English language learning
farzaneh khodabndeh
Abstract
Collaborative technologies provide opportunities for English foreign language learners (EFL) to have interactive learning and access to online interactive environments. Interactions that take place between teachers and their students in a classroom context affect learners’ language learning. As ...
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Collaborative technologies provide opportunities for English foreign language learners (EFL) to have interactive learning and access to online interactive environments. Interactions that take place between teachers and their students in a classroom context affect learners’ language learning. As such, this research compared interactions between the instructor and her students and between students themselves that took place in conventional and Learning Management Systems (LMS) classes. Second, two different approaches of teaching grammar (implicit and explicit) in conventional and LMS classes were examined. The participants of this study were selected from 94 students of EFL freshmen at two groups of different teaching classes namely, virtual and conventional classes. Having administered a test of homogeneity, the researcher selected 60 learners. They were assigned into four groups, two experimental and two comparative groups. After the treatment, the results of the pre-and post-tests confirmed the positive effect of teaching grammar both explicitly and implicitly in LMS classes. In addition, examination of interaction patterns revealed that teaching through LMS was student-centered and dynamic in contradiction with the comparative groups. The study can help instructors understand the prospective benefits of teaching on LMS and also improve social interactions among uncommunicative students.
Mohammad Alavi; Bagher Yaghoubi; Mostafa Pourhaji
Volume 8, Issue 18 , December 2016, , Pages 1-18
Abstract
The prevailing pattern of classroom interaction is a tripartite exchange structure known as IRF (teacher initiation, student response, teacher follow-up/feedback; Sinclair & Coulthard, 1975). Although it has its own contributions to classroom discourse, it has been criticized on several grounds, ...
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The prevailing pattern of classroom interaction is a tripartite exchange structure known as IRF (teacher initiation, student response, teacher follow-up/feedback; Sinclair & Coulthard, 1975). Although it has its own contributions to classroom discourse, it has been criticized on several grounds, particularly for affording minimum learner participation opportunities (Kasper, 2001). An alternative practice has been promoting learner initiation and agency through moving out-of-IRF. However, when the form of interaction is teacher-fronted, IRF becomes the centerpiece and moving out of it tends to be difficult. This paper aims at exploring first what learners need to take initiatives and exercise agency in teacher-fronted interaction, and second how teachers can play a facilitative role in this process. Conversation analytic study of an EFL teacher’s naturally-occurring interaction with learners during a homework review activity demonstrates how the teacher’s extended wait-time practice affords a learner the interactional space needed to initiate a question and voice her locus of trouble. Moreover, the teacher's consistent extended wait-time practice after the learner’s initiation functions as an invitation bid for other learners to orient to the trouble and successfully negotiate it in their learner-learner interaction. Extracts of this study portray learners’ management to drive their own learning.
