Page 117 - Beyond Methods

Facilitating negotiated interaction 105
and paraphrases, as in: “There are two young men. Two. One, two (counting). They are young. There are two young men. At least I think they are young. Do you think that they are young? Are the two men young? Or old? Do you think that they are young or old?” (Data source: Krashen & Terrell, 1983, p. 77).
Or, to use simple conversations as in the following teacher-talk based on pictures (expected responses from students follow in paren- theses): “Is there a woman in this picture? (Yes.) Is there a man in the picture? (No.) Is the woman old or young? (Young.) Yes, she’s young, but very ugly. (Class responds, no, pretty.) That’s right, she’s not ugly, she’s pretty. What is she wearing? (Dress.) Yes, she’s wear- ing a dress. What color is the dress? (Blue.) Right, she’s wearing a blue dress. And what do you see behind her? (Tree.) Yes, there are trees. Are they tall? (Yes.) And beside her is a—? (Dog.) Yes, a large dog standing to her right.” (Data source: Krashen & Terrell, 1983, p. 79).
Or, to use a situational role-play for the creation of what Krashen calls “original dialogs” among students: “You are a young girl who is sixteen years old. You went out with a friend at eight o’clock. You are aware of the fact that your parents require you to be at home at 11:00 at the latest. But you return at 12:30 and your father is very angry. Your father: ‘Well, I’m waiting for an explanation. Why did you return so late?’ You: ‘———’” (Data source: Krashen and Ter- rell, 1983, p. 101).
LIMITATIONS OF INTERACTION AS A TEXTUAL ACTIVITY
The examples given above illustrate one essential feature of inter- action as a textual activity, namely, the simplified nature of lan- guage use by the teacher. Krashen has convincingly argued that comprehensible input is necessary to help the learners understand this information. However, the importance given to the input aspect of interaction is such that there is very little exchange of informa- tion one would normally associate with an interactional activity. In fact, several interactional studies (see Gass, 1997, for a comprehen- sive review) have questioned Krashen’s claim that linguistic input can be made comprehensible without any active participation on the part of the learner. Studies show that learner comprehension can best be assisted by input as well as interactional modifications, a belief captured in the interaction hypothesis.