Developing high quality interaction

Abstract

This study strives to compare and contrast the features that characterize native speaking and non native speaking teachers’ speech in terms of turn-taking, questioning techniques, wait-time strategy, and the treatment of oral errors. The research draws on data collected from classes of a native and a non-native English speaking teachers at l’ Ecole Normale Supérieure Assia Djebbar of Constantine and a native and a non-native Arabic speaking teachers at Wellesley College, Massachusetts, USA. The data of this study rests on a series of lessons which were audio-recorded, transcribed, and then analyzed according to the modified version of Walsh’s (2006) Self Evaluation of Teacher Talk Model, students’ questionnaires, and teachers’ interviews. First, the research findings indicate that Initiation-Response-Feedback is the most prevailing pattern of classroom interaction in at least three of the observed classes. Second, both native speaking and non-native speaking teachers share the same perspective in terms of the use of divergent questions with the aim of fostering students’ critical thinking skills; however, whereas native speaking teachers strive to promote greater learner productivity through an extensive use of referential questions, non-native speaking teachers use more display questions with the aim of promoting meaningful communication. Third, native speaking teachers tend to provide minimum oral corrective feedback with the aim of fostering students’ fluency, whereas non-native speaking teachers are more likely to focus on developing students’ accuracy with less tolerance to students’ errors. Lastly, teachers’ perspective on the features that promote high quality interaction align with those of the learners in the sense that both perceive the idea of promoting students’ autonomy and critical thinking skills of paramount importance. In light of these findings, some practical suggestions are put forward to generate classroom interaction based on a set of interactional features that promote the process of foreign language learning.