A sociocultural perspective on classroom interaction

It has often been stated that interaction is the most important aspect in the curriculum and classroom learning because it is through language in interaction that learners access new knowledge (van Lier, 1996; Walsh, 2011). This is the case in any type of learning that is set in the school context. More so, if we are dealing with language‐related activities such as learning a FL, learning a content subject through a FL or simply learning any discipline through language. In 1976 Douglas Barnes already had a clear idea of this central element in formal education since he considered school to be more than simply a place where communication goes on. If it were so, schools would be comparable to other places like a bus, a shop or a building site. As this author explains, schools are different: “In one way schools are different... they are there purely for the talk” (Barnes, 1976: 14, original emphasis).

According to Barnes (2008), one of the first psychologists to acknowledge the role of talk in organising learners’ understanding of the world was Vygotsky. Meanwhile, Hardman (2008:134) resorts to the work of a Russian philosopher Bakhtin as having

“a similar emphasis on the social origins of the individual’s language repertoire”. In Hardman’s words:

Bakhtin argued that dialogue pervades all spoken and written discourse and is essential where meanings are not fixed or absolute. It is therefore central to educational discourse and learning because of the need to consider alternative frames of reference (2008:134).

These early theorists worked within a social‐constructivist view of learning which entails students’ active involvement in classroom discourse for learning to take place. Authors like Barnes, Britton and Rosen (1969) also critiqued teachers’ abuse of transmission ways of teaching and suggested introducing the student as an active participant in the classroom dialogue. Such actively engaged forms of talk became known as exploratory forms of talk (Barnes, 1976).

Barnes (1976) sought to make visible what was happening in classrooms by analysing the different discourses held by teachers and students. According to Green, Yeager and Castanheira (2008: 117), “he showed how classroom life was socially constructed in and through the discourse‐in‐use, and how individuals as

identities”.

According to Barnes (1976), n the study of classroom interaction two major agents should be taken into account: teachers and learners since “the communication system indicates to pupils the boundaries of who they are and what they may do”

(1976:17). The teacher and the student jointly set up the context or the communication system of the classroom; however, it is the teacher who shapes

“every pupil’s participation in learning” (idem:33). In order to show how this takes space in the classroom, Barnes (1976) elaborates a learning diagram (see Figure 3.1).

As shown in the diagram, the teacher has control of communication, it is an authoritative figure that dominates the discourse. The arrow representing variable strength determines how authoritative the teacher is, that is, whether she has a tight control of the class exercising a monologic type of discourse or allows for a higher participation of students through a more dialogic type of teaching. However, classroom talk involves two participating parties, teachers and students. Therefore, pupils’ expectations also affect interaction and are represented at the opposite side of the diagram. Students have certain ideas about their role and that of the teacher and can be more or less flexible in these ideas. The resulting interactions are immersed in the social context and include the use of the communicative system.

Therefore, such interactions can be of different kinds, creating also very different discourse structures. Pupils’ knowledge and skills are used in these interactions and projected into the use of strategies for learning, this generating the possibility of different types of learning.

Figure 3.1: Learning diagram (Barnes, 1976:33)

Drawing on Barnes (1976) learning scheme, Hardman (2008) describes these discourse structures. He divides educational talk into talk either between pupils and teachers or only among pupils. He describes the first, teacher‐student talk as usually

‘asymmetrical’, “by which we mean one of the participants (usually the teacher) leads the interaction and has the privilege, and responsibility of being in control”

(idem:56). The second he describes as more ‘symmetrical’ talks, “in which partners have a more equal status and potential for control” (idem:56). This second type is frequent when groups of pupils work together. Finally, Hardman states how

“classroom talk does not fit neatly into these two categories”. (Hardman, 2008: 56).

The “asymmetrical” talk referred to by Hardman can be linked to the IRF pattern, which has often been observed to constrain and restrict students’ possibilities of participation in the construction of knowledge. This is so because it is the teacher who selects the topic and the next speaker, often preventing students from pursuing their own ideas and interpretations (Barnes, 1976; Cazden, 2001). Hardman also adds that, from an educational perspective, it is important that both asymmetrical and symmetrical types of dialogue happen in classrooms. However, there is a tendency to reduce classroom dialogue into teacher‐students asymmetrical interaction where the IRF pattern prevails. In the opposite direction, teaching drives

script” in Hardman’s (2008) terms and delves into a more “dialogic pedagogy where teachers are helped to break out the limitations of the recitation script through higher order questioning and feedback strategies which promote a range of alternative discourse strategies” (idem:133).

Other researchers have also worked along these lines. For example, Alexander (2004) suggests a notion of “dialogic talk” which is described as being:

 collective (teachers and students address the learning task together),

 reciprocal (both parties involved listen to each other to share ideas and consider alternative viewpoints),

 supportive (students articulate their ideas freely without fear of embarrassment over “wrong” answers and support each other to reach common understandings),

 cumulative (teachers and students build on their own and each other’s ideas to chain them into coherent lines of thinking and enquiry), and

 purposeful (teachers plan and facilitate dialogic teaching with educational goals in mind).

Although all the above listed features of dialogic teaching are important, managing the quality of classroom discourse is considered essential (Nystrand et al., 1997;

Cazden, 2001). As Alexander (2008:112) argues, it is highly recommendable to first concentrate on promoting those features which are related to the ethos, dynamics, and affective climate which means that the teacher should aim to foster collective, reciprocal and supportive aspects of classroom talk.

Wells’ (1999) notion of “dialogic inquiry” is concerned with students being actively involved in the ongoing activity and having a certain sense of agency. Mortimer and Scott’s (2003) “dialogic communicative approach” provides a perspective on how science teachers can work with students to successfully develop their ideas in the classroom. This approach allows to characterise teacher‐students talk in the classroom in terms of whether it is interactive or non‐interactive and dialogic or authoritative.

Interactive/non‐interactive dimension refers to participation rights and describes whether the teacher allows or not for the participation of students whereas

authoritative/dialogic dimension refers to the openness of classroom talk to exploring different points of views and ideas.

Dialogic teaching and learning goes hand in hand with the sociocultural conception of learning and understanding. According to Mercer and Littleton (2007:135), the moment has come to develop a unifying sociocultural, dialogic theory of how knowledge is jointly constructed and how learners achieve greater understanding.

Following Barnes (2008:3), “[m]ost of our important learning, in school or out of it, is a matter of constructing models of the world, finding out how far they work by using them, and the reshaping them in the light of what happens”. This implies that in school, knowledge is continuously being shaped and re‐shaped and although both students and teachers are actors in this process, it is students who gradually achieve greater understanding and the best way to do it is through talk. Therefore, teachers are given the encouraging and supporting role but they cannot work on understanding for the students. According to Barnes (2008:5), the flexibility of speech makes it easy for students to try out new ways of arranging what they know, and it is also easy for them to change these ways if they seem inadequate. However, not all types of talking – and in Barnes’ opinion, of writing too – foster this conception of understanding since it is often “a matter of imitating what other people have said or written” (idem).

In sum, to account for the important role of classroom talk and the need to improve its quality in the educational settings, the words of Mercer and Hodgkinson (2008:

xi) can be recalled: “It is now appreciated that classroom talk <…> is the most important educational tool for guiding the development of understanding and jointly constructing knowledge”. Nowadays, as constructors of their own knowledge, learners must be given the active role and more responsibility for their own learning as well as for “its relationships to the world of understandings, beliefs and values that [the student] inhabits” through “conscious participation” and “active learning” which should be reflective and critical (Barnes, 2008:14). This can be done by requiring them to think about their learning and “giving them more access to the grounds upon which the knowledge they were learning was based” (idem) in order to help them avoid the mere rehearsal of inert information. The idea behind this is

35) describes it as a classroom climate or working atmosphere where students feel happy and confident in expressing their views and where they will listen thoughtfully to the contributions of others and to the words of the teacher.

Symmetrical interactions in which students work together, therefore, offer a different way of working on understanding. They entail the active participation of students, which enable some of them to ‘talk themselves into understanding'. In this scenario, when the learning theories started considering the social element of learning, the use of group work in the classroom has begun to be highly valued as students can share in and practice forms of academic discourse of the classroom that are normally used only by the teacher (Mercer, 1995). This means sharing, comparing, contrasting and arguing from different perspectives, providing opportunities for instructional conversation or the shared construction or negotiation of meaning (Hardman, 2008:136). It also means that group or pair work affords students more opportunities to develop linguistically and cognitively (idem).

Yet, it has to be mentioned that even in a symmetrical interactional structure such as group or pair work, not all talk among students leads specifically to a better understanding or fosters learning.