Language echoes

BACKGROUND

A distinctive feature of the classroom, and perhaps more especially the language learning classroom, are 'echoes' — the teacher utterances which echo students' responses but produce no response themselves. In terms of classroom discourse, they do not further an exchange; they are in fact `dead ends'. Perhaps the best way to illustrate this concept is through example. Of the following examples (Lindstromberg 1988) only (a) is an echo, as here the teacher´s returning utterance provides no response to the student. In both (b) and (c) the teacher has processed the student's language and this is indicated in the response.

a) T: And what do you think?

S:               He's coming later.

T:               (no change of intonation) He's coming later.

b) S: He's coming lately.

T: He's coming ... ? (teacher elicits response)

S:             Lately?

T:              Later. (teacher substitutes correction)

c) T: And what do you think?

S:             He's coming later.

T:              He's coming later? (teache^r asks yes/no question for confirmation)

S: Yes.
 

TASK OBJECTIVE

The aim of this task is to raise awareness of the issue of teacher echoes in classroom discourse. You will collect a number of teacher—student exchanges. This will lead to an analysis of the data and a consideration of the pros and cons of this aspect of teacher behaviour.
 

PROCEDURE

BEFORE THE LESSON

1.    Arrange to observe a lesson.

2.    Make yourself familiar with the way 'echoing' is defined (see examples above).
 

DURING THE LESSON

1.  Spend some time (five to ten minutes) becoming 'attuned' to the way the teacher responds to the learners, listening for echoes.

2.  Then try to script about three samples of teacher echoes. Include the immediate 'environment', and, typically two or three utterances leading up to the teacher echo.

3.  Then select a portion of time (say fifteen minutes), preferably during a time of the lesson involving teacher—student interaction, and count the number of echoes that occur in this time.

AFTER THE LESSON

1. How many 'echoes' did you collect? To what extent do you think the teacher's behaviour was conscious or subconscious?

I think I heard about 8 echoes, but I am not completely sure if I counted them correctly. Most of them were the result of bad acoustics and only few of them were pointing out pupil's mistake. That's why I can really decide whether the teacher's behaviour was conscious or not.

2. What is the effect of the teacher's echo on:

a)      the learner, immediately? They immediately started to think that they made a mistake. Because they were not sure where exactly, they usually decided not to answer the echo or to try another answer, which could be the wrong one.

b)      patterns of classroom interaction generally?
Well, I must say that the echoes sometimes worked as a team builder, because there were some students ready to whisper the right answer.

c)       on the learner's perception of the teacher's corrective role?
Maybe it was the mater of time, because this lesson was right after the lunch, but the students seemed to be slightly annoyed and they took every echo question as emphasizing their possible mistake even though they were right. Another point is that thanks to echoes, the teacher was speaking more than her students, which didn't make them very active in the lesson.

d)      on the learner's willingness to take risks?
5/10, it varied student from student

3. Considering the three samples you collected, would you agree that teacher echoes are 'dead ends'?
Not exactly dead ends, but I can't describe them as a successful solution.

4. What kind of information do learners need in feedback received from teachers? Using these terms of reference, how does 'the echo' rate as valid or valuable feedback?

5. Some points in favour of echoing (see Lindstromberg 1988) have been the following:

— it provides learners with the repetition needed for reinforcement of language;

— it gets over the problem of contributions from students who speak very quietly;

— it gets over the problem of poor pronunciation by providing intelligible versions for the whole class;

— it can be used as a strategy to provide models of correctness in the event of error.

How do you respond to each of these?
In an ideal classroom, all of these arguments would be true. Unfortunately, I think that the concept of echoing is quite outdated.

6. One common criticism of echoing is that an echo is 'not a natural response': that is, it is unlikely to occur in contexts outside of the classroom (although it might appear in some forms of therapy).

a)      Is it true that echoing is an almost exclusively classroom-based discourse feature? How is it different from the sort of repetition that occurs very naturally in conversation routines?
For me, the main difference is in the way of speaking. When echoes appear in a "normal" discussion, you don't feel that someone is correcting you or doubt you statement.

b)      Does a discourse feature have to have a 'reality' outside of the classroom in order for it to be 'acceptable' inside it?
No, there are lots of learning techniques we use just while we learning and we can't use them "outside". For example the whispering method, even though it would be quite funny.

REFLECTION

How can you find out whether or not echoing features significantly in your own teaching discourse? Are you interested in monitoring^, this aspect of teacher behaviour?
The best way is to have someone to observe your class, because he will point out the moments when echoes are or are not beneficial. I find this task really interesting, because echoing is something I have never really classified as an important aspect.

The learning environment

BACKGROUND

Few would now doubt that people learn best when they are relaxed, comfortable, unstressed, interested and involved in what is going on, and motivated to continue. Regrettably, there is no hard-and-fast, definitive list of what makes an environment conducive to learning. We cannot, for_. example, say that 'the more a teacher smiles, the more relaxed the students are' as this is absurdly simplistic. Nonetheless, there may be a lot to be gained from developing an awareness of the affective factors that influence learning.

TASK OBJECTIVE

This observation is designed to refine your awareness of the learning environment. During the lesson you will be watching and listening for anything that you think contributes to making the learning environment one in which students learn better. Conversely, you will also become aware of factors that hinder or impede learning and detract from the effectiveness of the learning environment.

Broadly, then, you are looking for factors that range from the size of the room, the seating arrangements, the acoustics, aspects of the teacher's behaviour or the classroom dynamics. You will also, for a short period during the lesson, focus on one student and note the external factors during that period that seem to shape their learning involvement.

One difficulty in this task is that the very presence of 'an outsider' among the learning community will affect it in subtle, perhaps impercep­tible ways. This is difficult to avoid but might be minimised by your awareness and your maintaining a very low profile.
 

PROCEDURE

BEFORE THE LESSON

1.   Arrange to observe a lesson. Try to avoid lessons with a heavy emphasis on reading and writing as there may not be very much to observe in Step 4 below.

2.   Make yourself familiar with the charts overleaf.

I spent this observation in elementary school in Ronov nad Doubravou. I thought that the atmosphere of small town would be nicely compatible with the aim of this task and that it would be easier to observe a class with fewer pupils.

DURING THE LESSON

1.  Seat yourself in a place where you have a clear view of the classroom, and yet where your presence will be as unobtrusive as possible.
Fortunately, there was a vacant desk in the last row waiting for me. 
 

2.            For most of the lesson, concentrate on making yourself as aware as possible of the affective environment, the ambience in the classroom, and the various and diverse factors that are influential here. Consider factors that are external to the student, such as the acoustics or temperature of the room, the comfort or otherwise of the seating, the visual attraction of the room, the quality, tone or volume of the teacher's voice.

3.  Record these (see Chart 3.1a) in any order, as you become aware of them. (A follow-up task after the lesson will be to analyse the data and group items into categories. For the moment a 'raw' list is adequate.)

List these under Factor/item. The column Memory jog allows you space for a brief note (for example, phase of lesson, context) to record information to help you remember the detail.

4.                   The second task requires you to graph one student's concentration in the lesson. It is important to be aware that both internal and external factors are relevant here, but that because internal factors are unobservable, we will be gauging concentration through external evidence alone. In addition, you may like to use face drawings (see Chart 3.1b) to indicate mood (Woodward 1991).

Take about twelve minutes out of the above activity to concentrate on one student in the class. Choose someone you have a good view of but try not to make them aware of your attentions. Use Chart 3.1b to help you. The horizontal axis records the degree of concentration. At each point marked on the vertical axis, note what was happening to or around the student, for example: T's question, S doodling on paper, S gazing around room, S copying notes from board.

Affective factors in the learning environment

Factor/item	Memory jog
-      Large room, well ventilated      -   Positive T response to SS - encouraging	- -      Elicitation phase 7 mins into lesson

AFTER THE LESSON

1.    Consider the information you have included in the column Factor/item. Look at chart Categories and try to group factors into categories, for example: physical factors (room, size, ventilation); teaching behaviour (style of positive reinforcement, e.g. smile, nod).

Categories

A	B	C	D
Physical factors	Teacher behaviour	External factors
Room size Ventilation Desk arrangement	Nods Calls by name Looking through the window Sitting the whole lesson	Noise from the corridor

2. Comment on anything you observed that:

—      surprised you;
I think nothing really surprised me, because I am aslo a student, so I now how it feels, when you have to sit in a room with no fresh air and force yourself to pay attention. 

—      puzzled you;

—      concerned you;
Pupils sitting next to the open windows, because it was quite cold outside, so it couldn't be very pleasant.

—      inspired you.
Unfortunately,the observation inspired me more in a way what not to do. The teacher was quite passive and the lesson seemed to be never ending.

3.  Reflecting on the overall ambience in the classroom, what general patterns or tendencies emerged? Are these related to any language patterns noticeable in the classroom? Would you venture any gen­eralisations based on what you have uncovered here? Consider, too, the extent to which we are entitled to generalise about something internal and invisible (that is, learning) from external signs or symptoms.

4.  Consider now Chart 3.1b, where you graphed one student's concen­tration, and possibly mood(s), over a portion of the lesson. Comment on the external factors that seemed to affect or shape the student's concentration.

5.  Teacher trainers are often at pains to emphasise that there is no such thing as one good or ideal teaching style, that there are as many styles, as there are teachers.

a  Do you agree?

b  Are there stylistic features that one associates with good language teaching?

c  How ´teachable´ and ´learnable´ is the concept of style?

REFLECTION

If you were asked to describe the sort of learning environment characteristic of the classrooms where you teach, what would you say? Can you identify any conscious strategies you use to generate this environment?

Checking learning

BACKGROUND

If all students learned what they were taught at the time at which it was first taught, and if all of them grasped it equally well and equally quickly, teaching would be much less complex than it is. In fact, of course, learners do not always learn what the teacher sets out to teach —'sometimes they learn less, and sometimes other (more valuable?) things! Nor do they all learn in the same way or at the same rate. In fact, little about the elements is predictable or generalisable across a class of learners. It is for this reason that teachers develop strategies for checking that learning is taking place or has taken place.

TASK OBJECTIVE

This observation task is designed to help you monitor learning by monitoring a teacher's monitoring of learning. You will be looking at the language used in monitoring learning and analysing what each learning check achieves.

PROCEDURE

BEFORE THE LESSON

1.       Arrange to observe a lesson, preferably one that will involve the presentation of new language.

2.       Pay attention to the stated objective of the lesson.

3.       Make yourself familiar with the chart opposite and the particular items you will be attending to.

I decided to visit my elementary school in Ronov nad Doubravou. It is a small school in a little town, there are usually about 25 pupils in a classroom. Today, I was observing a presentation of comparative and superlative forms of adjectives.

DURING THE LESSON

Use the chart to help you monitor how the teacher monitors learners' understanding. Collect about five instances of teacher checking.

1.    Script the teacher's language (including any non-verbal signals) used to check learning.

2.    In each case, what is the teacher checking?

3.    Can you identify the trigger that prompted the teacher to check, for example, a student appearing confused; a necessary logical step in the lesson; repeated and similar errors by a number of students?

4.    How does the student respond to the check?

5.    What, if any, follow-up happens?

6.    What did the learning check achieve?

7.    Try also to be aware of times in the lesson when the teacher did not check for learning, but you would have; or where the teacher did, but you would not have.

1 How does teacher check?	2 What does teacher check?	3 Why does teacher check?	4 How does student respond?	5 What follow-up is there?	6 What did the learning check achieve?
´Is she still fat?´	Time focus in ´used to´	To establish concept of new language	´No, she isn´t.´	T confirms (´That´s right´), checks another S	Establishes + confirms meaning, leads on to next phase of lesson

1. "The size is different, isn't it?"
- T started introducing the topic, she pointed the difference between "big" and "bigger"
- to establish the concept of new grammar
- "No, it is not."
- T confirmed the answer
- students started to pay attention to new grammar


2. "And these two, mmm?"
- T checked on another example, if pupils understood
- to see if she can continue and explain more
- "The apple is small, but the strawberry is smaller."
- "That's correct."
- students can use a comparative

3. "But how do we say someone is even more taller?"
- T introduced the superlative
- to show students how to create a superlative form
- T didn't wait for the answer and started introducing the superlative
- a rhetorical question to link another grammar

4. "Is it clear?"
- T checked if pupils understood
- to see if she can continue
- "Yes."/nodding
- T continued to explain "More + adjective" and "The most + adjective"
- to assure if pupils are following her

5. "Is it correct?"
- T corrected pupil's answer
- to get the right answer
- "No, Jane is more beautiful."
- "That's right."
- the right answer

AFTER THE LESSON

I. Share the collected data with the teacher and discuss the checking process as seen from the teacher's point of view.

2.  Reflect on the last column — what did the learning check achieve? Add any relevant information to your grid.  
The learning check achieved to fluently continue with the lesson. 

3.  Looking over the five instances of checking that you collected, possible to do any of the following:

—      label them?

—      group them according to any similarities?

—      rank them, indicating your criterion?

Is it possible to say that questions that check for learning tend to be of a particular type? If you agree, try to describe in greater detail the type of question we are referring to here.

 I can say there were both yes/no questions and open questions. There is even one tag question. They usually focuse on assurance of understanding and on presenting new grammar step by step. I think all of the questions were appropriate.

4.  Generally, was there a neat link between the purpose for the check (Column 3) and the results of the check (Column 6)? If not, what factors are relevant here?
 Yes, there was a neat link.
 

5. Were there times in the lesson when you would have checked learning but where the teacher did not? (Or where you would not have, but the teacher did?) Think about what and why you would have checked and how that varied from what happened in the lesson. Perhaps discuss these points with the teacher.
 
I would check more times if the topic is clear, because it was clear that some pupils felt a bit intimidate to tell her. On the other hand, the teacher was paying attention to them and tried to make them speak more, which I consider great.

6. Consider again the stated objective of the lesson you observed. Was it achieved? How do you know? Did the learning checks in any way seem to propel the lesson onwards towards its objective? Did the monitoring of learning in the lesson have any connection with the reaching of or failure to reach the lesson's objective?

The goal of that lesson was to introduce pupils to comparative and superlative and that was achieved. The learning checks definitely helped. It seemed that the teacher is not even thinking about them, but asks them automatically, which seemed very natural. 

7.    Learning involves processing information and appraising new infor­mation in the light of previous understanding. What evidence did you notice through the lesson of the learners' processing meaning, for example, the meaning of new concepts, structures, vocabulary? To what extent, in the lesson you observed, did the monitoring of learning allow the teacher 'to tap into the student's head' and guess at the state of the processing of meaning?

8.  Have you any comment to make on how monitoring of learning might influence the sorts of decisions that a teacher makes in the classroom?
 Pupils' answers should draw teacher's attention to how the progress goes and whether on not it is necessary to practise certain thing again or if it is time to move to something new. Which means pupils' answers should influence the lesson plan a lot.

REFLECTION

In regard to how this observation has raised your awareness, comment on the experience by deciding which of the following applies:

—      in this lesson I found what I already knew, and have now confirmed it;

—      in this lesson I found what I suspected but had never thoughtfully considered;

—      in this lesson I found what I had not considered before;

—      in this lesson I found what I would like to pursue further.