Language Teaching Research 9,4 (2005); pp.

355–380

Language choices and pedagogic

functions in the foreign language
classroom: a cross-linguistic functional
analysis of teacher talk
Sun Hee Ok Kim University of Auckland and
Catherine Elder Monash University

This article examines the language choices made by native-speaker teachers

of Japanese, Korean, German and French in foreign language (FL)
classrooms in New Zealand secondary schools. It explores these teachers’
patterns of alternation between English, the majority language, and the TL,
using both AS-units (Analysis of Speech units), devised by Foster et al.
(2000) and a multiple-category coding system entitled ‘Functional
Language Alternation Analysis of Teacher Talk’ (FLAATT), developed
expressly to allow a cross-linguistic comparison of the relationship between
teachers’ language choices and particular pedagogic functions. Findings
suggest that the participating teachers differed markedly from one another
not only in the amount of TL used but also in the pedagogic functions they
used most frequently and in the language (TL or English) they chose for
these functions. There was a tendency by most teachers to avoid complex
interactions in the TL, limiting the potential for intake and for real
communication on the part of the students. Implications are drawn for
research and for teacher education.

I Introduction
The question of whether language teachers should use learners’ first
language (L1) as the medium of instruction in second language (L2)
classrooms has been a source of some controversy in recent research
literature (for a review, see Turnbull and Arnett, 2002). While debates
centred on English as a second language classroom contexts tend to

Address for correspondence: Sun Hee Ok Kim, 9 Dexter Ave., Mt. Eden, Auckland, New Zealand;
e-mail: sh.kim@auckland.ac.nz

© 2005 Edward Arnold (Publishers) Ltd 10.1191/1362168805lr173oa

356 Language choices and pedagogic functions

be ideological in nature, weighing the benefits of exclusive use of the

target language (TL) (i.e., English) against its potential negative impact
on L1 maintenance and minority group identity (e.g., Atkinson, 1987;
Auerbach, 1993; Phillipson, 1992), research conducted in foreign
language (FL) contexts and involving majority group learners tends to
be more linguistically oriented, documenting the nature and extent of
FL teachers’ use of learners’ L1,1 while at the same time attempting to
identify the factors which constrain or foster TL use (e.g., Duff and
Polio, 1990; Gearon, 1998; Guthrie, 1987; Mitchell, 1983; 1988;
Mitchell and Johnstone, 1986; Mitchell et al., 1981; Polio and Duff,
1994; Wing, 1987). In these latter contexts, the FL teacher is often the
only source of TL input and it is therefore taken for granted that teacher
code-switching practice should be minimized since it has the effect of
depriving learners of opportunities for TL intake and for ‘authentic’
communication in the TL (Ellis, 1984; Wong-Fillmore, 1985). Research
conducted in these classrooms therefore focuses on these lost opportuni-
ties and how TL use can be maximized in the interest of producing opti-
mal conditions for language learning. The current study has a similar
orientation and offers a systematic analysis of the language choices of
seven FL teachers teaching both Asian (Japanese and Korean) and
European (French and German) languages in New Zealand secondary
schools.

II Review of the literature

The brief review of the literature presented below focuses only on
empirical studies of teachers’ language choices conducted in FL instruc-
tional contexts, where English is the lingua franca of the classroom and
of the wider society.
Studies investigating FL teachers’ language choices tend to take the
amount of TL use by the teacher as the primary yardstick for deter-
mining the general quality of the classroom linguistic environment
(e.g., Duff and Polio, 1990; Guthrie, 1987; Macaro, 2001; Mitchell
and Johnstone, 1986; Mitchell et al., 1981; Turnbull, 1999; Wing, 1987).
The extent of TL use by teachers reported in most of these studies
is highly variable, ranging from 9% (Turnbull, 1999) to 100% (Duff
and Polio, 1990). While it is useful to understand the ‘quantitative
context’ (Macaro, 2001: 533) when discussing the quality of the
 Sun Hee OK Kim and Catherine Elder 357

linguistic environment of a classroom, these quantitative estimates

should be interpreted cautiously since they vary depending on the view-
points of the particular researcher and methods of data collection and
analysis used (Chaudron, 1988). More importantly, the proportion of the
TL used in classroom interactions should not be the sole basis for judg-
ing the linguistic quality of the classroom environment, where various
contextual factors come into play (Guthrie, 1987). Further research
which looks at not only the amount of TL input provided by teachers but
also how language choices are related to particular contexts and to par-
ticular pedagogic functions is therefore needed.
Among the studies which have begun to address this need are those of
Duff and Polio (1990), Gearon (1998), Mitchell (1988), Polio and Duff
(1994), all of which conclude that TL input provided by the teacher is
less than optimal in both quantity and quality. A study of 59 French
teachers in UK secondary schools undertaken by Mitchell (1988)
revealed that the participating teachers preferred to use English for
a range of classroom functions, including grammar explanation and
disciplinary matters. It also revealed that ‘lesson/activity instruction’
(i.e., explanation of a new task/overall lesson) was the hardest function
for these teachers to perform in the TL. Mitchell (1988) further reports
that while her participants acknowledged that it would be feasible and
useful to use the TL for ‘organizational matters’ (e.g., physical environ-
ment of the classroom, assigning seats or speech turns), they failed to do
so in many instances. She argues that the reason for this reluctance is the
dominance of English as a powerful means of communication and its
‘ever present availability’ for immediate classroom transactions
(Mitchell, 1988: 4).
A further explanation for this reliance on L1 offered by a number of
participating teachers in Mitchell’s (1988) study was their limited flu-
ency in the TL (see also Elder, 1994). However, research by Duff and
Polio (1990) reports a low ratio of TL use even among their native
speaker (NS) teacher participants, which suggests that teacher profi-
ciency in the TL may not be the major determinant of the amount of TL
use. A subsequent qualitative analysis of the same data (Polio and Duff,
1994) showed that these NS teachers, in spite of their high levels of TL
competence, did not differ markedly in their pattern of language choices
from the non-native teachers in Mitchell’s study (1998), performing
a similar range of classroom functions in L1. The authors also point out
358 Language choices and pedagogic functions

that the teachers in their study often resorted to the learners’ L1 due to a
lack of strategies to repair communication breakdowns in the TL and/or
to a limited awareness of their own code-switching practices. They con-
clude that these teachers’ inconsistent and somewhat artificial, medium-
oriented use of the TL resulted in lost opportunities for students to learn
how to negotiate in the TL through naturally occurring communication
(Ellis, 1984).
A similar conclusion was reached by Gearon (1998), who investigated
the code-switching practices of Australian teachers of French in second-
ary school classrooms. Although Gearon adopted different methods of
analysis, namely Myers-Scotton’s ‘Matrix Language Frame Model’
(1993), her findings were consistent with those of previous research. She
argued, in line with other researchers (e.g., Ellis, 1984; Polio and Duff,
1994; Wong-Fillmore, 1985), that the linguistic environment of these
classrooms, where code-switching from French to English was the
‘unmarked’ choice for most message-oriented interactions initiated by
teachers, was not conducive to learners’ TL development. Teachers’
tendency to code-switch resulted in learners relying on English – i.e., the
matrix language – for most meaningful classroom interactions, while
French was often ‘embedded’ as single words or short phrases.
At odds with those who take a negative view of teachers’ using the
learners’ L1 in FL classrooms is Macaro (2001), who disputes the causal
connection between teachers’ language input and learners output, based
on evidence collected from French classrooms in UK secondary schools.
Interestingly, he reports a non-significant correlation between the
amount of the L1 (English) used by his student-teacher participants and
that produced by their learners (Macaro, 2001), although it should be
noted that the six student-teachers of French who took part in his study
used English relatively infrequently. On the basis of this finding and his
observation of instances of ‘recourse to the L1’, Macaro (2001) main-
tains that there is little reason to discourage teachers’ use of the L1 on
some occasions. He nevertheless joins forces with the above researchers
in calling for the establishment of a framework that can define sensible
and principled instances of TL and L1 use.
The consensus view that emerges from the studies reviewed above, is
that whether occasional use of English is accepted or frowned upon in
the FL classroom, teachers need to be made aware of their language
choices in the interest of providing a classroom environment that is
 Sun Hee OK Kim and Catherine Elder 359

sufficiently rich in TL input to enable language acquisition to occur.

Since, as Turnbull and Arnett (2002) note, a benchmark for optimal use
of the TL has yet to be established, more evidence documenting teach-
ers’ language choices for particular pedagogic functions in different
languages and different classroom environments is clearly needed. It
may be, for example, that some kinds of classroom interaction are more
conducive to TL use than others, and that the benchmark for optimum
TL use should be adjusted according to the context in which the lan-
guage is taught. In addition, although a few studies have employed a
systematic framework for analysing FL teachers’ TL/L1 use in the class-
room (see Mitchell, 1983; 1988; Mitchell et al., 1981; Wing, 1987) none
have considered the cross-linguistic applicability of these frameworks
in contexts where FL instruction is offered in a range of different
languages. This kind of cross-linguistic consistency is important if any
general principles are to be established for teacher education, policy
formation or programme evaluation purposes. In an attempt to address
this need, the study poses the following research question: what is the
relationship between teachers’ choice of language (TL or L1) and partic-
ular pedagogic2 functions? The study also offers a framework that
allows for the exploration of this issue across a range of different
languages.

III Methodology
1 Participants
Seven NS teachers of the four FLs (French, German, Korean and
Japanese) at five secondary schools in Auckland participated in the
study.3 There were two teachers for French, German and Korean respec-
tively and one for Japanese.4 They taught beginners’ classes at Year 9
level (first year secondary school). In order to protect their identity, the
teachers were given pseudonyms: Julie and Marie (French teachers),
Heidi and Inge (German teachers), Mira and Jinsu (Korean teachers) and
Yuko (a Japanese teacher).
The teachers’ ages ranged from the late twenties to the late forties
at the time of data collection. All of them were trained teachers with
qualifications from either New Zealand or their home countries. Most
of them had more than seven years’ teaching experience when the
data were collected. The only exceptions were Julie and Jinsu,
360 Language choices and pedagogic functions

who had only three years’ experience, which they gained after coming
to NZ.
The number of students in the participating classes ranged from 16 to
26. All the participating students were 13 or 14 years of age and the
majority of these students were NSs of English. There were a few
students with non-English backgrounds in most of the classes, but
none of these were L1 speakers of the FLs taught in that classroom.
Each FL was taught five to six times over a two-week cycle, with each
lesson lasting for 50 to 60 minutes. According to the responses to a
student questionnaire administered as part of a larger scale study,
the majority of these students had very little contact with the relevant
TL community.

2 Instrument
A systematic framework dubbed the Functional Language Alternation
Analysis of Teacher Talk (FLAATT) was designed for the analysis of the
teacher talk in terms of a range of pedagogic functions. The general
framework of this system was borrowed from COLT (Communicative
Orientation of Language Teaching: Allen et al., 1984). Categories for the
analysis were either drawn from the existing literature (Duff and Polio,
1990; Ellis, 1984; Sinclair and Coulthard, 1975; 1992; Tsui, 1985) or
emerged from the data gathered for this study.
Table 1 summarizes the structure of this multiple-category coding
system and presents the definitions of the various categories. Three over-
arching categories were used to classify the data: (a) the type of language
(‘language used’) used for the relevant unit of discourse, (b) the goal
of the interaction (‘goal orientation’) and (c) its pedagogic function
(‘teaching acts’). The first category ‘language used’ includes five subcate-
gories, classified according to the degree to which the TL (whether
Korean, Japanese, French, or German) was mixed with the L1 (English).
‘Goal orientation’ has two subcategories according to the aims of the
interaction – whether to teach the target language (i.e., ‘core goal’) or to
set up and/or manage classroom activities (‘framework goal’). Under
‘teaching act’, there are a number of subcategories, each of which
represents a distinct pedagogic function. Teacher utterances were
segmented into formal units, so that each of them could be assigned to
one of the subcategories,
 Sun Hee OK Kim and Catherine Elder 361

Table 1 Summary of categories and their definitions in the FLAATT

Category Definition

Language L1 The unit entirely consists of English

used* L1c The unit mainly consists of English with
(Adapted from one word or morpheme in the TL
Duff and TL The unit entirely consists of the TL
Polio, 1990) TLc The unit mainly consists of the TL with one
word or morpheme in English
Mix The unit is a mixture of English and the TL,
to which the above categories of L1c or
TLc cannot be applied
Goal orientation** Core goal The goal of the interaction involves teaching
(Ellis, 1984, the TL itself (‘medium-oriented’ interactions)
1994) or subject content relating to the curriculum
(‘message-oriented’ interactions), or is
embedded in interactions during an activity
directed to non-verbal outcomes (‘activity-
oriented’ interactions) (Ellis, 1984: 102)
Framework goal The goal of the interaction is ‘associated
with the organization and management of
classroom events’ (Ellis, 1994: 578)
Teaching acts (Subcategories and their definitions are
provided under c of section 4: ‘Labels for
teaching acts and their operational
definitions’)

Notes:
* The additional two subcategories originally included in Duff and Polio (1990), ‘pause’
and ‘unclear’, which, by definition, could not be applied to the systematic analysis of
TL/L1, were excluded from this research. In addition, the original names of ‘L2’ and
‘L2c’ are replaced with ‘TL’ and ‘TLc’
** ‘Social goal’, which is included in the classifications of the interactional goals by
Ellis (1984), is excluded from this paper since exchanges oriented to this goal rarely
occurred in the selected extracts. For further discussion regarding this category, see
Kim (2001)

3 Data collection
Three lessons by each participating teacher were audio-recorded and
field notes were taken. When all the class visits were complete, audio-
recording of one lesson per teacher was selected. It was originally
intended to select lessons which might share common features in terms
of overall structure and the particular activities involved. However, this
turned out not to be feasible due to the variation across classes. The
selection of a lesson for each teacher was therefore made according to
the amount of verbal interaction, other than mechanical drills or rote
activities, which took place between the teacher and students. The lesson
362 Language choices and pedagogic functions

chosen for each teacher represented the most interactive sample of his or
her teacher talk.

4 Data analysis
a Procedure: The selected lessons were transcribed by either the
first author of this paper or an assistant with expertise in the relevant
language, following transcription conventions adapted from Ellis
(1984). In order to further standardize the data for the subsequent
analysis, two 10-minute segments5 of interaction between the teacher
and students were extracted from each selected lesson from a point
where a new topic or activity was introduced in a whole class teaching
activity.6 Next, the unit of analysis was identified in the transcripts.
The unit of analysis opted for in this study is the AS-unit (Foster et al.,
2000), as described in more detail in (b) below. Each AS-unit iden-
tified in the extracts was then assigned to one of the subcategories of
FLAATT.
Coding on the FLAATT chart was carried out in light of the context
in which the particular utterance was produced. Detailed operational
definitions and exemplifications were prepared (see examples under
(c) below) since the system included some ‘high inference’ labels
(Lynch, 1996) which it was believed might lead to subjective judge-
ments on the part of the coder, as they represented ‘less specific, more
global often covert phenomena’ (Long, 1983). Finally, intra-coder
reliability was established by recoding the same segments after a lapse
of one month with a resultant level of agreement of 94 to 96%.

b Unit of analysis: The AS-unit (Foster et al., 2000) served as the

basic unit for data analysis. Defined as ‘a single speaker’s utterance
consisting of an independent clause, or sub-clausal unit, together with
any subordinate clause(s) associated with either’ (Foster et al., 2000:
365; italics original), it also accounts for fragmentary utterances and a
number of other features that are common in non-native speech and in
teacher talk, that could not easily be dealt with in a number of studies
using other types of unit of analysis, such as T-unit or c-unit (for a
review, see Forster et al., 2000; Crooks, 1990). An ‘independent sub-
clausal unit’ is further defined as ‘consist[ing] of: either one or more
phrases which can be elaborated to a full clause by means of recovery
 Sun Hee OK Kim and Catherine Elder 363

of ellipted elements from the context of the discourse or situation’

(Foster et al., 2000: 366), which suffices to differentiate a fragment
indicative of disfluency from one that performs its own pedagogic/
discourse function.
Because of the definition of sub-clausal units, the AS-unit could also
be applied to both the Asian and European languages investigated in this
study. Being pro-drop languages, Japanese and Korean tend to have a
null-subject in the surface structure of a clause, which is not allowed in
non-pro-drop languages like German, French and English. In addition,
being discourse-oriented languages, the Asian languages allow the ellip-
sis of any constituent of a sentence if the information is retrievable from
the context (see Kaiser et al., 2001; Sohn, 1994), which is not the case
with the European languages. Japanese and Korean utterances with the
above-mentioned features were classified as ‘independent sub-clausal
units’, rather than as deviant fragments to be ignored as lacking the
constituents of a clausal structure.

c Labels for teaching acts and their operational definitions: This section
covers only a sample of the categories applied to the data (less frequently
used categories have been omitted due to space constraints); a full list of
the labels with accompanying definitions and examples are provided in
Kim (2001). Examples of a particular category are marked by an arrow
preceding the ‘T’ for teacher utterance. Utterances in the TL are presented
in bold italic typeface, accompanied by their translation in English in reg-
ular italic typeface. ‘S’ represents a student utterance while ‘SS’ represents
an utterance produced by multiple students.

• Marker (Mar)
A closed class of items, including ‘well’, ‘OK’, ‘now’, ‘good’,
‘right’, ‘all right’, etc., that indicates the beginning or end of a topic
or move boundary.
(1) T: des questions?
any questions
T: non?
no
des questions?
any questions
(Students chatter)
→ T: now
T: I forgot to read the notices this morning
364 Language choices and pedagogic functions

• Starter (Sta)
A statement, question or command that provides information about
or directs attention to the following elicit.
(2) → T: it has been done for you (.) number one
T: but what do you think the picture’s representing

• Display Question (Dqu)

A question that requires students to display their linguistic knowl-
edge, and to which the teacher expects a certain answer from the
students.
(3) → T: où habites-tu
where do you live
S: à Auckland
in

• Restate Elicit (Rel)

A repetition, simplification, or paraphrase of the preceding elicit,
which is a question or a truncated statement requiring a linguistic
response.
(4) T: what is A going to ask B?
→ T: what is A (.) someone who is A (.) what are you gonna ask me?

• Truncation (Tru)
A truncated statement or question with a rising intonation that
requires the students to complete the truncated part.
(5) T: in the countryside
→ T: that’s why our first sentence is ~

• Check (Che)
A closed class of questions, such as ‘OK?’, ‘finished?’, ‘ready?’, or
‘any problems?’, which enables the teacher to assess the progress
of the lesson and to check if there are any problems hindering
progress.
(6) T: formidable
great
T: what do you think
S: awesome
T: awesome (.) great
T: OK
→ T: pas de problème?
no problem
 Sun Hee OK Kim and Catherine Elder 365

• Directive (Dir)
A command in its unmarked form. This function has many marked
versions, which can be interrogative, declarative and moodless
structures. These request an action (linguistic/non-linguistic) that
is physically possible at the time of utterance. Moreover, phrases
such as ‘OK’, ‘all right’, or ‘thank you’, which typically occur at
the end of a task, belong to this category, as they have the function
of requesting the students to stop working.
(7) T: campagne
country
→ T: can we say that?
SS: campagne

• Prompt (Pro)
A closed class of items such as ‘go on’, ‘come on’, ‘hurry up’,
‘quickly’, etc., which reinforce a ‘directive’ or an ‘elicit’.
(8) T: ici (hands over the marker to the student to write on the board)
here
→ T: on y va?
here we go
→ T: rapidement?
quickly

• Cue (Cue)
A closed class of commands, questions or moodless items such
as ‘(put your) hands up’, ‘who can do that/answer/tell me?’, ‘any-
body?’, or any phrase indicating any similar intention. These struc-
tures function as a call for bids from students and usually occur
before ‘nominations’.
(9) T: on écoute
listen
→ T: we’ve done this before
T: on écoute
listen
T: you’ve got missing information oui?
yes

• Pointer (Poi)
Page or task numbers, or words/phrases indicating a specific point in
an activity, such as ‘number one’, ‘page thirty-six’, ‘next one’, or the
title or topic of a task given in the textbook. These structures draw
366 Language choices and pedagogic functions

students’ attention to the given point and enable the lesson to

proceed to the next phase.
(10) T: in English (.) what do you think that first picture’s all about
→ T: numéro un
number one

• Nominate (Nom)
A closed class consisting of the names of the students in the classroom,
‘you’, ‘yes’ or idiosyncratic phrases such as ‘les filles’ (girls) or ‘who-
ever else whose scrapbook I haven’t seen’. These structures call on or
give permission to a student to respond. In the context of this study,
however, a ‘nomination’ consisting of a single student’s name, which
cannot be determined alone to be an L1 or L2 utterance, is not counted.
(11) T: rapidement?
quickly
(A student raises the hand)
→ T: oui?
yes

• Accept (Acc)
A closed class of items that includes ‘yes’, ‘no’, ‘good’, ‘fine’ and
the repetition of a student’s reply (with low or neutral intonation)
and indicates that the teacher has heard a response and has noted
that it was appropriate.
(12) T: où habites-tu
where do you live
S: à Auckland
→ T: j’habite à Auckland
I live in

• Evaluate (Eva)
A statement or a tag question, including words or phrases such as
‘(very) good’, ‘interesting’, ‘yes’, ‘no’, or a repetition of a student’s
reply with high-falling (positive) or rising (negative) intonation.
(13) T: où habites-tu
where do you live
S: à Auckland
T: j’habite à Auckland
I live in
→ T: très bien
very good
 Sun Hee OK Kim and Catherine Elder 367

• Metastatement (Met)
A statement that refers to some future classroom event which helps
students understand the structure of a lesson and the purpose of any
subsequent activities.
(14) T: on y va
here we go
→ T: on va commencer par les devoirs (.) s’il vous plaît
we are going to start with the homework please

• Model/Correct/Scaffold (MCS)
The three teaching acts in this category help students learn either a
grammatical structure or pronunciation in the TL. Since two or all of
them frequently occur simultaneously, these teaching acts were
grouped into one category rather than being counted separately.
They can consist of any sentence form or fragment.
(15) S: XX
→ T: j’habite (Model/Scaffold)
I live
S: /dæ␩/
→ T: dans (Correct/Model)
in
S: dans
→ T: une (Model/Scaffold)
a
S: une X
→ T: maison (Model)
house

• Discipline (Dis)
Any grammatical form or calling of the name of a student that
functions to change non-acceptable behaviour of a student in order
to maintain attention.
(16) T: [now you remember the . . .
→ T: Ann (.) next time I stop for you (.) you’re going outside
S: me?
T: oui
yes

IV Results
In this section, a brief summary of TL/L1 use in the lesson extracts
of each teacher is provided to aid the understanding of the context in
368 Language choices and pedagogic functions

which the data were collected. Following the brief lesson outlines,
results from the analysis in terms of the main categories in the FLAATT
system are reported.

1 A summary of TL/L1 use by each teacher

While all the participating teachers were found to use English as a
medium of instruction to some extent, their use of the TL and English
varied to a great extent in terms of the amount and the way they were
used, which may have been constrained by the particular context of each
classroom. Table 2 provides a summary of the background information
of the lessons analysed for this study, by providing an overview of the
teachers’ pseudonyms, the FLs taught, the activity type of the lessons
and the percentage of TL use in each lesson extract. Any other notewor-
thy information is shown in the comment column. It can be seen from
this table that the lesson segments were very different from one another
in terms of both structure and the material dealt with by the teacher, with
some oriented towards learning new material, others involving revision,
and one centred around a communicative group work activity.

2 Quantity of languages used

The overall ratio of TL to L1 used in each teacher’s sample was obtained
from the analysis of ‘language used’ in the FLAATT chart. AS-unit
counts in five categories – L1, L1c, Mix, TLc and TL – and their per-
centages are presented in Table 3, which shows a high level of variation
in the proportion of TL use ranging from 23% to 88%.
Table 3 shows that only three teachers (Julie, Marie and Inge) were
able to produce the majority of their AS-units in the TL. Heidi and Yuko
used the TL just under 50% of the time, while the remaining two teach-
ers (Mira and Jinsu) showed very low TL ratios (26% and 23% respec-
tively). The teachers tended to avoid TLc but made varied use of L1c and
Mix. This issue will be revisited in section 3 below.

3 Teaching acts
The next set of findings concerns the teachers’ patterns of language
choice in terms of pedagogic functions. Table 4 shows what languages
Table 2 Summary of TL/L1 use by the participating teachers

Teacher FL Activity type TL (%) Comments

Julie French • Communicative tasks 58 • Frequent procedural utterances for organizing activities and for checking
involving extensive students’understanding of complicated instructions, for which Julie made
peer interaction several unsuccessful attempts in the TL, ending up using English
Marie French • Various question-and- 88 • Tight IRF (initiate-respond-feedback) structure
answer activities • French was used extensively to elicit the expected TL responses
• English was used sparingly
Heidi German • Revision of grammatical 46 • The class was visited toward the end of the term
structures using • The TL was used extensively for the revision of grammatical structures
display questions • Alternate use of the TL and L1 in vocabulary revision, where students gave
• Vocabulary revision the target words in the language other than the one Heidi used
• Frequent repetition of student responses given in English as feedback
Inge German • Question-and-answer 67 • Extensive use of the TL in the IRF structure
activity using simple • Repeated use of display questions requiring students to answer by
display questions substituting a word in the key structure, which was frequently
demonstrated by Inge herself
• English was used for the discipline of students who frequently interrupted
the lesson
(continued )
Sun Hee OK Kim and Catherine Elder 369
 370

Table 2 (Continued )

Teacher FL Activity type TL (%) Comments

Mira Korean • Mira provided TL
words for numbers,
which students either
identified in the workbook
or noted down in the
appropriate space
Jinsu Korean • Revision of Korean
characters
• Practice of exchanging
the greetings
Yuko Japanese • Revision of a survey-type
activity from the
26 • English was mostly used as the medium of instruction, where Korean
words for numbers (which was the focus of the lessons) were regularly
inserted
• Single Korean words were frequently inserted in the flow of English when
explaining the task or giving feedback to students’ responses
23 • Lengthy explanation in English for the pronunciation of TL characters
and TL greetings, with the occasional use of TL phrases/words as
the object
• Feedback was given mostly in English, sometimes immediately followed
by a Korean translation
45 • As Yuko called out Japanese words, the students raised their hand or
answered when they found these items in their results
Language choices and pedagogic functions

previous lesson
• Grammar instruction
• TL grammar was taught mostly in English, with Japanese used only to
demonstrate the target structures
• Some repeatedly occurring functions were performed in Japanese
• Frequent switch to English for the discipline of disruptive behaviour of a
group of students
 Sun Hee OK Kim and Catherine Elder 371

Table 3 Amounts of language in the five categories measured by AS-unit counts

L1 L1c Mix TLc TL Total

AS-
AS-units AS-units AS-units AS-units AS-units units
Teacher (N) % (N) % (N) % (N) % (N) % (N)

Julie (F) 86 33 5 2 17 7 1 0 150 58 259

Marie (F) 26 10 0 0 4 2 1 0 234 88 265
Heidi (G) 111 48 8 3 7 3 1 0 109 46 236
Inge (G) 55 29 3 2 1 1 1 1 125 67 185
Mira (K) 162 63 24 9 4 2 0 0 66 26 256
Jinsu (K) 108 66 3 2 13 8 1 1 37 23 162
Yuko (J) 95 48 9 4 7 3 1 0 91 45 203

Notes:
L1 ⫽ A unit consisting entirely of English; L1c ⫽ A unit consisting mainly of English
with one word or morpheme in the TL; TL ⫽ A unit consisting entirely of the TL;
TLc ⫽ A unit consisting mainly of the TL with one word or morpheme in English;
Mix ⫽ A mixture of English and the TL which the above categories of L1c or TLc
cannot be applied to. F ⫽ French; G ⫽ German; K ⫽ Korean; J ⫽ Japanese

Table 4 Most frequent functions performed by the teachers and the dominant
language used for these functions

Overall Most frequent functions and their dominant language type

TL per-
Teacher centage 1 2 3 4 5

Julie (F) 58 Dir (TL) Sta (L1) Che (TL) Pro (TL) MCS (TL)
Marie (F) 88 MCS (TL) Acc (TL) Dqu (TL) Eva (TL) Met (TL)
Heidi (G) 46 Acc (TL) Mar (L1) MCS (TL) Tru (L1) Dir (L1)
Inge (G) 67 MCS (TL) Dqu (TL) Rel (TL) Acc (TL) Pro (L1)
Mira (K) 26 MCS (TL) Mar (L1) Che (L1 ⫽ L1c) Poi (L1) Acc (L1)
Jinsu (K) 23 Acc (L1) Dir (TL) Nom (L1) Eva (L1) *Mar (L1)/
MCS(TL)
Yuko (J) 45 Cue (TL) MCS (TL) Dis (L1) Mar (TL) Dir (TL)

Notes:
Dir ⫽ directive; MCS ⫽ model/correct/scaffold; Acc ⫽ accept; Cue ⫽ cue; Sta ⫽ starter;
Mar ⫽ marker; Dqu ⫽ display question; Che ⫽ check; Rel ⫽ restate elicit; Nom ⫽ nom-
inate; Dis ⫽ discipline; Pro ⫽ prompt; Poi ⫽ pointer; Eva ⫽ evaluate; Tru ⫽ truncation;
Met ⫽ metastatement

*The frequency of occurrence of these two functions in Jinsu’s result was the same

the teachers chose for the most frequently occurring functions in their
classroom. Each teacher’s five most commonly occurring functions are
listed with the numbers 1–5 representing the rank order in terms of
frequency. The dominant language type for each function is noted in
brackets. The functions produced predominantly in the TL are presented
in bold typeface.
372 Language choices and pedagogic functions

Table 4 reveals that only Marie (the highest TL user) was able to use
the TL as the dominant language for all her top five functions. Julie and
Inge, whose overall proportion of TL use was also relatively high, used
the TL repeatedly for their own sets of frequent functions. It is note-
worthy that Yuko, whose percentage of TL use was not as high as Julie’s
and Inge’s, was also using the TL as the dominant language for her most
common functions.
While Table 4 suggests that frequently occurring functions in each
teacher’s extracts are varied, scrutiny of these functions reveals that most
of them do not involve much linguistic elaboration, except for
‘Metastatement’ (Met) and ‘Starter’ (Sta). Among these various func-
tions, ‘Model/Correct/Scaffold’ (MCS), ‘Accept’ (Acc), and ‘Directive’
(Dir) are found in four or more teachers’ lists. ‘Model/Correct/Scaffold’,
in particular, is found in all the teachers’ lists and in most cases it ranks
in the top two functions. The TL is the language used predominantly for
this function by all the teacher participants, suggesting that this has
played a role in increasing the overall proportion of TL in each teacher’s
results. This tendency was however clearer among the teachers with
relatively low TL to L1 ratios (i.e., lower than 50%). For example, Mira
used the TL (Korean) only 26% of the time in all her lesson extracts.
Ninety percent of these instances of TL use were made up of MCS. In
contrast, 88% of Marie’s lessons were taught in French, but MCS
accounted for only a quarter of these TL units.
For ‘Accept’ (Acc), the teachers show mixed results. Those with a
higher amount of overall TL use were more prone to using the TL for
this function; but for Mira and Jinsu, who ranked lower than the others
in their overall TL ratios, the L1 was dominant for this function.
Although the scope of this paper does not permit a more detailed
analysis of the functions in Table 4, some interesting findings with
respect to ‘Starter’ (Sta), ‘Marker’ (Mar) and ‘Check’ (Che) are high-
lighted in the following paragraphs.
Julie used ‘Starter’ (L1 dominant) as her second most frequent
function. Although the L1 was the dominant language for this function
as shown in Table 4, it occupies only 50% of all the units produced for
this function, for which a substantial amount of TL and other mixed
types of language were used. The ratio of Mix for ‘Starter’, in particu-
lar, was as high as 18% and this clearly had the effect of increasing her
overall ratio of Mix as presented in Table 3. In the next example, the
 Sun Hee OK Kim and Catherine Elder 373

units fronted by an arrow show how Julie realized ‘Starter’ in her

instruction for a pair-work information gap task:
(17) → T you have got missing information oui?
yes
T: all the people that are As
→ T: you’ve got information missing for Lucy (.) Etienne (.)
et Sandrin
and
→ T: les Bs
the
→ T: Guillaume (.) Thomas (.) et Stéphane
T: oui?
SS: oui
T: oui
→ T: you’re gonna ask the question that’s in the first bubble at the top

While the occurrence of ‘Starter’ is frequent only in Julie’s sample, the

prevalence of L1, L1c or Mix for this function is also found in the results
of most other teachers with Marie being an exception.
It is noteworthy that ‘Marker’ (Mar) appears as a frequent function in
the list only for those teachers with a relatively low TL ratio and that it
is delivered predominantly in the L1, particularly by Heidi and Mira (see
Table 4). Scrutiny of their results revealed that Heidi used English 95%
and Mira 100% of the time.
Lastly, the use of L1 and L1c for ‘Check’ (Che) by Mira is notewor-
thy. While Table 4 shows only that the units produced to realize ‘Check’
were divided equally between L1 and L1c, a further breakdown of these
results also reveals that she used English almost exclusively for this
function. Out of the 27 AS-unit counts for ‘Check’, only 3 TL units were
found. The following example shows how Mira used L1c and L1 for
‘Check’, even for a very simple activity where the students were
required to identify numbers in the drawings in their workbook.
(18) T: and after that what number
→ T: have you (.) can you can you find yol net?
fourteen
→ T: no?

4 Goal orientation
Tables 5 and 6 present the result from the analysis of ‘Goal orientation’,
which reveals that interactions oriented toward core goals were more
374 Language choices and pedagogic functions

Table 5 Distribution of language in five categories oriented towards core goals

L1 L1c Mix TLc TL Total (core

goals)

AS-units AS-units AS-units AS-units AS-units AS-units

Teacher (N) %* (N) %* (N) %* (N) %* (N) %* (N) %**

Julie (F) 37 37 4 4 13 13 0 0 45 46 99 38
Marie (F) 21 10 0 0 1 0 1 0 194 90 217 62
Heidi (G) 47 34 5 4 3 2 0 0 83 60 138 58
Inge (G) 25 17 3 2 1 1 1 1 121 79 151 81
Mira (K) 61 42 24 17 4 3 0 0 55 38 144 56
Jinsu (K) 56 57 3 3 12 12 1 1 26 27 98 60
Yuko (J) 56 44 8 6 5 4 1 1 58 45 128 62

Notes:
* for core goals; ** for whole lesson

Table 6 Distribution of language in five categories oriented towards framework goals

L1 L1c Mix TLc TL Total (frame-

work goals)

AS-units AS-units AS-units AS-units AS-units AS-units

Teacher (N) %* (N) %* (N) %* (N) %* (N) %* (N) %**

Julie (F) 49 32 1 1 4 3 1 1 96 63 151 58

Marie (F) 5 11 0 0 2 4 0 0 38 85 45 17
Heidi (G) 63 66 3 3 4 4 0 0 26 27 96 41
Inge (G) 30 88 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 12 34 19
Mira (K) 100 91 0 0 0 0 0 0 10 9 110 43
Jinsu (K) 52 81 0 0 1 2 0 0 11 17 64 40
Yuko (J) 35 51 0 0 2 3 0 0 31 46 68 35
Notes:
* for framework goals; ** for whole lesson

frequent than those oriented toward framework goals in general, except

for Julie’s communicative task-based lesson which showed the reverse
tendency.
The last column in Table 5 shows that most teachers produced units
with core goals over 50% of the time, with Julie being the only exception.
Yet, there was a stark contrast in the choice of language within this cate-
gory between high and low TL users (see Table 3 for overall TL ratios).
That is, the higher the teacher’s overall TL ratio, the more likely it was
that he/she would choose to use the TL for ‘core goals’. This rule did not
however apply to the results for ‘framework goals’ shown in Table 6.
 Sun Hee OK Kim and Catherine Elder 375

While Table 6 shows that Marie consistently maintained a high TL

ratio for framework goals, it is noteworthy that Julie shows a much
higher proportion of TL use in this category (i.e., 63%) than that in her
results for ‘core goals’ and for overall TL use (see Tables 3 and 5).
Moreover, her raw counts of TL units are substantially greater than
Marie’s. Scrutiny of Julie’s results in Tables 5 and 6 reveals that, while
Julie produced fewer units for core goals (i.e., 99 AS-units) than for
framework goals (i.e., 151 AS-units), she showed greater dominance of
TL use for the latter. That is, while her TL to L1 ratio for core goals was
46 to 37%, when it came to talk relating to framework goals the propor-
tion changed markedly (63% TL : 32% L1). In contrast to Marie and
Julie, other teachers’ TL ratios for framework goals were generally very
low. Inge, in particular, the second highest user of the TL overall, used
the TL for only 12% of talk dealing with framework goals.

IV Discussion
The results of this study are in line with those of previous researchers
(Duff and Polio, 1990; Gearon, 1998; Guthrie, 1987; Mitchell, 1983) in
the sense that FL teachers generally use the learners’ L1 more frequently
than the TL to perform a number of key pedagogic functions. It also con-
firms that, as Duff and Polio (1990) also found, being a native speaker
of the TL (which all these teachers were) does not guarantee a high
proportion of TL use. The findings also illuminate teachers’ language
choices from a pedagogic point of view. There appears to be no system-
atic relationship between these teachers’ language choices and particu-
lar pedagogic functions, given the overall lack of consistency in TL use
across and within the participating teachers’ lesson segments when per-
forming the most frequent functions. While this variability was greater
in the results for the teachers who showed relatively low ratios of over-
all TL use, even the teachers with higher TL ratios did not use the TL
consistently as the dominant language for their most frequently used
functions, with Marie being the only exception.
‘Modelling/correcting/scaffolding’ (MCS) was the function where the
TL was invariably the dominant language in all the participating teach-
ers’ major pedagogic functions. Given that this function does not gener-
ally require lengthy or complex linguistic utterances, and considering
how much of the teachers’ talk is taken up by this function, it would
376 Language choices and pedagogic functions

seem reasonable to conclude that the linguistic environment in these

classrooms is limited not only in terms of the quantity of TL input
provided by the teacher but also in terms of its quality.
The limited sample size makes it difficult to determine with any
certainty the variables that influence the language chosen for particular
pedagogic functions; however, the type of activity performed in the
classroom would seem to be salient, as Guthrie (1987) also found. That
is, if the lesson involves more communicative peer interaction, as was
the case in Julie’s lesson segment, it requires more complicated instruc-
tions to set up the activities. These functions may be hard to deliver
in the TL, as reported also by Mitchell (1988) and illustrated in the
example of Julie performing ‘Starter’. Conversely, if the activity does
not require complicated instructions, the participating teachers tend to
use the TL more, as shown in the high ratio of TL use in the lessons of
Marie and Inge, which involve a series of display questions relating to
the target structure. However, this rule does not seem to apply to the
teachers with relatively low ratios of TL use, as shown in Mira’s case.
The above tendency is also reflected in the results that emerge from
the analysis of the interactional goals of the various pedagogic functions.
It was found that most of the teachers’ samples were dominated by
medium-oriented interactions relating to ‘core goals’, but that only the
teachers with relatively high TL ratios showed a strong preference for
TL use within this category.
Regarding medium-oriented interactions, Ellis (1984: 105) notes that
most valuable input occurs during ‘side-sequences’, when the teacher
deviates from the primary goal to deal with other issues. Julie seemed to
put conscious effort into using the TL for such situations, sometimes
ending up using the mixed type of language. However, most of the
teachers resorted to L1 for this kind of interaction, for example, in the
case of communication breakdowns, which in fact rarely occurred due to
the frequent use of English. Such interactions were equally rare in the
language produced by Marie (the highest TL user), since activities were
so tightly structured around artificial interactions that she and her
students hardly deviated from the primary goal. In this respect, it may be
that Marie’s students were equally deprived not only of exposure to
valuable TL input but also of meaningful interactions in the TL.
In contrast to the results for ‘core goals’, TL ratios for ‘framework
goals’ were very low in general, with Julie and Marie being the only
 Sun Hee OK Kim and Catherine Elder 377

exceptions. Given that, as Ellis (1984) notes, interactions involving

‘framework goals’ may provide learners with opportunities for ‘natural’
communication and negotiation of meaning using the TL, it would appear
that most of the learners in the participating classes are deprived of these
opportunities. Julie produced a greater number of units for ‘framework
goals’ than those for ‘core goals’. Her TL ratio for this category is the
second highest of all the participating teachers, higher than her TL ratio
for ‘core goals’ as well as her overall TL ratio. When it comes to raw
counts, Julie’s score is the highest, almost doubling Marie’s score. It
could be argued therefore that Julie’s TL behaviour in the interactions
involving ‘core goals’ (while limited in terms of quantity), and the mag-
nitude of her TL interactions involving ‘framework goals’, more closely
resembled ‘natural’ TL communication than was the case for Marie and
may in this respect have been more conducive to TL acquisition.

V Conclusion
The findings from this study should be understood within the contextual
limitations of the participating teachers’ classrooms and of the func-
tional and formal analysis used for this research. Within these limita-
tions, this study has shown the types of TL input which constitute the
major part of the linguistic environment of the participating classrooms,
suggesting that, in spite of the teachers’ native-speaker proficiency TL
use was not maximized either in quantity or quality in their lessons and
therefore that the potential for intake and for meaningful communication
on the part of the students was limited. The space constraints of this
paper have precluded extensive consideration of the factors that con-
strain TL use, although it appears that the type of lesson may have had
a bearing on teachers’ language choices, with task-based activities more
conducive to rich TL input, but only in the case of teachers like Julie
who were willing and able to use the TL to perform these activities
Alternatively, it may be the teachers’ beliefs about language learning and
their attitudes to TL use which determine the content and structure of the
lesson. The question of why teachers alternate between languages for
different pedagogic functions (if indeed they are conscious of their
behaviour) needs to be addressed with support from other kinds of data,
such as interviews with teachers.7 This kind of triangulation is all the
more important in the case of teachers with very low TL ratios whose
378 Language choices and pedagogic functions

beliefs about TL use may be influenced by their prior experience of

language learning and who may have little insight into the important role
of input in second language acquisition.
Although the scale of this research does not permit us to generalize
beyond these particular teachers, or indeed beyond the particular lesson
samples selected for analysis, this study demonstrates that the quality
of FL teacher talk in different kinds of lessons and across a range of
languages can be illuminated by using a carefully designed quantitative
measure. The FLAATT system may be useful not only for further
research, but also for FL teacher education. It could for example be used
as part of an action research project to assist teachers (of any language)
in monitoring their current language behaviour, setting new targets for
each pedagogic function and measuring gains in both the quantity and
quality of the input they provide for their learners. In the meantime,
research on FL teachers’ language choice should address the neglected
issue of how teachers’ TL use relates to language learning outcomes so
that benchmarks for optimal TL use, supported by judicious use of L1 as
required, can be established for different classroom contexts.

Notes
1 For ease of discussion, the abbreviation ‘L1’ without reference to the L1 speaker refers
hereafter to ‘the language which is the learners’ first language and/or the lingua franca
of the FL classroom’ unless specified otherwise as in ‘the teacher’s L1’ meaning ‘the
teacher’s first language’.
2 On the assumption that every utterance the FL teachers produce can be in the TL and
has a potential to become intake for the learner and thus has a pedagogic function, the
functions realized in the participating FL classrooms will hereafter be treated as ‘peda-
gogic’ rather than ‘classroom’ functions.
3 These teachers were identified from a pool of native-speaking FL teachers through the
personal network of the first author. They were selected without any discretion other
than their availability and willingness to participate in the study.
4 Although two Japanese teachers participated initially in this study, the data for one of
these teachers were excluded due to the limited amount of interaction between teacher
and students which made comparison to the other teachers impossible.
5 If a pause or interruption for individual work took place for longer than 10 seconds, the
lapse of time was measured and compensated for by extending the original 10-minute
extract by the same amount.
6 Exchanges like greetings, leave-taking and administrative talk including roll calls were
excluded, for it was revealed, while observing and transcribing, that the participating
teachers without exception used the TL extensively for the first two functions, and that,
while English was used for the last one, it occurred rarely in all lessons. Sequences
involving mechanical TL utterances, such as dictations, repetition drills, songs or read-
ing the textbook, were also excluded from consideration.
7 This issue has been extensively discussed in Kim (2001).
 Sun Hee OK Kim and Catherine Elder 379

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