ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNING:

A focus on oral interaction for primary school aged leaners

Rhonda Oliver

Outline

What is oral interaction? Differences between oral and written language Oral interaction in education Oral interaction in the classroom Oral interaction for social interaction Oral interaction and SLA Age as a factor in SLA Interaction of younger children Teacher talk to children Teachers supporting SLA Pedagogy for child SLAImplications

Oral interaction: what is it?

• One type of communicative exchange

• The spoken language that takes place between two or more people

• The type of speaking and listening that occurs in real time (i.e., in the present)

• When speakers talk in turn and respond orally to these turns (note: sometimes speakers do interrupt or talk “over” each other)

• Collaborative and most often reciprocal, with each speaker working to co-construct a meaningful exchange

• Oral interaction is often complementary:

A: I’m hungry B: Me too

• And it also can be quite complex

• Mostly face-to-face (except phone and Skype)

Oral interaction is not always verbal - responses can be non-verbal

M: What are you doing?G: Points to his headR: Did you get hurt?G: Nods head and clicks tongue.

Oral interaction differs from written language

Written language - is planned- can be revised- is far more permanent

Oral interaction- is unplanned/less planned

- is spontaneous and ephemeral- is less than perfect – consists of disfluencies, false starts, unnecessary repetition, and redundant information.

Teachers should not assess oral interaction based on written language conventions

Oral interaction in education Oral interaction is important to our everyday lives and to

students’ success socially, academically, and vocationally

When young children come to school there are many things they must adjust to in order to successfully learn .

They need to get used to interacting: in a new environment outside their home, with many more peers, with a range of different adults, in new ways with all these people.

Clearly oral interaction is an important part of education

And yet….

Oral interaction skills may not be given the same priority in our classrooms as reading and writing

And when it is included, the focus is oftenon presentational language

And yet….

Oral interaction in the classroom

Oral interaction can occur in the classroom such as when:• Teachers and students are discussing aspects of a

lesson; • Students are jointly working on tasks or activities;

• Students are engaging in social chit chat; • Or even when they talk off-task to someone else.• Such interaction is particularly important for second

language learners

Oral interaction for socialisation

Oral interaction serves an important function of supporting their socialisation:

Developing appropriate behaviours (including language behaviours) for social situations, including in behaving appropriately in the classroom

Ms Jones: Oh no, Amy, you’re supposed to do that on your ownEverybody needs to do this sheet on their own I need to know what everybody can do on their own Luke: Ms Jones, can I help Rita?Ms Jones: NoLuke then goes to Rita’s desk. John, (classmate sitting next to Rita, says to Luke)Luke: Ms Jones said noLuke sits on a bench near RitaJohn: I’m keeping my eye on youLinda comes up to teacher, who is talking to an aideLinda: Ms Jones, Surjeet was helping TiffanyMs. Jones: Thank you Linda. Surjeet do your own workNatalie: Ms Jones, Terry and Amy are looking at our work.Ms Jones: Maybe you could move

Toohey, 1998, p.75

Oral interaction and SLA… Oral interaction facilitates second

language acquisition by providing opportunities to:

Receive meaningful input Produce meaningful output Receive feedback on attempts Have attention drawn to the form of the target language

Have new language scaffolded (see over)

Comprehensible inputT: ‘She was a bony old woman, she had bony legs, and bony fingers and feathers on her bony arms.’ What do I mean by bony? Pia?St: BonesT: Right, where are your bones? Feel your bones(Teacher touches her wrist, elbow, shoulder)St: HereT: Good, you can feel inside you’ve got bones

Oliver, 2009, p.44

Meaningful/pushed outputNNS 1: Where is the –the, where is the [life] go?NNS 2: (Pause) What you say?NNS1: The [life]NNS 2: The life?NNS 1: The b[r]ead knife

Oliver, 1998, p.378

FeedbackL: Shape like diamondE: Like diamonds?L: Yeah

Shape like diamondsOliver, 1995b,

p.17

Focus on formT: right now we’re going to talk about all thumbtacks.So we’re going to talk about magnets…Try it this way, magnetsS: [attract thumbtacksT: [attract thumbtacks let’s try itS: magnets attract thumbtacksT: remember I’m not talking about just one I’m talking about all magnetsI’m talking about all thumbtacks so let’s try it againS: magnets attract thumbtacksT: the nail is magnetic … so you tell meS: [the nailT: [magnetsS: magnets attract the nailThe nailsT: againS: magnets attract nails

Gibbons, 2006, pp.133-134

ScaffoldingTeacher: What did you do in the garden?Student: Mm, cut the treeTeacher: You cut the treesWere they big trees or were they little bushes?Student: Big treesTeacher: How did you cut them?Student: What?Teacher: How did you cut them?Did you have a big knife?Student: You know big knife? 

Oliver, 2000, p.140

Age as a factor in language learning

The importance of age and the impact this has on language learning, including second language learning (SLA), will not come as any surprise to those working in schools.

Interactions of younger children

Reflecting their interests and stage of development, their topics of conversation are quite different from those of older learners

Young pre-school children alsoAre less able to take turns Switch quickly from one topic to another

However, they are still able to interact with each other in ways that fosters SLA

For example….Em that’s blu:e. What’s this? Zebra? Y yeahEm Very colourful zebra [baby talk lilting intonation]Em what’s that?E the elephant (several turns later)Em [Roberta arrives] oh hello Roberta I thought you were sick.R no mum XXY [excitedly] look at the zebra very colourful zebra isn’t it? Very very colourfulR what’s this?Y tiger {laughing}Em I’ll eat you [sing song voice]Y eleeephantEm yeah elephantPhilp & Duchesne, 2008, p.94

Ultimate attainment Although children are the ‘tortoises’ in the

language learning race (i.e., eventually they will do better), ultimate attainment will depend on:

quality of the learning environment, (e.g., the nature and quantity of input provided, especially the opportunities created for meaningful interaction)

type of language learning context, (e.g., where language input and time are limited, such as in foreign language classes older children, particularly adolescents, can have the advantage)

Clearly the classroom environment is KEY

And yet….

Teacher talk to children The type of interaction that is most

prominent in many classrooms is the teacher doing most of the talking, and addressing the class as a whole (i.e., one to many)

Even though this does NOT align with what we understand SLA!

(i.e., input, output, feedback, negotiation, scaffolding etc)

At the same time as children continue their education the topics of conversation in the classroom become:

increasingly complex, more abstract, further removed from their personal situation, Very different to the type of talk that occurs

outside of school

• It is not just how teachers talk, but what they talk about:

Teachers need to support language learners in their educational journey

LANGUAGE LEARNING = MEANING + USE

So….

Teachers supporting SLAWhat can teachers do? Provide a secure and welcoming

environment; Create motivating situations (e.g., through

use of tasks) where students can meaningfully use target language;

Give students the opportunity to participate at their level … non-verbally and verbally;

Provide situations that enable the production of comprehensible input and output, peer interaction,

Provide meaningful feedback (see over)

For exampleProviding a recast in response to telegraphic speech e.g., when the student points to a snowman while doing a phonic matching activity and says,

S: a man and snowT: Yes, it’s a snowman

(Oliver, unpublished data)

Or by providing scaffolding..

T: Select a picture. Select a picture or select a part of the story that you like < sh (quietens other chidren)Okay now what was the story- show the picture- now what was the stor- what was that part of the story?S: xx apple pie on the wolfT: Right hit the wolf with what?S: Apple pieT: With an apple pieWith a plate and had an apple pie on it Right where did the wolf go from there?When he hit the wolf- when Red riding hit the wolf with an apple pie where did the wolf go to?S: Went to skate boardT: Went to where the skate board was and then what happened to the wolf?

Overall there is a need to implement a pedagogy appropriate for child second language learners, taking account of their stage of development, interests, motivations and way of interacting and then using this in the classroom.

Most importantly oral interaction should hold an important place in our classroom for all our learners!

Acknowledgements My co-author, Jenefer Philp My editors Nina Spada and Pasty

Lightbown www.freedigitalphotos.net/

Thank you <rhonda.oliver@curtin.edu.a

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