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.