期刊文章分类查询,尽在期刊图书馆School of Foreign Languages, Yunnan Normal University, Kunming, P.R. China
Abstract
Classroom interaction has existed for a long time, it begins to show different kinds of characteristics under different education theories. This paper begins with the definitions and types of classroom interaction. Later, it presents theories of classroom interaction, such as the behaviorism and constructivism. This paper focuses on the politeness principle and humorous principle. Finally, the limitations and difficulties of classroom interaction are elaborated.
Keywords: interaction; classroom; behaviorism; constructivism
1.Introduction
Riccardo(2014) says that: “linguistic interaction is always supported by a specific context, which is created by speech participants in the course of interaction” (p.276). The general purpose of this paper is to foster the development of EFL classroom interaction. The organization of this paper is listed in six sections. The first part presents the definitions of classroom interaction and the second part lists types of classroom interaction. The third part includes principles and theories of EFL classroom interaction. Later, the limitations and difficulties of EFL classroom interaction are told. Finally is the conclusion of the paper.
2.The Definitions of Classroom Interaction
Allright(1984) stated that interaction is the fundamental part of classroom pedagogy, because everything that happened in the classroom happens through a process of live person-to person interaction.
Classroom interaction refers to a special kind of interaction that happened in classroom. Ashley(1969) put forward three types of interaction: teacher-centered interaction, student-centered interaction and knowledge-centered interaction. Foster(1988) stated negotiation of meaning appears only in task-based interactions.
3. Types of Interaction in EFL Classroom
Interaction can be divided into different types such as control-obey type, mutual-negotiation type and control to non-control type, which stands for the same meaning in different types. Group interaction is the most important form in EFL classroom. It can be classified into inner-group and inter-group. Inner-group interaction refers to the mutual effects and consequences within group members. Inter-group interaction means the interaction that happened between groups, one of the most common ways is that after discussion, each group send a representation to the whole classroom.
In role-inverse interaction, teachers can act as students, students can act as teachers. This method can not only cultivate students’ expression ability but also have a certain understanding of teacher’s work. Because teachers can know student’s leaning situation and psychological state directly, which can improve their teaching quality.
In teacher-student interaction, it refers to the mutual effects that happened between teachers and students. Many psychologists and sociologists make different studies to the traditional classroom teaching, they found that this kind of interaction mainly belongs to teacher-centered type. Under the influence of the traditional teaching thinking, teachers put emphasize on knowledge teaching, but ignorance cultivating students’ speaking ability. For example, teachers talk all the time without letting students to express their opinion. Both of them become tired and they cannot reach the ideal effects.
In student-student interaction, it refers to mutual consequences that happened between students. In 1970s, cooperative leaning has been widely used since then. However, in traditional teaching method, interaction between students is regarded as negative.
4. Theories Used in Classroom Interaction
4.1 Interactions Instructed by Behaviorism
Behaviorism is gradually recognized by people in 20th, during its development, there appears some representatives such as Pavlov and Skinner. Who insisting the outer behavior but ignoring study consciousness and psychological process. They put forward stimulus-reaction system and regard students learning behavior as the reaction system. In the whole classroom teaching, the interaction between students and teachers follows the principle of stimulus- reaction. This kind of interaction has also disadvantages, for students understand and absorb knowledge passively, finally their initiative and creative thinking are ignored, the behaviorism opinion on interaction is not perfect.
4.2 Interactions Instructed by Constructivism
Constructivism offers benefits to teachers. Von Glaserfeld (1995) asserts: “constructivism cannot tell teachers new things to do, but it may suggests why certain attitudes and procedures are counter-productive and it may point out opportunities for teachers to use their own spontaneous imagination”. The basic concepts of constructivism hold that knowledge is not to be taught by teachers but is taught by certain social-cultural background. Within the framework of this theory, classroom interaction centers around students’ role and autonomy, students are regarded as the subject of cognition. Teachers act as the instructor, organizer, helper and promoter. The teaching aim is to make learner become the active meaning construction and to cultivate learner’s creative ability.
5. Principles Used in EFL Classroom Interaction
5.1 Politeness Principle
According to Leech, politeness principle is well presented by six maxims. Firstly, tact maxim, which includes minimize cost to other and maximize benefit to other. Secondly, generosity maxim, which includes minimize benefit to self and maximize cost to self. Thirdly, approbation maxim, which includes minimize dispraise of other and maximize praise of other. Fourthly, maxim of modesty, which means minimize praise of self and maximize dispraise of self. Fifthly, agreement maxim, which includes minimize disagreement between self and other and maximize agreement between self and other. Finally, sympathy maxim, which includes minimize antipathy between self and other and maximize sympathy between self and other. Form the above contents, we can know that the speaker always show the good news to the listener.
In EFL classroom interaction, When a teacher hopes students to express his or her opinion on some topic, he or she can use tact maxim rather than in a directive way. When the approbation maxim is used in EFL classroom interaction, the classroom interaction between different roles is improved, for most of the students want teachers to praise them, teachers must meet students’ psychological need. When students are actively expressing their opinion, teachers can use some commentary words such as: “quite good, well done, very good, excellent.” When students do not express their opinion during the whole classroom, we can use agreement maxim, teachers should put students situation into consideration and offer them the opportunities to change themselves, also teachers should avoid some incorrect situations such as bitterly critics and psychological inversion. In EFL classroom teaching, the maxim of modesty can produce a much more harmonious relationship. For instance, when one student makes a mistake on the pronunciation of the word, teachers may say: “Well, it’s my fault.” Moreover, some inclusive devices can be used to narrow the psychological distance between teacher and student. The word “us” or “we” are often used in those sentences. such as let’s look at this problem.
5.2 Humorous Principle
The relationship between humorous rules and SLA is very important. The humorous words do really has many functions in various areas. Firstly, it helps people to release their stress, boost their confidence and improve their creative ability. Moreover, in EFL classroom teaching, humorous rules can foster interaction. Some interesting materials such as music, media and card can produce the feeling of humorous. For example, when teacher is teaching the importance of sound, he or she shows the videotape to students, which the screen shows only the body language and facial expressions without showing the voice of the speaker, by this way, all the students laugh and realize the importance of sound.
6. Limitations and Difficulties of EFL Classroom Interaction
Some teachers think that the purpose of classroom teaching is knowledge rather than skill. Moreover, the reason for some students to learn English is just for the purpose of finishing some certain examination. Although, classroom interaction can cultivate fluent and effective speaking skill, it can not ensure the high level learner’s linguistic and social competence. On the socio-cultural linguistic side, Ellis (1982) proposed that it is unnecessary to use polite and indirect utterance, because the participants in classroom interaction is familiar to each other, students cannot experience the reality situation.
7 Conclusions
In this paper we have showed the definitions, the classifications, the principles and the limitations of interaction. This paper tell us if the principles and theories are well used, classroom interaction can be well organized. Finally, this paper has paid attention to the difficulties and problems that existed in the EFL classroom. There are many aspects of language use that we can not deal with in this paper, but we believe that with a much broader perspective, the topic about classroom interaction can be well developed.
References
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Foster, P. (1988). A classroom perspective on the negotiation of meaning.
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论文作者:Bei Jiang
论文发表刊物:《语言文字学》2016年9月
论文发表时间:2016/12/3
标签：期刊论文; 尽在论文; 文章分类论文; 图书馆论文; studies论文; sociologists论文; psychologists论文; 《语言文字学》2016年9月论文;