Page 128 - Beyond Methods

116 Facilitating negotiated interaction
called the IRF sequence, that is, the teacher initiates (I), the learner responds (R), the teacher supplies feedback (F), and the sequence continues. For example, consider the following exchange taken from a beginning ESL class:
1. Teacher:
2. Keiko:
3. Teacher:
4. Carlos:
5. Teacher:
6. Maria:
7. Teacher:
Episode 5.2
How many elephants are there in the picture? . . . How many elephants? . . . Keiko?
Two.
Two . . . good. What are the elephants doing? . . . Carlos, what are the elephants doing?
Fight . . . fighting.
They are fighting. Uh-huh . . . According to the writer, what dies when two elephants fight? What dies . . . ? Maria?
mm . . . grass.
The grass, that’s right. When two elephants fight, it’s the grass that dies. (laughs) OK . . .
(Data source: Author)
As is clear, the teacher initiates the talk by asking a question (turn 1), a student responds (turn 2), and the teacher acknowledges her response by saying, “That’s right” (turn 3). And, in the same turn (3), the teacher asks the next question, a student responds (turn 4), and the response is evaluated by the teacher (turn 5), and so on. This kind of IRF structure rarely provides any opportunity for the learn- ers to ask questions or to express their views. In most traditional classes where the teacher controls talk management, the IRF struc- ture predominates.
If teachers can hardly promote negotiated interaction by exces- sively adhering to the familiar IRF structure, the question then arises: what sort of talk management is necessary to promote nego- tiated interaction in class? In other words, how does one tell a class- room where negotiated interaction takes place from one where it does not? Consider the following episode taken from another ESL class of beginning level proficiency: