Classroom Interaction And English Language Learning And Teaching

Nowadays, English learning has become more and more important in China. The traditional teaching method is being criticized for its excessive dependence on teachers'illustration and passing on the language knowledge and neglect of developing learners'communicative competence. In a new round of curriculum reform, both the teaching model and the way of students'learning are changed compared with the traditional pedagogy. Teachers are asked to give students more chances and time to interact with others in English to finish various tasks, and so to learn English by using it. Therefore, students will be more independent and active in class and interactive activities are becoming more dominant. Meanwhile, the classroom interactive teaching technique, which is based on the theories of constructivism and social interactionism, has aroused the interest of many linguists. By analyzing Gass's model of SLA the author contends that classroom interaction, meaning negotiation in particular, has an important role in the provision of comprehensible input. Izumi's illustration on the role of comprehensible output in the context of Gass's SLA process and Swain's Comprehensible Output Hypothesis are presented to show the significance of comprehensible output to the whole process of SLA. Accordingly, learners need to participate in classroom interaction and meaning negotiation so as to produce more output. An experiment was carried out to explore the viability of the interactive technique in the Chinese EFL classroom in a junior high school.The findings of the study are: 1) Chinese students perform differently in different types of classes while engaging in meaning negotiations. They participate in more meaning negotiations in group work settings than in whole-class settings and they are more active in the interactive whole-class settings than in the traditional whole-class settings; 2) the interactive teaching technique can be a bit more effective than the traditional one in helping students master their learning materials; 3) the interactive way of teaching is superior to the traditional one in the improvement of students overall English proficiency. 4) the interactive technique is welcomed and accepted by junior high students in China.Based on a detailed analysis of the recordings taped in class and the results of the questionnaire, the study was conducted with the support of substantial data. The findings of the research are expected to be of some use in the application of the classroom interactive technique in English learning and teaching in junior high schools.