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The skilled use of interaction strategies: Creating a framework for improved small-group communicative interaction in the language classroom
S.rstem. Vol. 25, No. 2, pp. 203 214, 1997
Pergamon P I I : S0346-251X (97)00009-2
~¢i 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd All rights reserved. Printed in Great Britain 0346-251X/97 $17.00+0.00
THE SKILLED USE OF INTERACTION STRATEGIES: CREATING A FRAMEWORK FOR IMPROVED SMALL-GROUP COMMUNICATIVE INTERACTION IN THE LANGUAGE CLASSROOM YAEL BEJARANO*, TAMAR LEVINE*, ELITE OLSHTAIN* and JUDY STEINER ++ *The Open University, EFL Department, 16 Klausner St., Tel Aviv 61392, Israel *School of Education, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel +Ministry of Culture and Education, Dvorah Ha'Nevia 1 St, Jerusalem, Israel The study reported here focuses on the need to provide ESL and EFL learners with preparatory training in order to ensure more effective communicative interaction during group work carried out in the language classroom. The underlying assumption is that appropriate classroom organization and detailed task definition, although imperative, are not always sufficient for achieving successful non-native language interaction. One way to improve the quality of communicative interaction in the classroom is to increase students' use of Modified-Interaction and Social-Interaction Strategies. The object of this paper is to show how training in such strategies improves interaction in small groups. Thirty-four students in two eleventh-grade classes in a comprehensive high school in Israel participated in this study. The classes were randomly designated as an experimental group and a control group. Both groups were involved in similar cooperative group-work activities as part of their English instruction, but the experimental group underwent special training in the Skilled Use of Modified-Interaction and Social-Interaction Strategies. Each group was video-taped before the six-week experiment and again at the end of this period. The findings, based on descriptive statistics, indicate that as a result of the training in the skilled use of interaction strategies the experimental group used significantly more Modified-Interaction and Social-Interaction Strategies than the control group. The increased use of interaction strategies improved students' communicative interaction in small groups. ~"; 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd
INTRODUCTION The use of group work in language teaching has been advocated by methodologists who believe in the communicative approach to language learning. It has been further supported by classroom research (Allwright, 1984; Bejarano, 1987; Bialystock, 1978; Deen, 1988; Pica and Doughty, 1985a,b; Long, 1981; Long and Porter, 1985; Seliger, 1977, i 983; Steiner, 1988) which highlights the linguistic and social benefits learners derive from 203
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conversing with one another within a well-designed group task. Group work in the language classroom seems to facilitate the development of two factors which, according to Seliger (1983), are important prerequisites for successful interaction: (a) a more amenable social environment within the classroom situation; and (b) a framework for the instrumental use of the foreign language in communicative, well-structured language tasks. Such classroom interaction leads to the closest possible simulation of natural and instrumental language use, which is conducive to language learning. Creating a framework for facilitating such improved small-group interaction in communicative language tasks assigned in the EFL classroom was our major motivation for this study. Doughty and Pica (1986) compared two-way information-gap language learning tasks requiring information exchange (such as role play activities) with one-way informationgap tasks for which information exchange is only optional (such as group discussions). In one-way tasks there is no inherent motivation for all members of the group to contribute to the discussion or problem-solving task; therefore, one-way tasks cannot ensure active participation by all members of the group. Furthermore, such participation depends largely on personality traits and/or level of foreign language proficiency rather than on the task itself. Two-way information-gap tasks, on the other hand, provide optimal conditions for active participation by all students and therefore generate conversational modification. According to Long (1981), this is crucial for promoting language acquisition. Based on their findings, Doughty and Pica (1986) recommend the use of two-way rather than one-way tasks in the language classroom in order to ensure optimal participation. However, one-way tasks are the ones used prevalently in language classrooms as they are usually more readily available to language teachers. It would, therefore, be necessary to ensure that learners develop effective interaction strategies which will enable them to participate interactively in one-way tasks as well as in two-way tasks. In this way, the commonly used one-way tasks can also become fully interactive activities in which conversational modification can be generated. For this purpose a special training program in interaction strategies in the foreign language classroom was developed and its implementation tested. The assumption was that such training would lead to improved interaction in both one-way and two-way tasks performed in small groups. The work of social psychologists dealing with cooperation in education sheds some light on group processing skills. Johnson and Johnson (1987); Brubacher et al. (1990); Schmuck and Schmuck (1988), and Sharan and Hertz-Lazarowitz (1978) outline sets of social and cognitive skills necessary for effective participation in small groups and claim that such skills are a necessary prerequisite for carrying out learning tasks in the smallgroup setting. It is our assumption that even the most appropriate classroom organization and task demands do not, in and of themselves, suffice to assure such language interaction in small groups, and that for this purpose the students have to be trained in using interaction strategies skillfully. The present study assumes that in order to encourage effective interaction when working in small groups in the FL classroom, in both two-way and oneway tasks, students need to learn (a) how to negotiate for message meaning and (b) how to engage in cohesive and coherent sequences of interaction.
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STRATEGIES WHICH FACILITATE IMPROVED INTERACTION Based on theoretical principles concerning interactional processes emerging from research in the fields of second language learning and small-group-cooperative teaching, it is believed that an effective interaction can be improved by training students in the Skilled Use of Interaction Strategies (SUIS). The skills and strategies needed for effective interaction or communication among members in the small group have been discussed extensively (Johnson, 1986; Johnson and Johnson, 1987). In our work, we have defined interaction strategies as comprised of two sub-types: Modified-Interaction Strategies and Social-lnteraction Strategies. Modified-Interaction Strategies are particularly relevant to participants who need assistance in the actual use of the specific language in question in order to achieve communicative goals. As such, these strategies are of paramount importance for interaction in an SL or FL language context. Social-Interaction Strategies are not language specific and are needed to enable participants to act as better communicators in any communicative setting. These strategies are vital for all effective intra-group interactions.
MODIFIED-INTERACTION STRATEGIES Research has shown that negotiation for meaning makes input more comprehensible to the non-native speaker and that conversational modification is an efficient way to bring about such negotiation (Krashen, 1980, 1982; Long, 1980, 1981, 1983, 1985: Gass and Varonis, 1985; Varonis and Gass, 1985). It consists of a set of strategies which enable both listener and speaker to alter their interactions in order to facilitate comprehension of the intended message. In our study, four types of Modified-Interaction Strategies were included: (a)
(b)
(c)
Checking Jbr comprehension and clarification. This consists of comprehension questions asked by the speaker in order to check the interlocutor's understanding of the message (e.g. Do you see what I mean?) or by the listener in order to ask for clarification of the input (e.g. Did you say that...?). Thus, participants in group activities can develop ways in which to find out whether as speakers they were understood by the other members of the group, or as listeners can ask for explanations of words or expressions that may not have been understood. Appealingfor assistance. This enables participants to recruit help from other members of the group in order to express themselves more effectively in the target language (e.g. How do you say...?). Target language deficiency underlies the need for this strategy; its use allows participants to assist each other in expressing their ideas. Giving assistance. This enables interactants to help other members of the group who have difficulty expressing themselves in the target language and appeal for assistance. S t u d e n t 1: to see a n o t h e r . . . ? S t u d e n t 2: life S t u d e n t 1: Yes,...to see a n o t h e r life.
(d)
Repairing. This enables participants to correct grammatical or lexical errors in the target language that were made by other members of the group.
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Student 1: I don't think that the kibbutz is not good to me... Student 2: not to me, for me... Student 1: ...not good for me after the army.
From the above definitions of these four types of Modified-Interaction Strategies it becomes clear that they are most useful in non-native interactions, where at least some of the participants experience language deficiency during the communicative interaction. SOCIAL-INTERACTION STRATEGIES The use of Social-Interaction Strategies may improve any group interaction involving all members of a group. They enable the participants to acquire better attentive listening and participation skills (Johnson and Johnson, 1987; Sharan and Hertz-Lazarowitz, 1978). These are necessary for maintaining the flow of a cohesive and coherent group discussion in which students react to each other and relate to what other members in the group said, rather than deliver their own independent or unrelated short speeches which results in non-interaction participation. This set of strategies includes five types of sub-strategies: (a)
Elaborating. A participant builds on a previous comment, enlarging on it by giving examples and adding sentences in order to expand the discourse unit. Student 1: I can say that on our kibbutz...it is a problem of nothing to do...there is nothing... Student 2: Y o u don't have interesting things. You don't have something to change...
(b)
Facilitating flow of conversation. A participant uses promoters that encourage continuation of the conversation. Student 1: I think you are wrong because... Student 2: You really think so? W h y do you say that?
(c)
Responding. A participant responds to a content-related question asked by a member of the group. Such responses can include expressions of agreement or disagreement. Student 1: I have a kibbutz with a lot of money so I stay. But in the other kibbutz... Student 2: I not agree with you. I think...
(d)
Seeking information or an opinion. A participant asks for the speaker's opinion or seeks relevant or more detailed information. Student 1: I think that...there are no values today... Student 2: W h a t do you mean by "values"?
(e)
Paraphrasing. A participant clarifies the previous speaker's contribution by restating it in his own words. Student 1: I can talk about my kibbutz. I know that in my kibbutz they do everything that...all this for young people to come back from the army... Student 2: Did you say...you say...that the kibbutz do everything that the young people that come back...?
From the examples given above it is obvious that even when non-native speakers have difficulty with linguistic accuracy they can become quite effective interactants by using Social-Interaction Strategies. THE STUDY The assumption of this study was that SL and FL learners need to be able to use various interaction strategies skillfully in order to interact effectively in communicative group
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activities, specifically those involving one-way optional exchange tasks. For this, they have to undergo special training in the Skilled Use of Interaction Strategies (SUIS). The purpose of the research was two-fold: (1) to examine to what extent such strategies can actually be taught; and (2) to ascertain to what extent such training would alter the learner's interaction behavior in small-group work in a foreign language classroom. A special training program in the SUIS therefore had to be developed. The underlying hypothesis of this study was that special training of students in SUIS would result in their increased overall participation in one-way tasks, along with an increased use of Modified-Interaction and Social-Interaction Strategies. Furthermore, it was hypothesized that non-interactive participation would decrease as a result of the training. In order to test these hypotheses, an experimental research design was developed in which two similar groups of students were compared as they carried out identical group activities. One group constituted the experimental group which underwent training in SUIS and the other served as a control group which did not receive special training in SUIS.
SUBJECTS A N D R E S E A R C H D E S I G N Thirty-four high school students in two EFL classes in a regional high school in Israel participated in this experiment which was carried out over a period of eight weeks. The two classes were randomly designated as (a) an experimental group which received training in SUIS and (b) a control group which did not get SUIS training. The students in each class were assigned at random to groups of four to five students each for their group activities. All groups were video-taped twice: once at the outset of the experiment (the pretest) and again eight weeks later, after completion of the treatment in the experimental group (the post-test). For both pre- and post-test, each group had to carry out a discussion task, limited to 10 minutes. The students were given a card on which a topic and several sub-topics were printed. The sub-topics provided only optional guidelines and the students could decide whether to use them or not. The experimental and control groups were assigned the same topics, which were different for the pre- and post-tests in order to avoid a rehearsed discussion. These topics were chosen from a list of 25 suggestions made by the students themselves prior to the experiment. The topics were further validated for use in group activities by two E F L experts.
TRAINING PROCEDURES
Training students Both the experimental and control classes had three 60-minute lessons per week. Of total class time, 30% was devoted to group work and the rest to conventional teacher-fronted instruction. The group-work activities were identical in the two groups. The experimental group, however, received the extra training program in the SUIS; activities specifically designed to train students in the use of the interaction strategies were integrated within the small-group tasks of this class. These strategies, which had been piloted prior to the
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experiment to ensure their proper implementation, were introduced at random over the eight weeks of the experiment. Two examples of these activities are described in Appendix 1. Training the students in SUIS was carried out in two phases. In the first phase, using the specially designed activities, the students were trained in one after another of the strategies. As each strategy was introduced its descriptive name was posted on the wall on a large placard. The second phase focused on consolidation of all the interaction strategies the students had learned. The students viewed together the video of the pre-test and discussed with the teacher which strategies had not been used and how they could have been incorporated. The students were constantly made aware of the strategies they needed to use in order to make the interaction more effective.
Training teachers The two teachers who taught the classes participating in this study were both native speakers of English who had been teaching at the school for the same number of years. They were of similar age and had comparable professional backgrounds and experience. Prior to the experiment both teachers were trained in the use of group-work in the FL classroom. In addition, the teacher of the experimental class was specifically coached in how to train students in SUIS. It was decided to use two different teachers, rather than the same teacher, in order to avoid any unintentional overflow of SUIS into the control class. However, in order to minimize teacher effect, a group-work expert coached both teachers in how to apply group-work techniques using the same materials in both the experimental and the control classes. In order to ensure similar activation of both classes, the teachers were asked to submit detailed lesson plans which had to be approved by the group-work expert prior to the lesson and to keep a log recording what actually happened during the lessons. To compare activation of the two classes, 60% of the lessons were observed. The observations of the experimental class included data-gathering on implementation of SUIS.
MEASUREMENT Two dependent variables were measured in this study: 1.
2.
Participation (a) Overall Participation--defined by the number of turns taken by the members of the group during group discussions. (b) Non-interactive Participation--defined by the number of paratactic participation turns, where no interaction strategies were used. Use of Interaction Strategies--as defined by the number of Modified-Interaction and Social-Interaction Strategies used.
An observation-tally form was developed to measure these variables before and after the treatment. This instrument was piloted using video-taped discussions of the two groups participating in the study, but on a different topic from those used in the study. In the early stages of the piloting two independent raters viewed the video-tapes and used the
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observation-tally form to rate them. Their ratings were compared and the definitions of the categories were adjusted until an agreement of at least 75% was reached for each category. The instrument was validated by two experts in the field of Foreign Language Acquisition and Research Methodology and an expert in Cooperative Teaching. Two independent raters were trained to use the instrument. An average inter-rater reliability of 0.98 was reached for the Modified-Interaction Strategies, 0.86 for the Social-Interaction Strategies, and 0.96 for Participation. An attitude questionnaire was developed to document the change in students' attitudes towards group-work that resulted from their training in SUIS. Appendix II provides a few sample comments made by students. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the results. Since the number of participants in the two groups was both relatively small and unequal (15 and 19), and since the dependent variables might be sensitive to the number of participants, a correction was done on the observations by multiplying each observation by its weight factor. The weight factor was calculated by dividing half of the total population (N = 17) by the number of students in each group. Thus the weight factor for the experimental group was 1.13 (17/15) and for the control group 0.89 (17/19). This is artificially equivalent to the use of two groups of equal size of 17 students, although in the tables the original N is indicated.
RESULTS The hypothesis underlying this study was that training in SUIS would yield higher Overall Participation in group interaction through the use of more Modified-Interaction and Social-Interaction Strategies. Furthermore, it was hypothesized that Non-interactive Participation would decrease as a result of the training. Table 1 presents the data for these four categories. A first glance at these data indicates an increase in Overall Participation and in the use of both types of Interaction Strategies by the experimental group, while no increase was registered in the control group. Further, Non-interactive Participation decreased in the experimental group, but not in the control group. Table 1. Frequency of participation (overall and non-interactivel, and interaction strategies (modified and social) Category Group
~
Experimental (N = 15)
Pre Post A Pre Post A
Control IN = 19)
Participation Overall Non-interactive participation participation 331 390 59 319 306 -13
107 14 ~93 76 87 I1
Interaction strategies Modified Social 45 88 43 16 20 4
179 288 109 227 199 28
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T-Tests were performed on these data to determine the significance of the difference. As the results in Table 2 indicate, the difference between pre- and post-treatment behavior in the experimental group was significant in the use of Modified-Interaction Strategies, the use of Social-Interaction Strategies and the decrease in Non-interactive Participation. With respect to these three variables the hypotheses were confirmed. Interestingly enough, Overall Participation in the group activity did not increase significantly. In the control group, on the other hand, no significant change between pre- and post-treatment behavior was noted, as was expected since they received no training in the SUIS. Furthermore, it is interesting to note that the increase in the use of Modified-Interaction Strategies was significant at P < 0.005, while the increase in the use of Social-Interaction Strategies was significant at the P < 0.05 level. It seems that the training in SUIS was more effective with respect to Modified-Interaction Strategies than with respect to Social-Interaction Strategies. The fact that there were no significant differences between pre- and post-treatment data in the control group indicates that working in small groups will not, of itself, result in an increase in the use of interaction strategies. In other words, although the control group was engaged in identical group activities as the experimental group, for the same time period and by comparable teachers, the students in the control group who were not made aware of the existence of interaction strategies and of the importance of their use did not change their original behavior in these aspects. A second analysis (ANCOVA) allowed us to test the differences in performance between the two groups, after controlling for initial differences. The data from this analysis are presented in Table 3. The data in Table 3 indicate, as was expected, that after controlling for initial differences there were no significant differences between the two groups in the amount of Overall Participation. However, significant differences were observed in the number of times Modified-Interaction Strategies and Social-Interaction Strategies were used in the experimental group and in the control group. In other words, the effect of training is
Table 2. Means, S.D. and t-values of participation, (overall and non-interactive), and interaction strategies (modified and social) for experimental group and control group
~
egory
Group
~
Experimental (N = 15) Control (N = 19)
Pre Post t Pre Post t
* P < 0.05, **P < 0.005.
Participation Overall Non-interactive participation partcipation X SD X SD 9.7 11.5
3.9 4.9
3.1 0.4
5.4 6.4
2.2 2.6
1.97 9.4 9.3 0.10
1.9 2.9 2.96* 2.3 2.1 7.50
Interaction strategies Modified Social X
SD
5.3 2.8 8.5 4.8 -3.49** 0.5 0.2 0.6 1.0 0.22
X 1.3 2.6 -2.63* 6.7 6.1 0.50
SD 1.3 1.7 5.7 6.1
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Table 3. Analysis of covariance: means and S.D. of participation, (overall and non-interactive), and interaction strategies (modified and social) and their F values ory Group
~
Experimental Control F
Participation Overall Non-interactive partcipation participation X SD X SD 11.5 9.3
4.9 6.4 1.8
0.4 2.6
2.9 2.1 6.15"
Interaction strategies Modified Social X
SD
X
SD
2.6 0.6
1.8 1.0
8.5 6. I
4.5 6.1
12.7"*
5.06*
*P < 0.05, **P < 0.005.
significant with respect to these two variables. Furthermore, the control group rated significantly higher in Non-interactive Participation in the post-test than did the experimental group.
DISCUSSION The purpose of this study was to investigate the efficacy of training in the Skilled Use of Interaction Strategies in improving interaction amongst foreign language learners working together in small groups. Although the training did not yield a statistically significant effect on overall participation, the change recorded for the experimental group was greater than that recorded for the control group (see Table 1). The fact that this change was not statistically significant may be due to the small number of subjects participating in the experiment. This subject requires further investigation. However, the significant result observed in the decrease of non-interactive participation is of great importance. It indicates a change in the quality of participation in the experimental group; even if their overall participation was not significantly greater after the experiment, it was significantly more interactive as a result of the training. The meaning of this is that the students did not participate merely for the sake of participating, but did so in response to and in relation to issues raised by their peers in the group, and did so by using interaction strategies. This specific kind of responsiveness turned the students into better interactants. The results were significant particularly in regard to the increased use of both ModifiedInteraction and Social-Interaction Strategies by students in the experimental group. This may be an indication that students can be trained to use these two strategies, that such training can result in the increased awareness of the benefits such strategies can provide and, hence, in enhancing their use. This study distinguishes clearly between Social-Interaction Strategies, which are not language specific and enable interactants to be better communicators in any language, and Modified-Interaction Strategies where the interactants need to ask for assistance as well as to offer it to one another in the actual use of the target language. This distinction is important since both types of strategies are necessary for simulating natural conversation in the Second or Foreign Language classrooms, their use being particularly important for one-way tasks.
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It is interesting to note that all of the students participating in this study, in the control group as well as in the experimental group, used Social-Interaction Strategies more than they used Modified-Interaction Strategies, both before and after the treatment. This is probably due to the fact that Social-Interaction Strategies are not unique to foreign language use but rather to overall communicative interaction, in which the teachers of both classes were given specialized instruction, for small groups in any case. However, it is the use of Modified-Interaction Strategies that can help students in the FL classroom situation overcome linguistic stumbling blocks. Therefore, although the change in the frequency of use of both types of strategies as a result of the training was significant, the fact that the highly significant change of P < 0.005 occurred in the Modified-Interaction Strategies is of great importance for the FL classroom setting. It is encouraging, therefore, that the training program used in this study was particularly effective with respect to this type of strategies. Several studies by Long (1981, 1983, 1985) have shown that modified-interaction promotes language learning. The study presented here indicates that Modified-Interaction Strategies need to be learned before work in small groups can enable students to truly modify their interaction, which will then enable them to produce more comprehensible input and output during an interaction task (Krashen, 1980, 1982; Long, 1980, 1983; Swain, 1985). Thus students need to acquire the Skilled Use of Modified-Interaction Strategies in order to take on some of the responsibility for making their input more comprehensible. The importance of this study lies in its definition of several important interaction strategies and sub-strategies and in the indication that there is an accumulative development in the use of such strategies due to training. It appears that students need to acquire a "repertoire of strategies" (Littlewood, 1984), such as the Modified-Interaction Strategies used in this study, in order to enable them to modify their interaction in the target language and thus be able to negotiate meaning more successfully, even when language proficiency is limited. The result of acquisition and use of these strategies will turn the students into better interactants in small group settings.
REFERENCES Allwright, R. L. (1984) The importance of interaction in classroom language and learning. Applied Linguistics 5, 156-171. Bejarano, Y. (1987) A cooperative small-group methodology in the language classroom. TESOL Quarterly 21, 483-504. Bialystok, E. (1978) A theoretical model of second language learning. Language Learning 28(1), 69-83. Brubacher, M., Payne, R. and Rickett, K. (1990) Perspectives on small group learning. Rubicon Pub. Inc. Deen, J. Y. (1988) Comparing interaction in a cooperative-learning and teacher-centered classroom. MA Thesis. Dept. of TESOL/Applied Linguistics, UCLA. Doughty, C. and Pica, T (1986) Information-gap tasks: Do they facilitate second language acquisition? TESOL Quarterly 8, 305-324. Gass, S. and Varonis, E. M. (1985) Task variation and non-native/non-native negotiation meaning. In Input and second language acquisition, ed. S. Gass and C. Madden, pp. 149-161. Newbury House: Massachussetts. Johnson, D. W. (1986) Reaching out 3rd edn. Prentice Hall: Englewood, New Jersey. Johnson, D. W. and Johnson, F. P. (1987) Joining together group theory and group skills. Prenctice-Hall International, Inc.
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Krashen, S. D. (1980) The input hypothesis. In Current issues in bilingual education ed. J. Alatis, Georgetown University Press: Washington, DC. Krashen, S. D. (1982) Principles andpractiee in second language acquisition. Pergamon Press: Oxford. Littlewood, W. (1984) Foreign and second language learning. Cambridge University Press. Long, M. H. (1980) Input, interaction and second language acquisition. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles. Long, M. H. ( 1981 ) Questions in foreigner talk disco urse. Language Learning 31( I ), 135-158. Long, M. H. (1983) Native speaker/non-active speaker conversation in the second language classroom. In On TESOL '82, ed. M. Clarke and J. Handscombe, pp. 207 225. TESOL: Washington DC. Long, M. H. (1985) Input and second language acquisition theory. In Input and second language acquisition, ed. S. Gass and C. Mudden, pp. 377 393. Newbury House. Long, M. H. and Porter, P. (1985) Group work, interlanguage talk and classroom second language acquisition. TESOL Quarterly 19(2), 207 228. Pica, T. and Doughty, C. (1985a). Input and interaction in the communicative language classroom: A comparison of teacher-fronted and group activities. In Input and second language acquisition, ed. S. Gass and C. Madden, pp. I 15 136. Newbury House: Massachussetts. Pica, T. and Doughty, C. (1985b) The role of group work in classroom second language acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 7, 233 248. Schmuck, R. and Schmuck, P. (1988) Group Processes in the Classroom 15th edn. Wm. Brown: Dubuque, Iowa. Seliger, H. (1977) Does practice make perfect? A study of interaction patterns and second language competence. Language Learning 27(2), 263 278. Seliger, H. (1983) Learner interaction in the classroom and its effect on language acquisition. In Classroom Oriented Research in Second Language Acquisition, eds H. W. Seliger and M. H. Long, pp. 89 107. Newbury House: Massachussetts. Sharan, S. and Hertz-Eazarowitz, R. (1978) Cooperation and communication in school. Schocken: Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Steiner, J. (1988) Training in the skilled use of interaction strategies in the foreign language classroom and its effect on students" participation in group discussion. Unpublished M.A. thesis, Tel Aviv University. Swain, M. (1985) Communicative competence: Some roles of comprehensible input and comprehensible onput in its development. In Input and second language acquisition, ed. S. Gass and C. Madden, pp. 235 253. Newbury House: Massachussetts. Varonis, E. and Gass, S. (1985) Non-native/non-native conversations: A model for negotiation for meaning. Applied Linguistics 6( 1), 71-90.
APPENDIX I T w o training activities f o r learning the skilled use o f interaction strategies 1. N A M E OF ACTIVITY: STRATEGY: AIM:
MATERIALS:
Coins Participation Turn-taking The purpose of this activity is to help students become aware of their own participation in the group and that of other members of the group. This is done by using a coin to represent each time a member participates in the group discussion. 20 coins or tokens for each student. A tally sheet.
PROCEDURE: The class is divided into groups of four to five students. Each group is given a subject for discussion and a tally sheet, and each member o f the group is given a bag of 20 coins. The students are told to put a coin in the middle of the table each time they talk. When a member of the group has used up all of his coins, the discussion stops. b. Group members' names are listed on the tally sheet, together with the number of coins each student was left with. c. The teacher discusses the results on the tally sheet with each group, focusing on questions such as: "Why are some students left with only a few coins while others have most of their coins left over?" and "What could be done in order to allow for a more equal use of coins?" a.
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d. Bearing in mind the points brought up in the discussion with the teacher, the group holds another discussion, using the same procedure as described above. The students are told to pay attention to how many coins each member is using. e. The group members, together with the teacher, compare the tallies of the two discussions and the differences in the results. The teacher then elicits explanations of these differences and attempts to heighten students' awareness of the fact that when there was a more equal use of the coins, the group discussion was more coherent and cohesive. F O L L O W - U P DISCUSSION: With the entire class, the teacher discusses the importance of the awareness of letting all members of the group participate: a. Dominant members (those whose coins were used up first) have to become aware o f the need to let others participate and to learn skills to help encourage others to participate in the discussion. b. The students who hardly talked (those who had almost all of their 20 coins left) need to be aware that they are in fact not contributing to the group activity. They need to learn skills which will help them to participate in the discussion. c. In order for there to be meaningful communication in the group, students need to learn how to interact with one another to promote m a x i m u m and equal participation, thereby enabling them to carry out the group task successfully. 2. N A M E O F ACTIVITY: STRATEGY: AIM:
MATERIALS:
Red Cards Repairing To oblige the students to focus on the aspect of accuracy. The activity requires attentive listening from the members who are not talking and have to try to identify and correct mistakes made by the speaker. Red cards.
PROCEDURE: a, Two pairs of students sit around a desk. b. Students 1 and 2 are given red cards. Students 3 and 4 are given a role-play situation to act out. c. While students 3 and 4 act out their role-play, Students 1 and 2 listen. Whenever Student I or 2 hears a mistake, he/she holds up the red card. This signifies to Students 3 and 4 to stop talking. d. Student 1 or 2 makes the necessary "repair". The student who erred repeats the phrase in its correct form and the pair resume their role-play. a. When Students 3 and 4 have completed their role-play, the pairs switch tasks: Students 1 and 2 act out a new role play, and Students 3 and 4 become the "'repairers". F O L L O W - U P DISCUSSION: With the entire class, the teacher discusses the importance of improving both fluency and accuracy. Points to be made are: a. One teacher--no matter how a d e p t - - i s unable to correct m a n y students at once. By working in groups, fellow classmates can correct each other and thereby help improve each other's accuracy. b. When students are aware that listening for the mistakes of their groupmates is important for improving their own as well as their fellow students' language, they listen more attentively.
APPENDIX
II
S o m e students' c o m m e n t s on working in small groups after training in the skilled use o f interaction strategies • • • • • •
I learned how to listen to other members of the group. I related to the person who was talking. The activities "did something". I'm aware that there are rules to let everybody speak, to give assistance and to ask for assistance. I now know how to conduct a conversation better not only in the English classroom, but in my native language as well. Using the skills, I spoke more and felt that my English got better.
Pergamon P I I : S0346-251X (97)00009-2
~¢i 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd All rights reserved. Printed in Great Britain 0346-251X/97 $17.00+0.00
THE SKILLED USE OF INTERACTION STRATEGIES: CREATING A FRAMEWORK FOR IMPROVED SMALL-GROUP COMMUNICATIVE INTERACTION IN THE LANGUAGE CLASSROOM YAEL BEJARANO*, TAMAR LEVINE*, ELITE OLSHTAIN* and JUDY STEINER ++ *The Open University, EFL Department, 16 Klausner St., Tel Aviv 61392, Israel *School of Education, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel +Ministry of Culture and Education, Dvorah Ha'Nevia 1 St, Jerusalem, Israel The study reported here focuses on the need to provide ESL and EFL learners with preparatory training in order to ensure more effective communicative interaction during group work carried out in the language classroom. The underlying assumption is that appropriate classroom organization and detailed task definition, although imperative, are not always sufficient for achieving successful non-native language interaction. One way to improve the quality of communicative interaction in the classroom is to increase students' use of Modified-Interaction and Social-Interaction Strategies. The object of this paper is to show how training in such strategies improves interaction in small groups. Thirty-four students in two eleventh-grade classes in a comprehensive high school in Israel participated in this study. The classes were randomly designated as an experimental group and a control group. Both groups were involved in similar cooperative group-work activities as part of their English instruction, but the experimental group underwent special training in the Skilled Use of Modified-Interaction and Social-Interaction Strategies. Each group was video-taped before the six-week experiment and again at the end of this period. The findings, based on descriptive statistics, indicate that as a result of the training in the skilled use of interaction strategies the experimental group used significantly more Modified-Interaction and Social-Interaction Strategies than the control group. The increased use of interaction strategies improved students' communicative interaction in small groups. ~"; 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd
INTRODUCTION The use of group work in language teaching has been advocated by methodologists who believe in the communicative approach to language learning. It has been further supported by classroom research (Allwright, 1984; Bejarano, 1987; Bialystock, 1978; Deen, 1988; Pica and Doughty, 1985a,b; Long, 1981; Long and Porter, 1985; Seliger, 1977, i 983; Steiner, 1988) which highlights the linguistic and social benefits learners derive from 203
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conversing with one another within a well-designed group task. Group work in the language classroom seems to facilitate the development of two factors which, according to Seliger (1983), are important prerequisites for successful interaction: (a) a more amenable social environment within the classroom situation; and (b) a framework for the instrumental use of the foreign language in communicative, well-structured language tasks. Such classroom interaction leads to the closest possible simulation of natural and instrumental language use, which is conducive to language learning. Creating a framework for facilitating such improved small-group interaction in communicative language tasks assigned in the EFL classroom was our major motivation for this study. Doughty and Pica (1986) compared two-way information-gap language learning tasks requiring information exchange (such as role play activities) with one-way informationgap tasks for which information exchange is only optional (such as group discussions). In one-way tasks there is no inherent motivation for all members of the group to contribute to the discussion or problem-solving task; therefore, one-way tasks cannot ensure active participation by all members of the group. Furthermore, such participation depends largely on personality traits and/or level of foreign language proficiency rather than on the task itself. Two-way information-gap tasks, on the other hand, provide optimal conditions for active participation by all students and therefore generate conversational modification. According to Long (1981), this is crucial for promoting language acquisition. Based on their findings, Doughty and Pica (1986) recommend the use of two-way rather than one-way tasks in the language classroom in order to ensure optimal participation. However, one-way tasks are the ones used prevalently in language classrooms as they are usually more readily available to language teachers. It would, therefore, be necessary to ensure that learners develop effective interaction strategies which will enable them to participate interactively in one-way tasks as well as in two-way tasks. In this way, the commonly used one-way tasks can also become fully interactive activities in which conversational modification can be generated. For this purpose a special training program in interaction strategies in the foreign language classroom was developed and its implementation tested. The assumption was that such training would lead to improved interaction in both one-way and two-way tasks performed in small groups. The work of social psychologists dealing with cooperation in education sheds some light on group processing skills. Johnson and Johnson (1987); Brubacher et al. (1990); Schmuck and Schmuck (1988), and Sharan and Hertz-Lazarowitz (1978) outline sets of social and cognitive skills necessary for effective participation in small groups and claim that such skills are a necessary prerequisite for carrying out learning tasks in the smallgroup setting. It is our assumption that even the most appropriate classroom organization and task demands do not, in and of themselves, suffice to assure such language interaction in small groups, and that for this purpose the students have to be trained in using interaction strategies skillfully. The present study assumes that in order to encourage effective interaction when working in small groups in the FL classroom, in both two-way and oneway tasks, students need to learn (a) how to negotiate for message meaning and (b) how to engage in cohesive and coherent sequences of interaction.
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STRATEGIES WHICH FACILITATE IMPROVED INTERACTION Based on theoretical principles concerning interactional processes emerging from research in the fields of second language learning and small-group-cooperative teaching, it is believed that an effective interaction can be improved by training students in the Skilled Use of Interaction Strategies (SUIS). The skills and strategies needed for effective interaction or communication among members in the small group have been discussed extensively (Johnson, 1986; Johnson and Johnson, 1987). In our work, we have defined interaction strategies as comprised of two sub-types: Modified-Interaction Strategies and Social-lnteraction Strategies. Modified-Interaction Strategies are particularly relevant to participants who need assistance in the actual use of the specific language in question in order to achieve communicative goals. As such, these strategies are of paramount importance for interaction in an SL or FL language context. Social-Interaction Strategies are not language specific and are needed to enable participants to act as better communicators in any communicative setting. These strategies are vital for all effective intra-group interactions.
MODIFIED-INTERACTION STRATEGIES Research has shown that negotiation for meaning makes input more comprehensible to the non-native speaker and that conversational modification is an efficient way to bring about such negotiation (Krashen, 1980, 1982; Long, 1980, 1981, 1983, 1985: Gass and Varonis, 1985; Varonis and Gass, 1985). It consists of a set of strategies which enable both listener and speaker to alter their interactions in order to facilitate comprehension of the intended message. In our study, four types of Modified-Interaction Strategies were included: (a)
(b)
(c)
Checking Jbr comprehension and clarification. This consists of comprehension questions asked by the speaker in order to check the interlocutor's understanding of the message (e.g. Do you see what I mean?) or by the listener in order to ask for clarification of the input (e.g. Did you say that...?). Thus, participants in group activities can develop ways in which to find out whether as speakers they were understood by the other members of the group, or as listeners can ask for explanations of words or expressions that may not have been understood. Appealingfor assistance. This enables participants to recruit help from other members of the group in order to express themselves more effectively in the target language (e.g. How do you say...?). Target language deficiency underlies the need for this strategy; its use allows participants to assist each other in expressing their ideas. Giving assistance. This enables interactants to help other members of the group who have difficulty expressing themselves in the target language and appeal for assistance. S t u d e n t 1: to see a n o t h e r . . . ? S t u d e n t 2: life S t u d e n t 1: Yes,...to see a n o t h e r life.
(d)
Repairing. This enables participants to correct grammatical or lexical errors in the target language that were made by other members of the group.
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Student 1: I don't think that the kibbutz is not good to me... Student 2: not to me, for me... Student 1: ...not good for me after the army.
From the above definitions of these four types of Modified-Interaction Strategies it becomes clear that they are most useful in non-native interactions, where at least some of the participants experience language deficiency during the communicative interaction. SOCIAL-INTERACTION STRATEGIES The use of Social-Interaction Strategies may improve any group interaction involving all members of a group. They enable the participants to acquire better attentive listening and participation skills (Johnson and Johnson, 1987; Sharan and Hertz-Lazarowitz, 1978). These are necessary for maintaining the flow of a cohesive and coherent group discussion in which students react to each other and relate to what other members in the group said, rather than deliver their own independent or unrelated short speeches which results in non-interaction participation. This set of strategies includes five types of sub-strategies: (a)
Elaborating. A participant builds on a previous comment, enlarging on it by giving examples and adding sentences in order to expand the discourse unit. Student 1: I can say that on our kibbutz...it is a problem of nothing to do...there is nothing... Student 2: Y o u don't have interesting things. You don't have something to change...
(b)
Facilitating flow of conversation. A participant uses promoters that encourage continuation of the conversation. Student 1: I think you are wrong because... Student 2: You really think so? W h y do you say that?
(c)
Responding. A participant responds to a content-related question asked by a member of the group. Such responses can include expressions of agreement or disagreement. Student 1: I have a kibbutz with a lot of money so I stay. But in the other kibbutz... Student 2: I not agree with you. I think...
(d)
Seeking information or an opinion. A participant asks for the speaker's opinion or seeks relevant or more detailed information. Student 1: I think that...there are no values today... Student 2: W h a t do you mean by "values"?
(e)
Paraphrasing. A participant clarifies the previous speaker's contribution by restating it in his own words. Student 1: I can talk about my kibbutz. I know that in my kibbutz they do everything that...all this for young people to come back from the army... Student 2: Did you say...you say...that the kibbutz do everything that the young people that come back...?
From the examples given above it is obvious that even when non-native speakers have difficulty with linguistic accuracy they can become quite effective interactants by using Social-Interaction Strategies. THE STUDY The assumption of this study was that SL and FL learners need to be able to use various interaction strategies skillfully in order to interact effectively in communicative group
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activities, specifically those involving one-way optional exchange tasks. For this, they have to undergo special training in the Skilled Use of Interaction Strategies (SUIS). The purpose of the research was two-fold: (1) to examine to what extent such strategies can actually be taught; and (2) to ascertain to what extent such training would alter the learner's interaction behavior in small-group work in a foreign language classroom. A special training program in the SUIS therefore had to be developed. The underlying hypothesis of this study was that special training of students in SUIS would result in their increased overall participation in one-way tasks, along with an increased use of Modified-Interaction and Social-Interaction Strategies. Furthermore, it was hypothesized that non-interactive participation would decrease as a result of the training. In order to test these hypotheses, an experimental research design was developed in which two similar groups of students were compared as they carried out identical group activities. One group constituted the experimental group which underwent training in SUIS and the other served as a control group which did not receive special training in SUIS.
SUBJECTS A N D R E S E A R C H D E S I G N Thirty-four high school students in two EFL classes in a regional high school in Israel participated in this experiment which was carried out over a period of eight weeks. The two classes were randomly designated as (a) an experimental group which received training in SUIS and (b) a control group which did not get SUIS training. The students in each class were assigned at random to groups of four to five students each for their group activities. All groups were video-taped twice: once at the outset of the experiment (the pretest) and again eight weeks later, after completion of the treatment in the experimental group (the post-test). For both pre- and post-test, each group had to carry out a discussion task, limited to 10 minutes. The students were given a card on which a topic and several sub-topics were printed. The sub-topics provided only optional guidelines and the students could decide whether to use them or not. The experimental and control groups were assigned the same topics, which were different for the pre- and post-tests in order to avoid a rehearsed discussion. These topics were chosen from a list of 25 suggestions made by the students themselves prior to the experiment. The topics were further validated for use in group activities by two E F L experts.
TRAINING PROCEDURES
Training students Both the experimental and control classes had three 60-minute lessons per week. Of total class time, 30% was devoted to group work and the rest to conventional teacher-fronted instruction. The group-work activities were identical in the two groups. The experimental group, however, received the extra training program in the SUIS; activities specifically designed to train students in the use of the interaction strategies were integrated within the small-group tasks of this class. These strategies, which had been piloted prior to the
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experiment to ensure their proper implementation, were introduced at random over the eight weeks of the experiment. Two examples of these activities are described in Appendix 1. Training the students in SUIS was carried out in two phases. In the first phase, using the specially designed activities, the students were trained in one after another of the strategies. As each strategy was introduced its descriptive name was posted on the wall on a large placard. The second phase focused on consolidation of all the interaction strategies the students had learned. The students viewed together the video of the pre-test and discussed with the teacher which strategies had not been used and how they could have been incorporated. The students were constantly made aware of the strategies they needed to use in order to make the interaction more effective.
Training teachers The two teachers who taught the classes participating in this study were both native speakers of English who had been teaching at the school for the same number of years. They were of similar age and had comparable professional backgrounds and experience. Prior to the experiment both teachers were trained in the use of group-work in the FL classroom. In addition, the teacher of the experimental class was specifically coached in how to train students in SUIS. It was decided to use two different teachers, rather than the same teacher, in order to avoid any unintentional overflow of SUIS into the control class. However, in order to minimize teacher effect, a group-work expert coached both teachers in how to apply group-work techniques using the same materials in both the experimental and the control classes. In order to ensure similar activation of both classes, the teachers were asked to submit detailed lesson plans which had to be approved by the group-work expert prior to the lesson and to keep a log recording what actually happened during the lessons. To compare activation of the two classes, 60% of the lessons were observed. The observations of the experimental class included data-gathering on implementation of SUIS.
MEASUREMENT Two dependent variables were measured in this study: 1.
2.
Participation (a) Overall Participation--defined by the number of turns taken by the members of the group during group discussions. (b) Non-interactive Participation--defined by the number of paratactic participation turns, where no interaction strategies were used. Use of Interaction Strategies--as defined by the number of Modified-Interaction and Social-Interaction Strategies used.
An observation-tally form was developed to measure these variables before and after the treatment. This instrument was piloted using video-taped discussions of the two groups participating in the study, but on a different topic from those used in the study. In the early stages of the piloting two independent raters viewed the video-tapes and used the
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observation-tally form to rate them. Their ratings were compared and the definitions of the categories were adjusted until an agreement of at least 75% was reached for each category. The instrument was validated by two experts in the field of Foreign Language Acquisition and Research Methodology and an expert in Cooperative Teaching. Two independent raters were trained to use the instrument. An average inter-rater reliability of 0.98 was reached for the Modified-Interaction Strategies, 0.86 for the Social-Interaction Strategies, and 0.96 for Participation. An attitude questionnaire was developed to document the change in students' attitudes towards group-work that resulted from their training in SUIS. Appendix II provides a few sample comments made by students. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the results. Since the number of participants in the two groups was both relatively small and unequal (15 and 19), and since the dependent variables might be sensitive to the number of participants, a correction was done on the observations by multiplying each observation by its weight factor. The weight factor was calculated by dividing half of the total population (N = 17) by the number of students in each group. Thus the weight factor for the experimental group was 1.13 (17/15) and for the control group 0.89 (17/19). This is artificially equivalent to the use of two groups of equal size of 17 students, although in the tables the original N is indicated.
RESULTS The hypothesis underlying this study was that training in SUIS would yield higher Overall Participation in group interaction through the use of more Modified-Interaction and Social-Interaction Strategies. Furthermore, it was hypothesized that Non-interactive Participation would decrease as a result of the training. Table 1 presents the data for these four categories. A first glance at these data indicates an increase in Overall Participation and in the use of both types of Interaction Strategies by the experimental group, while no increase was registered in the control group. Further, Non-interactive Participation decreased in the experimental group, but not in the control group. Table 1. Frequency of participation (overall and non-interactivel, and interaction strategies (modified and social) Category Group
~
Experimental (N = 15)
Pre Post A Pre Post A
Control IN = 19)
Participation Overall Non-interactive participation participation 331 390 59 319 306 -13
107 14 ~93 76 87 I1
Interaction strategies Modified Social 45 88 43 16 20 4
179 288 109 227 199 28
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T-Tests were performed on these data to determine the significance of the difference. As the results in Table 2 indicate, the difference between pre- and post-treatment behavior in the experimental group was significant in the use of Modified-Interaction Strategies, the use of Social-Interaction Strategies and the decrease in Non-interactive Participation. With respect to these three variables the hypotheses were confirmed. Interestingly enough, Overall Participation in the group activity did not increase significantly. In the control group, on the other hand, no significant change between pre- and post-treatment behavior was noted, as was expected since they received no training in the SUIS. Furthermore, it is interesting to note that the increase in the use of Modified-Interaction Strategies was significant at P < 0.005, while the increase in the use of Social-Interaction Strategies was significant at the P < 0.05 level. It seems that the training in SUIS was more effective with respect to Modified-Interaction Strategies than with respect to Social-Interaction Strategies. The fact that there were no significant differences between pre- and post-treatment data in the control group indicates that working in small groups will not, of itself, result in an increase in the use of interaction strategies. In other words, although the control group was engaged in identical group activities as the experimental group, for the same time period and by comparable teachers, the students in the control group who were not made aware of the existence of interaction strategies and of the importance of their use did not change their original behavior in these aspects. A second analysis (ANCOVA) allowed us to test the differences in performance between the two groups, after controlling for initial differences. The data from this analysis are presented in Table 3. The data in Table 3 indicate, as was expected, that after controlling for initial differences there were no significant differences between the two groups in the amount of Overall Participation. However, significant differences were observed in the number of times Modified-Interaction Strategies and Social-Interaction Strategies were used in the experimental group and in the control group. In other words, the effect of training is
Table 2. Means, S.D. and t-values of participation, (overall and non-interactive), and interaction strategies (modified and social) for experimental group and control group
~
egory
Group
~
Experimental (N = 15) Control (N = 19)
Pre Post t Pre Post t
* P < 0.05, **P < 0.005.
Participation Overall Non-interactive participation partcipation X SD X SD 9.7 11.5
3.9 4.9
3.1 0.4
5.4 6.4
2.2 2.6
1.97 9.4 9.3 0.10
1.9 2.9 2.96* 2.3 2.1 7.50
Interaction strategies Modified Social X
SD
5.3 2.8 8.5 4.8 -3.49** 0.5 0.2 0.6 1.0 0.22
X 1.3 2.6 -2.63* 6.7 6.1 0.50
SD 1.3 1.7 5.7 6.1
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Table 3. Analysis of covariance: means and S.D. of participation, (overall and non-interactive), and interaction strategies (modified and social) and their F values ory Group
~
Experimental Control F
Participation Overall Non-interactive partcipation participation X SD X SD 11.5 9.3
4.9 6.4 1.8
0.4 2.6
2.9 2.1 6.15"
Interaction strategies Modified Social X
SD
X
SD
2.6 0.6
1.8 1.0
8.5 6. I
4.5 6.1
12.7"*
5.06*
*P < 0.05, **P < 0.005.
significant with respect to these two variables. Furthermore, the control group rated significantly higher in Non-interactive Participation in the post-test than did the experimental group.
DISCUSSION The purpose of this study was to investigate the efficacy of training in the Skilled Use of Interaction Strategies in improving interaction amongst foreign language learners working together in small groups. Although the training did not yield a statistically significant effect on overall participation, the change recorded for the experimental group was greater than that recorded for the control group (see Table 1). The fact that this change was not statistically significant may be due to the small number of subjects participating in the experiment. This subject requires further investigation. However, the significant result observed in the decrease of non-interactive participation is of great importance. It indicates a change in the quality of participation in the experimental group; even if their overall participation was not significantly greater after the experiment, it was significantly more interactive as a result of the training. The meaning of this is that the students did not participate merely for the sake of participating, but did so in response to and in relation to issues raised by their peers in the group, and did so by using interaction strategies. This specific kind of responsiveness turned the students into better interactants. The results were significant particularly in regard to the increased use of both ModifiedInteraction and Social-Interaction Strategies by students in the experimental group. This may be an indication that students can be trained to use these two strategies, that such training can result in the increased awareness of the benefits such strategies can provide and, hence, in enhancing their use. This study distinguishes clearly between Social-Interaction Strategies, which are not language specific and enable interactants to be better communicators in any language, and Modified-Interaction Strategies where the interactants need to ask for assistance as well as to offer it to one another in the actual use of the target language. This distinction is important since both types of strategies are necessary for simulating natural conversation in the Second or Foreign Language classrooms, their use being particularly important for one-way tasks.
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It is interesting to note that all of the students participating in this study, in the control group as well as in the experimental group, used Social-Interaction Strategies more than they used Modified-Interaction Strategies, both before and after the treatment. This is probably due to the fact that Social-Interaction Strategies are not unique to foreign language use but rather to overall communicative interaction, in which the teachers of both classes were given specialized instruction, for small groups in any case. However, it is the use of Modified-Interaction Strategies that can help students in the FL classroom situation overcome linguistic stumbling blocks. Therefore, although the change in the frequency of use of both types of strategies as a result of the training was significant, the fact that the highly significant change of P < 0.005 occurred in the Modified-Interaction Strategies is of great importance for the FL classroom setting. It is encouraging, therefore, that the training program used in this study was particularly effective with respect to this type of strategies. Several studies by Long (1981, 1983, 1985) have shown that modified-interaction promotes language learning. The study presented here indicates that Modified-Interaction Strategies need to be learned before work in small groups can enable students to truly modify their interaction, which will then enable them to produce more comprehensible input and output during an interaction task (Krashen, 1980, 1982; Long, 1980, 1983; Swain, 1985). Thus students need to acquire the Skilled Use of Modified-Interaction Strategies in order to take on some of the responsibility for making their input more comprehensible. The importance of this study lies in its definition of several important interaction strategies and sub-strategies and in the indication that there is an accumulative development in the use of such strategies due to training. It appears that students need to acquire a "repertoire of strategies" (Littlewood, 1984), such as the Modified-Interaction Strategies used in this study, in order to enable them to modify their interaction in the target language and thus be able to negotiate meaning more successfully, even when language proficiency is limited. The result of acquisition and use of these strategies will turn the students into better interactants in small group settings.
REFERENCES Allwright, R. L. (1984) The importance of interaction in classroom language and learning. Applied Linguistics 5, 156-171. Bejarano, Y. (1987) A cooperative small-group methodology in the language classroom. TESOL Quarterly 21, 483-504. Bialystok, E. (1978) A theoretical model of second language learning. Language Learning 28(1), 69-83. Brubacher, M., Payne, R. and Rickett, K. (1990) Perspectives on small group learning. Rubicon Pub. Inc. Deen, J. Y. (1988) Comparing interaction in a cooperative-learning and teacher-centered classroom. MA Thesis. Dept. of TESOL/Applied Linguistics, UCLA. Doughty, C. and Pica, T (1986) Information-gap tasks: Do they facilitate second language acquisition? TESOL Quarterly 8, 305-324. Gass, S. and Varonis, E. M. (1985) Task variation and non-native/non-native negotiation meaning. In Input and second language acquisition, ed. S. Gass and C. Madden, pp. 149-161. Newbury House: Massachussetts. Johnson, D. W. (1986) Reaching out 3rd edn. Prentice Hall: Englewood, New Jersey. Johnson, D. W. and Johnson, F. P. (1987) Joining together group theory and group skills. Prenctice-Hall International, Inc.
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Krashen, S. D. (1980) The input hypothesis. In Current issues in bilingual education ed. J. Alatis, Georgetown University Press: Washington, DC. Krashen, S. D. (1982) Principles andpractiee in second language acquisition. Pergamon Press: Oxford. Littlewood, W. (1984) Foreign and second language learning. Cambridge University Press. Long, M. H. (1980) Input, interaction and second language acquisition. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles. Long, M. H. ( 1981 ) Questions in foreigner talk disco urse. Language Learning 31( I ), 135-158. Long, M. H. (1983) Native speaker/non-active speaker conversation in the second language classroom. In On TESOL '82, ed. M. Clarke and J. Handscombe, pp. 207 225. TESOL: Washington DC. Long, M. H. (1985) Input and second language acquisition theory. In Input and second language acquisition, ed. S. Gass and C. Mudden, pp. 377 393. Newbury House. Long, M. H. and Porter, P. (1985) Group work, interlanguage talk and classroom second language acquisition. TESOL Quarterly 19(2), 207 228. Pica, T. and Doughty, C. (1985a). Input and interaction in the communicative language classroom: A comparison of teacher-fronted and group activities. In Input and second language acquisition, ed. S. Gass and C. Madden, pp. I 15 136. Newbury House: Massachussetts. Pica, T. and Doughty, C. (1985b) The role of group work in classroom second language acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 7, 233 248. Schmuck, R. and Schmuck, P. (1988) Group Processes in the Classroom 15th edn. Wm. Brown: Dubuque, Iowa. Seliger, H. (1977) Does practice make perfect? A study of interaction patterns and second language competence. Language Learning 27(2), 263 278. Seliger, H. (1983) Learner interaction in the classroom and its effect on language acquisition. In Classroom Oriented Research in Second Language Acquisition, eds H. W. Seliger and M. H. Long, pp. 89 107. Newbury House: Massachussetts. Sharan, S. and Hertz-Eazarowitz, R. (1978) Cooperation and communication in school. Schocken: Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Steiner, J. (1988) Training in the skilled use of interaction strategies in the foreign language classroom and its effect on students" participation in group discussion. Unpublished M.A. thesis, Tel Aviv University. Swain, M. (1985) Communicative competence: Some roles of comprehensible input and comprehensible onput in its development. In Input and second language acquisition, ed. S. Gass and C. Madden, pp. 235 253. Newbury House: Massachussetts. Varonis, E. and Gass, S. (1985) Non-native/non-native conversations: A model for negotiation for meaning. Applied Linguistics 6( 1), 71-90.
APPENDIX I T w o training activities f o r learning the skilled use o f interaction strategies 1. N A M E OF ACTIVITY: STRATEGY: AIM:
MATERIALS:
Coins Participation Turn-taking The purpose of this activity is to help students become aware of their own participation in the group and that of other members of the group. This is done by using a coin to represent each time a member participates in the group discussion. 20 coins or tokens for each student. A tally sheet.
PROCEDURE: The class is divided into groups of four to five students. Each group is given a subject for discussion and a tally sheet, and each member o f the group is given a bag of 20 coins. The students are told to put a coin in the middle of the table each time they talk. When a member of the group has used up all of his coins, the discussion stops. b. Group members' names are listed on the tally sheet, together with the number of coins each student was left with. c. The teacher discusses the results on the tally sheet with each group, focusing on questions such as: "Why are some students left with only a few coins while others have most of their coins left over?" and "What could be done in order to allow for a more equal use of coins?" a.
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d. Bearing in mind the points brought up in the discussion with the teacher, the group holds another discussion, using the same procedure as described above. The students are told to pay attention to how many coins each member is using. e. The group members, together with the teacher, compare the tallies of the two discussions and the differences in the results. The teacher then elicits explanations of these differences and attempts to heighten students' awareness of the fact that when there was a more equal use of the coins, the group discussion was more coherent and cohesive. F O L L O W - U P DISCUSSION: With the entire class, the teacher discusses the importance of the awareness of letting all members of the group participate: a. Dominant members (those whose coins were used up first) have to become aware o f the need to let others participate and to learn skills to help encourage others to participate in the discussion. b. The students who hardly talked (those who had almost all of their 20 coins left) need to be aware that they are in fact not contributing to the group activity. They need to learn skills which will help them to participate in the discussion. c. In order for there to be meaningful communication in the group, students need to learn how to interact with one another to promote m a x i m u m and equal participation, thereby enabling them to carry out the group task successfully. 2. N A M E O F ACTIVITY: STRATEGY: AIM:
MATERIALS:
Red Cards Repairing To oblige the students to focus on the aspect of accuracy. The activity requires attentive listening from the members who are not talking and have to try to identify and correct mistakes made by the speaker. Red cards.
PROCEDURE: a, Two pairs of students sit around a desk. b. Students 1 and 2 are given red cards. Students 3 and 4 are given a role-play situation to act out. c. While students 3 and 4 act out their role-play, Students 1 and 2 listen. Whenever Student I or 2 hears a mistake, he/she holds up the red card. This signifies to Students 3 and 4 to stop talking. d. Student 1 or 2 makes the necessary "repair". The student who erred repeats the phrase in its correct form and the pair resume their role-play. a. When Students 3 and 4 have completed their role-play, the pairs switch tasks: Students 1 and 2 act out a new role play, and Students 3 and 4 become the "'repairers". F O L L O W - U P DISCUSSION: With the entire class, the teacher discusses the importance of improving both fluency and accuracy. Points to be made are: a. One teacher--no matter how a d e p t - - i s unable to correct m a n y students at once. By working in groups, fellow classmates can correct each other and thereby help improve each other's accuracy. b. When students are aware that listening for the mistakes of their groupmates is important for improving their own as well as their fellow students' language, they listen more attentively.
APPENDIX
II
S o m e students' c o m m e n t s on working in small groups after training in the skilled use o f interaction strategies • • • • • •
I learned how to listen to other members of the group. I related to the person who was talking. The activities "did something". I'm aware that there are rules to let everybody speak, to give assistance and to ask for assistance. I now know how to conduct a conversation better not only in the English classroom, but in my native language as well. Using the skills, I spoke more and felt that my English got better.