Natalia López

Methods II
Observation n ° 4 : “Language Echoes”
From “Classroom Observation Tasks” by Ruth Wajnryb

Level: Intermediate
School: Colegio A
Number of students: 27
Duration: 40 minutes

“Echoes” are the teacher utterances which echo students´ responses but
produce no response themselves. They are in fact “dead ends” (“Classroom
Observation tasks” by Ruth Wajnryb)

What I got from this lesson:

Who? Utterance
1) Student ‘Teacher, today is my birthday’
Teacher ‘Today is your birthday’?
2) Student ‘I haven’t finished teacher’
Teacher ‘You haven’t finished?
3) Student ‘ I’ve never traveled by train’
Teacher ‘You’ve never traveled by train? How come?
4) Student ‘I’ve never eaten Chinese food’
Teacher ‘You never eaten Chinese food’

• Those 4 echoes were taken 20 minutes after the beginning of the lesson. Eventhough there
were many other instances of echoing, I think that those are enough for the observation. I
believe that the teacher didn’t realize that she was echoing her student. I wouldn’t do it
myself either! but since I am the one observing it’s easy for me to detect it.
• There was no sign of response towards the echoing of the teachers from the learners. I don’t
know if it is because they didn’t realize that the teacher was echoing them or just because
they were focused on what they were saying more than on what the teacher said.
When making reference to classroom interaction, I could see that echoes didn’t add
anything at all to the interaction of the learners, because it was just an utterance that had been
repeated. The negative side of it can be that learners may believe that when the teacher echoes
them she might be trying to make them notice a possible mistake in their utterances. And if so,
students may not will to speak again for fear to make mistakes.
• I think that echoes have no purpose at all in the class and of course are absolutely helpless in
the interaction moment. The problem is when we (teachers) have the tendency to do so but
honestly, I don’t know why.
• I don’t think that echoing can be taken into account as a way of giving feedback to students.
First of all because it doesn’t help students to spot a mistake nor to correct it. Secondly,
echoing (as previously said before) is just repeating what sb said, so it can’t be used as
feedback. When the teacher gives feedback, the purpose is to help students know if their
work was correct or not.
• According to Lindstromberg, there are some points in favor of echoing:
1. It provides learners with the repetition needed for reinforcement of language.
2. It gets over the problem of contributions from students who speak very quietly.
3. It gets over the problem of poor pronunciation by providing intelligible versions for the
whole class.
4. It can be used as a strategy to provide models of correctness in the event of error.

N°1 . Echoing is not the only way to reinforce language, there are many other tasks or activities
that may help to do so, a simple reading or listening task could foster the reinforcement of
language.

N°2 . I don’t agree with this one. If students speak very quietly it could be because they don’t
feel confident enough when doing so, that’s why we (teachers9 should help our students gain more
confidence in themselves.

N°3. Poor pronunciation may not necessarily be solved by echoing. It can also be done through a
listening task; a song, a game etc.

N°4. I agree with this one, however, I believe that there are many other ways to correct an
error.

• I believe that echoing is normally used when we want to show surprise or a shock. They are
present in the classroom and the teacher hardly ever realizes that she/he is echoing students.
However, it is important to take into account that large doses of echoes are not productive at
all.

Reflection

I must confess that I usually echo my students in the classroom and that thanks to this
observation I’ve realized that I’d like to change that since I don’t think it can contribute
much to my class. It’s interesting and shocking at the same time to realize the many
things that we (teachers) usually do and say in the classroom and. that we only come to
know about them when we observe other teachers