Essay On Classroom Interaction

Learning a language is an exploitation of the capacities of the mind to make sense of the environment. The private process takes place in the public contexts of the classroom. This internal process of language learning takes place as a result of the external interaction between the two participants- the teacher and the learner and the internal interaction between the learner's cognition and learning material. Interaction is a process in which the people or things have a reciprocal effect upon each other through their actions. Interaction may be between the teacher and the student, student and the student, teacher and the group and the student's schema or previous knowledge related to content and the new learning material. Effective classroom interaction leads to effective learning. Whatever pedagogic approach is taken it is the interaction in the classroom that mediates between teaching and learning. The teacher must engage in the sort of interaction, which will enable communication to take place and learning to occur. Flanders (1970) is of the opinion that "skills of interaction must be developed for developing one's own teaching behaviour and to improve the learning of the learner". Thomas (1987) suggests, "The factors, which enter into interaction, should be subjected to careful and critical examination and their implications for pedagogic practice explored in the context of actual classrooms".

According to Hitchcock (1927), language instruction is best accomplished if student is constantly placed in situations where he/she needs to communicate with others through writing or speaking in order to accomplish his/her goal. DiPierto (1987) explains second language acquisition as an inherent ability in humans, which requires interac...

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...gle sessions or simple tasks like vocabulary learning. And finally, very few studies have been done with students studying English as second language. Though Carrel, Devine and Eskey (1988) suggest a number of comprehension strategies to help non-interactive readers, she states that "these suggestions have not been subjected to classroom-based, pedagogical research and where they have been tested in classrooms, they have not been tested in wide varieties of pedagogical settings". While the above mentioned studies support the interactive approach and schema theory, they do not give us clear guidance on the best ways of accomplishing this teaching. As definitive pedagogical research is lacking, the best the classroom teachers can do is to experiment with a number of strategies that promote the learner's interaction with the learning environment to enhance achievement.