Transcript Understanding the dynamics of classroom communication is

Course Requirements
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Class participation
Written paper: around 1500 words
Mock class
Final exam (no midterm)
LANGUAGE SKILLS FOR TEACHERS:
TESL OR PSYCHOLOGY?
What is TESL?
What is psychology?
Questionnaire
• Why are you studying TESL and what are your
professional goals after you graduate from UIC?
• What do you think we will be learning in this
class?
• What do you hope to get out of this class?
Assignment
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You have been studying TESL for 2 years. That
means you have attended 4 regular English
classes and numerous TESL classes. If you
were preparing to teach those classes you’ve
taken, what would you do to improve them?
Further, we all make mistakes. When you make
a mistake in the classroom, what is the best
way to deal with your mistakes? What is the
best way to deal with others’ mistakes?
Communication in the classroom
Source: Johnson, Karen E. (1995).
Understanding Communication in Second
Language Classrooms. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Kinds of classroom communication
•Spoken
•Written
•Nonverbal
•Other?
Main Point 1
• Understanding the dynamics of
classroom communication is essential
for all those involved in second
language education.
Main Point 2
• In second language classrooms, how
teachers perceive their students and how
students perceive their teachers will shape
both the meaning and structure of classroom
communication.
Main Point 3
• If students are unaware of the social and
interactional norms that regulate
participation in classroom activities, they
may learn little from their classroom
experiences.
Teachers and students interpret
classroom activities through their
own frames of reference which are:
• Moment-to-moment actions and interactions that
constitute what actually occurs in second language
classrooms.
• What teachers and students bring to the classroom
from their own life.
• The challenge set before teachers is to recognize
both the obvious in there classrooms and the not
so obvious within themselves and their students.
From the diagram
• The extent to which second language
students are willing or able to demonstrate
their knowledge can be constrained, to a
greater or lesser degree by the patterns of
communication that are established and
maintained in second language classrooms.
Teachers’ management of the
patterns of classroom
communication
• Teachers manage what goes on in
classrooms primarily through the ways in
which they use language.
• IRE
– Initiation
– Response
– Evaluation
Teachers’ frames of reference
• Professional and practical knowledge
– Prior training and teaching experience
– Prior experience as students (as second
language learners)
Students’ perceptions of the patterns
of classroom communication
• How students interpret what teachers say and do
will shape the patterns of classroom
communication.
• Norms of communication behavior in classrooms
are generally not explicitly taught, but instead tend
to be implicitly enforced through the teachers’ use
of language.
• Most students eventually learn the norms of
appropriate communicative behavior based on
what they experience with their teachers.
Students’ frames of reference
• Culturally acquired expectations about the
norms of appropriate communicative
behavior in classrooms based on prior
schooling experience.
Students’ knowledge and use of
language
• Students enter classrooms with an
accumulation of prior experiences and
knowledge through which they interpret the
world around them.
• When they are forced to operate in a second
language, they must acquire a new means of
encoding and representing their experiences.
Students’ use of language for
classroom learning and second
language acquisition
• There are two kinds of language taught in second
language classrooms:
– The new language that is being taught in the lesson
– The language needed to learn that new language.
Language input shapes L2 acquisition only when it is
placed within concrete, meaningful contexts in which
learners can understand the message even if they do not
understand all of the language.
Summary
• By coming to understand the patterns of
communication that exist in L2 classrooms,
teachers can recognize the extent to which
the dynamics of classroom communication
can influence the complex processes of both
classroom learning and second language
acquisition.
Other things we discussed
We will talk more about these in
future lectures:
Classroom communicative
competence
• How students talk and act in the classrooms
greatly influences what they learn.
• Students need to know with whom, when
and where they can speak and act.
• They must have speech and behavior that
are appropriate for classrooms situations
• They must be able to interpret implicit
classroom rules.
What is communication context?
• Classroom: artificial or contrived?
• Outside of the classroom: real?