U2C1 Classroom Observation Instrument

Title: Researching Teacher Talk through teacher’s speech acts

Daniel Foster da Silva | Trinity TESOL in Education Diploma | 2019

2,949 words
U2C1 Classroom Observation Instrument | Researching Teacher Talk through teacher’s speech acts

Index

1. Aims 3
2. Rationale 3
3. Observation Instrument OI-1 4
4. Observation Instrument OI-1 results and reasons for changes 5
5. Observation Instrument OI-2 6
6. Observation Instrument OI-2 results and reasons for changes 7
7. Observation Instrument OI-3 7
8. Observation Instrument OI-3 results 8
9. Conclusions 8
10. References 10
11. Attachments 11

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U2C1 Classroom Observation Instrument | Researching Teacher Talk through teacher’s speech acts

1 – Aims

• To analyse the functions of Teacher Talk (herein TT) used by my peers in their lessons, monitor
how they manage input and feedback through different intentional speech acts, and how such
acts play out in learner-centred and teacher-centred interactions in class;
• To see how TT reflects on learners’ understanding of what they hear, its meaning and whether it
affects their own fluency when speaking in those interactions.

2 – Rationale

Reflecting on TT and the way teachers address learners (herein, meaning EFL students), it has always made
me think on how learner-centred and teacher-centred interactions play out and co-exist in a part or the whole
of the lesson. “Researching these interactions is of special relevance to language teaching, since the teacher
provides a source of input as well as feedback.” (Thornbury, 2006, p. 225)

When one looks at how lessons are conducted, teachers by rule follow a syllabus, an item-by-item description
of the teaching content of a course book they or the school have decided to use with their learners. And since
it usually covers structure, functions and tasks this makes teaching pre-planned around a syllabus, as
Thornbury (2006) notes. So, teachers tend to rely on how course designers lay out a syllabus, going through
them in their lessons, frequently leaving input and feedback to a bare minimum, often overlooking the
potential for language activation and acquisition in their learners. There are many reasons for this:

• Teachers are often told by school management to move on in the units of their classes’ course books,
ending up simply flipping through pages and units, dealing with exercises, tasks and activities on a
one-time basis, in the hope that actual language acquisition by learners occurs in what is presented
to them;
• The number of hours they must teach or simply the conditions they work in, these too are factors
conducive to making them trust in their own innate skills and experience, coupled with a belief in the
course designers’ abilities to provide everything needed for a well-rounded lesson.

Therefore, teachers are conditioned or condition themselves to neglect what would otherwise be
fundamental to how they relate learners to the course book and how their teacher's speech acts are used.
This influences the possibility of them promoting more authentic language interaction in the classroom that
could benefit the learners’ interlanguage, provide key competences, and ultimately give them communicative
competence through revisiting and expanding exercises, activities, and tasks.

Although, according to Thornbury (2006), a teacher should by all means discourage him or herself from
lecturing, by becoming aware that the above mentioned interactions can play a useful and enriching role in
the lesson, on the one hand learners are given the benefit from a graded and interactive, yet focused and
authentic input from the teacher, as Krashen (1981) as well as Lightbrown and Spada (1999) state, and on the
other, they have the opportunity to confront and work on other models they themselves create within such
framework permitting that they practice language beyond the teacher’s own model, moving away from the
situation in which “the teacher is still frequently perceived of as ‘the teacher’ and tends to be listened to with
greater attention than his or her students” (Harmer, 2001, p. 61).

Consequently, teachers have this possibility to attempt to enrich these interactions as it is their role to
facilitate, provide and cultivate language learning environments, whether in minute one to one instances or
pair work or in whole class activities. It seems reasonable to analyse how teachers interact with learners,
ascertain if there is room for improvement or changes in it. And so, monitoring how these interactions occur,
noting the difficulties or successes that possibly happen throughout a lesson could prove meaningful, useful
data that can serve how one teaches and lead to an improved language learning experience in the classroom.

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U2C1 Classroom Observation Instrument | Researching Teacher Talk through teacher’s speech acts

Thornbury (2006) states that TT has several different functions, which include, managing, explaining, checking
understanding, modelling, giving feedback, eliciting, providing input, interpersonal talk. Having this in mind,
I want to observe how these functions are used, how they help learners and work towards a useful result.
And, to this end, I aim at collecting data through parameters that constitute interactions relevant to Teacher
Talk (Thornbury, 2006) as defined by:

• Input (Stimulus and format)

• Feedback (Eliciting and checking)

I want to concentrate my initial Observation Instrument (herein OI) on how teachers offer different intentional
speech acts, such as how they inform, ask, present or direct their learners while, at the same time, trying to
perceive how enunciation, intonation, degrees of loudness, tempo and other non-representational or
paralinguistic aspects of vocalization are used and lead to aiding learning, namely the improvement of the
learners’ understanding of what they hear and its meaning and in their own fluency when speaking in the
interactions that occur in class.

Evaluation will mostly be determined through parameters in terms of having or not met that specific desired
outcome in each stage of the lesson, considering that data distribution is placed between 2 values – Occurring
and Not Occurring –, but scored between 0 to 5 with central tendency mean value set at 3 and standard
deviation defined by increments of +/- 0.5. Exception is taken when attempting to quantify by percentage TT.

Keywords: Teacher Talk, interactions, speech acts, functions, input, feedback

3 – OI-1

I initially came up with OI-0 (see attachments), but immediately found its criteria to be too widespread,
making it difficult to monitor input and feedback, different intentional speech acts, and how learner-centred
and teacher-centred interactions would work out. So, I focused on TT, with input and feedback in mind,
through OI-1.

Input (stimulus and format)

Teacher's known voice

Teacher's performing voice

Audio track

Video aid

Visual prompts

Board work

0 1 2 3 4 5 6

Not occurring Occurring

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U2C1 Classroom Observation Instrument | Researching Teacher Talk through teacher’s speech acts

Feedback (Eliciting and checking)

Intonation

Word stress

CCQ

ICQ

0 0,5 1 1,5 2 2,5 3 3,5 4 4,5 5

Not occurring Occurring

TT
40,00%

35,00%

30,00%

25,00%

20,00%

15,00%

10,00%

5,00%

0,00%
10/2/19

18/2/19
1/2/19
2/2/19
3/2/19
4/2/19
5/2/19
6/2/19
7/2/19
8/2/19
9/2/19

11/2/19
12/2/19
13/2/19
14/2/19
15/2/19
16/2/19
17/2/19

19/2/19
20/2/19
21/2/19
22/2/19

Teacher 1 Teacher 2

4 – OI-1 results and reasons for changes

I observed 4 lessons (one A1 level and three B1 level, 2 hours each), finding that the criteria I had set out did
not provide me with the data I had aimed at nor any significant variation in TT, observing mainly the teacher’s
known voice. Yet I did notice an apparent reason underlining the way teachers use by default their known
voice: It has to do, as Newton (2009) quoting Nunan (1998) highlights, with the way in which learners dedicate
a larger percentage of the lesson to what is being said, noticing and working on their intake. And this
establishes an “etiquette” (Lockhart, 2007) in which teachers attempt to provide learners with
comprehensible input (Krashen, 1977), consciously trying to work within the constraints of "i+1" input (“i”
learner's interlanguage, “+1” greater language acquisition depth/complexity), when dealing with phonemes,
speech rate, loudness and pitch settings. This works toward standardizing what learners hear from the teacher,

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U2C1 Classroom Observation Instrument | Researching Teacher Talk through teacher’s speech acts

as Field (2008) suggests, which is something natural to everyone when turn-taking, but of the utmost
importance for the learner. And this, I believe, portrays the genuine desire by teachers to work within the
restraints of their learners’ abilities to intake and acquire language, confirming Thornbury’s assumption
mentioned in my rationale.

So, I will need to focus on how teachers interact with students and compare Teacher Talking Time (herein TTT)
versus Student Talking Time (herein STT). And see how far such an "etiquette of classroom interaction" affects
TT, as suggested by Lockhart (2007, pp. 141-144), and how "different interactional patterns of classroom
behaviour" determine the way learners respond to or behave in a class, and the role of a teacher therein
(Lockhart, 2007, p. 144, quoting Good and Power (1976)).

5 – OI-2

In order to accomplish this, I decided to focus on speech acts in classroom interactions of the graded,
repetitive use of a teacher’s known voice (utterances both performative and communicative), that allow
learners to distinguish and notice intentions, and which can have different aspects, tones and ideas in them;
and, in so doing, see how far it assists them in bridging communication gaps. Bach & Harnish (1979) suggest,
as well as Green (1983), that listeners identify what they hear by inferring intentions and meaning. And, as
such, speech acts born from the graded, repetitive use of a teacher’s known voice allow learners to distinguish
them, bridging the communication gap, and to notice intentions which usually carry different aspects, tones
and ideas with them. In a broad sense, they refer to promising, ordering, greeting, warning, inviting and
congratulating, as indicated by Austin (1962) – things that necessarily are part and parcel of T-Ss interactions,
which teachers utter in different degrees and ways during a lesson.

OI-2 Classroom interactions

6

0
C1 - 11/03/2019 B2 - 13/3/2019 A1 - 13/3/2019

TL TQ TR PR PV S X

With OI-2, I followed an observation T-Ss layout devised by Brown (1975) and cited by Lockhart (2007, pp 146,
147) which establishes 7 types of interactions (see attachments): Teacher TL = lectures, TQ = questions, TR =
responds; and learners (pupil) PR = responds, PV = volunteers, S = silence, X = unclassifiable.

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U2C1 Classroom Observation Instrument | Researching Teacher Talk through teacher’s speech acts

6 – OI-2 results and reasons for changes

I observed 3 lessons (one for each A1, B2 and C1 level, 2 hours each), which yielded the following information:

a) Teachers relied heavily on their known voice as the sole means of interaction, mainly concerned with
semantic and lexical issues, with learners often replying mechanically, sometimes not related to
question or task at hand;
b) TT functions (Thornbury, 2006) were a bare minimal, managing, explaining, checking understanding,
with some interpersonal talk. And no real input, feedback or modelling occurred, especially in
phonological terms.
c) In lower-level learners, while girls were quieter, boys were vociferous;
d) In higher levels, their response turns were too extended, monotonic and with poor intonation or with
suprasegmental issues in stress and pitch, and followed their L1 Italian model speech pattern;
e) Learners throughout all classes tended to use L1 in peer interactions.

These observations show that teacher-centred interaction is the mainstream etiquette option. This raises the
question of how it maps out in the class dynamics, since I also noticed that teachers tended to cater for a
learner or specific group of them, leaving out others in a poorer learning environment.

7 – OI-3

Subsequently, I wanted to see how such dynamics occurred, and this led me to implement an OI-3 based on
what Lockhart (2007, pp 138-141, and see attachment) analyses and calls “the teacher’s action zone”, and
see if teacher interactions with the class and with individual/pair/group work can be improved.

Lockhart (2007, p. 152) refers to Long (1983) and Krashen (1985) who state that these interactions can be
improved if the input is understandable and significant. On the other hand, the way teachers manage their
interactions with learners, pair and group work can induce proactive strategies from the learner, with a more
passive role by the teacher, and allow for other voices to activate language in the lesson.

• Stronger T-S interactions • Weaker, secondary T-S and S-S interactions

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U2C1 Classroom Observation Instrument | Researching Teacher Talk through teacher’s speech acts

8 – OI-3 results

I observed 3 lessons (one for each A1, B2 and C1 level, 2 hours each), and found an invariant posture between
teachers and learners with attention placed on their known voice as ‘the teacher’ (Harmer, 2001), lacking
other models, and attention squarely placed on both lesson plan and word level as observed previously.
Learner’s needs were not central, phonological aspects unattended and with little or no measurable outcome
to be noted.

More importantly, a communicative

gap existed, leaving some learners
empty-handed in a passive listening
mode with no apparent language
activation or acquisition.

9 – Conclusions

Taking into consideration, as Lockhart (2007) suggests – quoting Chaudron (1988) –, that 70% of a lesson can
be spent on TT, what I found was that TT used up 40% on average (30% of the time with questions using
teacher’s known voice; 5% with CCQ (concept checking questions) and ICQ (instruction checking questions);
and 5% with pronunciation), along with a strong T-Ss guided-orientation.

This bodes well with the fact that learners need target language modelling and that this scaffolds them
towards noticing language patterns and imitating these in consistent learnable ways. And so, teachers rely on
their known voice to alleviate the demand on learners and allow for a broader meaning to be taken in: As
Field (2008) explains, "spoken input varies from speaker to speaker" (p. 157) and listening is “a tentative
process" (p. 164). If input is variable and unpredictable it makes it harder for learners to decipher what they
hear (utterances, words, stress, connected speech or intonation patterns).

• "It is a well-established principle that automaticity is achieved by repeated use of the same process
until it becomes second nature. How much better, then, to focus on a single process and to practise it
intensively with a view to enhancing performance in it, than to rely solely upon the chance of the
learner needing to employ the process from time to time during traditional comprehension work."
(Field, 2008, p.164)

But, as stated in my rationale, managerial objectives constraints oblige teachers to focus on EFL exam
preparation. Moreover, lessons reflect classroom etiquette found in the Italian educational system, despite
attempts by teachers otherwise.

Yet, it should be said that recourse to other voices, the performative aspects of TT, course book audios/videos,
or fomenting greater STT enabling, enriches learners’ activation and acquisition of language, and overall
linguistic competence: Storytelling, songs and resources like https://lyricstraining.com/, for e.g., can prove

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U2C1 Classroom Observation Instrument | Researching Teacher Talk through teacher’s speech acts

useful; snippets of authentic graded audios or videos lead learners to notice and intake authentic variations
in accent, speech rate, intensity and loudness, tone and pitch that native speakers carry in their normal day-
to-day conversations, along with the bodily posture or language and the style in which the message itself is
delivered.

TT has also a role to play in terms of class dynamics, drawing in those quieter learners who are not as strong
in using language and who are usually in the outer fringes of the lesson. And, to this extent, Scrivener (2015)
proposes some interesting ideas in the way teachers can interact with their learners, which he calls “Not
rubberstamping”, “XP3” and “Upgrade feedback”:

a) By simply not “rubberstamping” the right answers a teacher gets from strong learners, which usually
ends the activity, and by giving weaker ones the opportunity to join in with their answers too, it
integrates and expands the benefits to the whole class;
b) Coupled with this, he also proposes that, between the state of not knowing anything to being able to
use a language point, there are “steps”, whereby a teacher can provide “upgraded feedback” to
learners which in turn allows for roughly tuned input, developing greater learner noticing and
automaticity;
c) And finally, what he and Underhill define as “XP3” (“One for the exercise, two for the learning, three
‘in English’”), which, simply put, means it is not just doing an exercise once and moving on, but
revisiting it in an attempt to turn “dead” into “living” English by trying to extract real value from it.

By rethinking and transforming otherwise dead into living language, as Underhill and Scrivener (2015) suggest,
TT can be used to engage the teacher’s and learner’s full learning potential differently, fomenting a better
language learning environment.

Yet, the truth of the matter is that problems will continue to persist if the status quo is maintained. Although
it goes without saying that through CPD teachers can find different perspectives and incentives to diversify
and improve TT in their lessons, my observations also lead me to believe that there should be a greater
commitment at managerial and academic levels towards designing the syllabus for their courses in such a
manner that can bring greater teacher awareness and freedom to use of a diversified array of speech acts
which can create a richer learning environment in the classroom and draw learners into becoming more active
participants in their learning path.

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U2C1 Classroom Observation Instrument | Researching Teacher Talk through teacher’s speech acts

10 – References

Bach, K., Harnish, R. M. (1979). Linguistic communication and speech acts. Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1979
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0142716400004768
Published online: 28/11/ 2008.
Assessed: 08/04/2019

Georgia M. Green, Language, Vol. 59, No. 3 (Sep. 1983), pp. 627-635. Linguistic Society of America
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/413908
Accessed: 10/01/2019

Austin, J. L. (1962). How to do things with words. London. Oxford University Press. pp. 99-109
https://pure.mpg.de/rest/items/item_2271128/component/file_2271430/content
Accessed: 07/07/2019

Field, J. (2008). Listening in the Language Classroom. Cambridge University Press. Published 2009. pp. 157,
163/64
https://epdf.tips/listening-in-the-language-classroom-cambridge-language-teaching-library.html
Accessed: 02/04/2019

Harmer, J. (2001). The Practice of English Language Teaching. 4th Ed. Pearson Longman. pp. 61, 66

Krashen, S. D. (1982). Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition, Language Teaching
Methodology Series. University of Southern California. Pergamon Press Inc. First internet edition July 2009
http://www.sdkrashen.com/content/books/principles_and_practice.pdf
Accessed: 06/01/2019

Lockhart, C., Richards, J. C. (2007). Reflective Teaching in Second Language Classrooms. 15th. Ed. New York.
Cambridge University Press. pp. 138-141, 144, 146-153. And Chaudron (1988), Good and Power (1976),
quoted by Lockhart pp. 146, 147 respectively, and Charts (pp. 150-151) based on Brown G. 1975,
Microteaching, pp 77-8, published by Methuen & Co.

Lightbrown, P. and Spada, N. M. (1999). How languages are learned. 2nd. Ed. Oxford University Press. pp. 38-
40
https://archive.org/details/howlanguagesarel00ligh/page/38
Accessed: 06/01/2019

Newton, J. (2009). Listening in the language classroom. Modern English Teacher, Vol. 18 No. 3, pp. 52-58. And
Nunan (1998) quoted by Newton.
https://www.modernenglishteacher.com/
Accessed: 26/01/2016

Scrivener, J. (2015). Upgrade! Demand High to bring a grammar lesson alive. APPI conference. Lisbon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2mD2RMlqOY
Accessed: 04/06/2016

Thornbury, S. (2006). An A-Z of ELT. A Dictionary of Terms and Concepts. MacMillan Books for Teachers
Series. Macmillan Education. pp. 225

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U2C1 Classroom Observation Instrument | Researching Teacher Talk through teacher’s speech acts

11 – Attachments

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U2C1 Classroom Observation Instrument | Researching Teacher Talk through teacher’s speech acts

Daniel Foster da Silva | Trinity TESOL in Education Diploma | 2019 12

U2C1 Classroom Observation Instrument | Researching Teacher Talk through teacher’s speech acts

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U2C1 Classroom Observation Instrument | Researching Teacher Talk through teacher’s speech acts

Lockhart, C., Richards, J. C. (2007)

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U2C1 Classroom Observation Instrument | Researching Teacher Talk through teacher’s speech acts

Lockhart, C., Richards, J. C. (2007)

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