Analysis of interaction

Edna L. Olivier Flores

Main point: Listening skill development

General Research Objective: to analyse how university students with A2 language level
attending Englishattending English classes as a foreign language construct their own
learning strategies in the practice of the listening skill.

Specific Research objective: to examine students’ use of learning skills in the process of
solving listening tasks.

Research Questions:
- What are the implications of implementing narrow listening?
- To what extent are the strategies used in relation to student’s sociocultural context?

Context of the observation

Researcher: Teacher as participant
Student A
Student B
Student C
Student D
Institution: Universidad Euro Hispanoamericana
City: Xalapa
Program: Idiomas
Course: English as a foreign language
Language Level: A2
Timetable: 3:00 - 4:00
Date: May 11th, 2021
Registration Interpretation

Teacher:
Lets’ continue to the third exercise -teacher
reads the instruction- “listen to activate
grammar. Listen to the conversations and
complete each statement with a possessive
pronoun.” Now, I want you to be really
careful and to pay a lot of attention in this
task cuz the conversations are not going to
General instructions are given to the
students.
Teacher reads what the book states and
explains how the task is going to be solved. It
is clear now that the task is not as easy as it
could seem to be. Students need to
concentrate on the audio and understand
what they hear in order to achieve the goal:
to identify the correspondent possessive
pronoun.

give us the literal word that we are looking

for, we are not going to hear the plain
answer. We need to understand the
conversations in order to get the possessive
Making students aware that the audio will be
pronoun that we need. I’m going to play the
played twice leads them to be conscious of
audio twice, the first time is for you to the strategies they will use on each turn.
understand the whole conversation and the
second time is to discuss the probable
answer. If you need to take a screenshot, you
can do it right now.

-Students listen to the four conversations.

Then, teacher plays it again, this time
students just listen to the first conversation-
Teacher:
Ok, guys. So, the bag is…
By saying “guys”, the teacher is not pointing
to someone specific. She wants students to
feel free to answer once they have
understood. The participation is going to be
voluntary.

Student A immediately answer with the

Student A:
correct word.
Hers
 Teacher repeat the answer for those who
Teacher:
didn’t understood.
That’s right. The bag is hers. Lets’ continue.

-Students listen to the second conversation.

Once again, the teacher read the statement
Teacher:
as an open ended task to let whoever wants
Number two, the phone is… complete it.

Student A is highly confident about the

Student A:
answer she is giving.
His
Teachers agrees and continues with the rest
Teacher:
of the sentence
That’s right. But the keys belong to Brad’s
wife. They’re…
Student A complete it without any doubt
Student A:
Hers
Student B expresses not having the first
Student B:
answer, but wants to catch up.
Teacher, could you repeat the answer of the
first one?
Teacher repeats the answer
Teacher:
Hers
Student B thanks her
Student B:
Oh, thanks.

-Teacher plays conversation number 3-

One more time, teacher let students decide
Teacher:
who wants to participate
Ok, guys. The coat isn’t…
Student A denotes some insecurity
Student A:
Mine?
 Teacher looks for another answer without
Teacher:
saying if it is right or wrong. Teacher is looking
Ok, do you have another answer? for negotiation among their peers.

Some other students answer

Student C and D:
His?
Teacher says bot answers could be correct in
Teacher:
a certain way. Teacher tries to show some
Yeah, both are correct. I mean, the correct kind of respect to individual learning process
one is “his” but if you put yourself into the
man’s place I’m gonna take “mine” as a right
answer.
Student A now knows her answer was nos
Student A:
completely right so she asks for the correct
Then, what’s the correct… right answer? one.

Teacher repeats the answer

Teacher:
His

-Students listen to the fourth conversation-

Finally, teacher continues making the task as
Teacher:
an open-ended statement. Perhaps she is
The concert tickets aren’t… looking for the rest of the students to
participate.

Student A says the answer she thinks is the

Student A:
good one
Ours
Teacher takes the answer into a question and
Teacher:
asks for another option
Ours? ok…. Or..?
Students C and D again say the correct answer
Student C and D:
Theirs
Teacher explains how bot answer could be
Teacher:
 right. “It depends on one’s perspective”
Theirs! That’s right. And, the same. If you take
demonstrates how each sociocultural learning
yourself into the lady or the guy ’s place, I will style influence one’s learning.
take “ours” as a right answer. But, if we are a The teaching learning process is not
third person in the conversation, we are not centralized on the teacher, nor the book. Each
person has his own way to acquire
in the conversation then we will say “theirs”.
knowledge.
The answer depends on one’s perspective,
the place you take in a conversation.

Reflective notes (pedagogical implications of the sociolinguistic phenomena)

Looking back to presencial lessons, students used to get nervous when it was
time to participate, even more when teacher called some of them and they were not
confident of their answers. Since pandemic changed theythe way lessons are
attended, this is, as virtual or distance courses, students have the choice to turn
on / off their cameras, and microphones are opened just when they are required
to. As a result, communication by gesturing and/or body language have been lost
in the teaching - learning process. Personally, this has not been a barrier between
me as professor and my studentsmy students and me as a professor because all the
time I am sharing my screen and this makes me unable to observe them.
Nonetheless, I can notice when my students are actually involved in the lesson
(by asking them specific things, by letting them to participate voluntary, by
sharing some thoughts…). I could even say that in some specific cases, students
are prompt to participate in this “hidden” way, perhaps they don’t feel
embarrassed in for too their partners when saying a wrong answer.

Potential Categories / Subcategories

1. Maximizing learning / participation opportunities
2. Facilitating interaction
 2.1 teacher - student
2.2 peer - peer
3. Minimizing mismatches
4. Contextualizing input / output
5. Integrating language skills
5.1 Fostering listening language skill
6. Raising cultural and social consciousness

Conclusion
Listening tasks are commonly found after having covered the grammar topic and
have solved written exercises. In that way, the input provided in the listening tasks are
expected to be comprehensible for students. Then, the consequence would be the
acquisition of the skill and not only the learning of the skill. In the narrow listening
approach, students are allowed to listen to audios as many times as they wish. The
original instruction of the task recorded states to listen to it once and then answer,
but,but in order to close the gap between the instruction and the narrow listening
approach, students listened to each conversation twice (I decided to put it just two times
because they were really short and the vocabulary used was already known by the
students). Consequently, students used the first time to understand the general idea
and to get the structure of each conversation. The second time they could focus on the
object people were talking about and to whom it belonged. Once the students gave the
answers, it was quite interesting to notice how they managed feedback and correcting.
In the case of the third and fourth conversations, even when some classmates were
aware of the student A “mistake”, they wait until the teacher asked for another answer to
correct the one given previously. They did not interrupt nor were rude.
Social and cultural background differences can outstand when participants come
from completely different societies. In this specific observation, participants involved in
this are from similar cultures, they understand the society rules and proper behavior.
This makes easy to handle classroom differences and discussion when learning
something new or applying such learning.

References
Bartely, M. (2000) Conociendo nuestras escuelas. Un acercamiento etnográfico a la
cultura escolar. Barcelona: Paidós