CLASSROOM INTERACTION IN BRAZILIAN PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOL

Patrcia Arglo Rosa par@uesc.br

THE PURPOSE OF THIS PAPER The purpose of this paper is to analyze the classroom interaction in Brazilian Public Secondary School answering the following questions:

QUESTIONS
What proportion of the total classroom interaction can be attributed to the teacher? What characterizes the teachers contributions to the interaction? Did the teachers contributions display primarily Linguistic or Communicative functions? Does the instructor modify his/her speech in any way when addressing the students?

WHAT IS INTERACTION?
Interaction can be defined as the process whereby two or more people engage in reciprocal action. This action may be verbal or nonverbal. The interactive aspects of communication are: (a) transmitting messages, (b) receiving messages, and (c) giving feedback.

TARDIFS CATEGORIZATION OF TEACHER TALK

INSTRUCTIONAL TALK - is related to teaching the language (echo, expansion, information, self-repetition, modeling, questions, prompting, use of L1) ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGERIAL TALK is related to adapting student to culture of schooling (directions/ instructions, management, reinforcement, reactions, spontaneous free comments).

WINGS PROTOCOL ANALYSIS INSTRUMENT PAI

The Function category is related to the Linguistic or Communicative Function. The Behavior category is related to verbal moves the teacher is making. The Content Function category is related to what the teacher is talking about. The Language category refers to the use of native or target language by the teacher. The Duration category refers to the number of words or letters in each utterance.

METHODOLOGY
Subjects The sample for the study consisted of a class in a public secondary School in Salobrinho, suburb of Ilhus city. The class chosen was Stima Srie A (Seventh degree A). There were 35 students in the class of beginner level. Students ranged in age from eleven to fifteen years, averaging fourteen years. There were sixteen male students and nineteen female students.

METHODOLOGY
The class was arranged physically in a row of desks. Seven lines of five desks in each line. The teacher was a male, in his forties, who has been teaching since1987. He has worked at Salobrinhos public school for eight years. He has tried to applied a communicative approach. But, he thinks that it is difficult work on it, once there are a great number of students in the classroom, and a lack of materials. Then, he emphasizes the reading skill.

METHODOLOGY
Procedure The data, generated from audio tape recordings of three class sessions of one day a week for three weeks, provided the basis for analysis.

THE RESULTS OF THIS STUDY

More than 50% of the teachers contributions to the interaction were concerned with instructional talk The L1 was used 90% of the time, and the target language 10% of the time. The target language was just used by the teacher to present the vocabulary, songs, or give examples on the linguistic elements of the language Self-repetition was used more frequently in the two first class sessions. In the third class session there was a decrease in frequency of self-repetition.

THE RESULTS OF THIS STUDY

The teacher provided a great number of words as a model for the students during the first class session, and a complete statement during the second class session. But , during the third class session there was a decrease in frequency of modeling. Information was provided during the three class sessions at the same percentage.

THE RESULTS OF THIS STUDY

Questions were made by the teacher after an explanation, and answering exercises The first class session the use of questions was 05%, since the teacher just presented a list of vocabulary Prompting was used frequently by the teacher The Linguistic Function was used about 48% of the time and the Communicative Function 52% of the time

THE RESULTS OF THIS STUDY

When the teacher was using the Communication Function, the teacher spoke almost 95% in the native language. The combination of the native and the target language was about 30% when the teacher was using the Linguistic Function. Modeling and cueing were the two behaviors more used by the teacher in Linguistic Function, and structuring and soliciting behaviors in Communicative Function.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

The teacher tended to use more native language when speaking in the Communicative and Linguistic Functions. The students are in the third year English class, and they still learning the basic vocabulary and structure. They are still beginners. Also, the style of interaction displayed by the teacher, list of vocabulary and sets of grammar rules, contributes for this situation. And, most ESL teachers have the same procedures.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

The teachers philosophy of teaching did not match his behavior in the classroom. In spite of efforts to change English language teaching in his public school, the situation has not improved much. It is evident that the role of the language teacher today is not as simple as it once was.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

Today, knowledge of the linguistic structure of the language is only one of the requirements of a good language teacher. For a language is much more than list of vocabulary and sets of grammar rules, and language learning is not simply a matter of acquiring a system of linguistic formulas. Language is a form of communication among individuals in a specific social context.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

What is effective language teaching/learning? What am I doing? What are my students doing? What is the textbook doing? And How can I improve on what the textbook is doing and what I am doing?