is Useful for: excitement.
● Presenting, checking, modelling or -Maximize STT by:
clarifying ● Elicitation
● Providing language input ● Open-ended questions
● Giving instructions, setting up ● Speaking activities
activities ● Organizing pair or group work
● Replacing words with non-verbal
cues.

1. One way for a teacher to decrease Teacher Talking Time (TTT) and increase Student
Talking Time (STT) is by implementing more student-centered activities in the
classroom.
2. By incorporating group discussions, pair work, role plays, and other interactive tasks,
students are given more opportunities to speak and participate actively in the learning
process.
3.Through the implementation of task-based activities that require students to
communicate and collaborate with their peers to complete a task or solve a problem.
4. Structuring lessons in such a way, teachers can facilitate meaningful interactions
among students while taking on more of a facilitator role rather than being the primary
source of information.