Is there such a thing as a typical language lesson?

Abstract

Much of the current literature relating to events that take place in the teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) classroom would seem to suggest that activities and tasks follow particular formats, where the linguistic focus of the lesson is introduced, and the students are encouraged to use it themselves in some form of structured interaction, with decreasing levels of teacher support. Skills lessons are reputed to have a slightly different format, perhaps including some inductive or deductive elements, but still basically focus on increasing student independence in a particular area. This paper argues that such an understanding of the way in which lessons progress has often been based on observed lessons, involving an additional person in the classroom collecting information. However, the Observer’s Paradox would seem to suggest that the presence of an observer impacts on what actually happens whilst they are there, therefore such lessons may not, in fact, be a true representation of pedagogic practice in the language classroom. This paper draws on data from classroom transcripts of observed and non-observed lessons, and analyses them using both external and internal features (self-evaluation of teacher talk) in order to investigate some of the individual characteristics. It concludes that TESOL interaction and classroom discourse can take many different forms, and that a ‘typical language lesson’ is not typical, although it may be much more common in the context where an observer is present. Keywords: classroom observation; classroom interaction; teacher talk; language lesson