The IRF interaction pattern in classroom observation

By: Ivan Aguilar

Presentation objective:

• Participants will be able to explain how teacher’s feedback responses affect students’ learning.

To start

• Get in pairs• Decide who is A and B• A: Ask questions to B in order to keep

him/her speaking for as long as possible.• B: Answer A’s questions and try to

remember at least four of the questions A used to keep you speaking

• Keep the questions for later discussion

THIS PRESENTATION

This presentation is a brief report on the use of the IRF classroom interaction pattern during class observation.

CLASSROOM INTERACTION

“the patterns of verbal and non-verbal communication and the types of social relationships which occur within classrooms. The patterns of classroom interaction may be a part of studies of classroom discourse”

Taken from: Dictionary of language teaching and applied linguistics, Richard-Schmidt

THE IRF INTERACTION PATTERN

The IRF interaction pattern stands for Interaction-Response-Feedback. It is the minimum kind of interaction that takes place in the classroom. Most of the time, this pattern consists of a question initiated by the teacher, a response given by the student, and feedback provided by the teacher.

• INITIATION: Where did you travel?

• RESPONSE: I traveled to Cuzco.

• FEEDBACK: Good! (We will focus on this third turn!!)

THE CATEGORIESTYPES OF FEEDBACK

EVALUATIVE FEEDBACK (POSITIVE)=EFP

Indicates that the learner’s response is acceptable. (Accepts, evaluates, and comments).

T: What’s your favorite sport?S1: SoccerT: Good, I like soccer too.

EVALUATIVE FEEDBACK (NEGATIVE)=EFN

Immediate oral feedback which aims at mistake correction. (Recast, Elicitation, Metalinguistic Clue,)

T: Who is Elaine?S1:She’s my /dauter/T: daughter (showing correction)

REPETITION=REP Repeating what the student said.

T: what do you do on the weekend?S1: I clean my house.T:Ok, you clean your house

INTERACTIVE=INT A strategy to expand or modify students’ answer

T: what do you remember about the story?S1: She took her sister to the hospital?T: And then, what did she do?

GATHERING OF INFORMATION

a. Samples were taken during whole class setting.

b. Samples were collected only when the teacher initiated the exchange.

c. Samples were collected during a month observation. Some samples were rejected since they were based more on contextual clues than teachers initiation.

FIRST RESULTS

  PERCENT

Eval. Feed. + 36%

Eval. Feed. - 30%

Repetition 8%

Interactive 26%

  100%

OTHER FEATURES DETECTED

a. 26% of the teacher’s questions were addressed to the whole class.

b. 18% of teachers’ positive evaluative feedback were followed by extended comments.

c. 30% of students reponses consisted of silence or single word responses.

WHAT THEORY SAYS ABOUT THE TEACHERS’ FEEDBACK

“The feedback from the teacher enhances learners’ acquisition of language. This IRF pattern supports and promotes interaction more effectively if the teacher utilizes the third turn to provide further opportunities for interaction rather than using evaluative comment (Antón, 1999;Hall, 1998; Hall & Walsh, 2002; Ohta, 2001; Walsh, 2002).”

SOME IDEAS FOR THE THIRD TURN

• Avoid echoing or repeating what your students say:

Not so good Improved

T: What did you do last night?

S1: I went to the movies.

T: You went to the movies. Good. You went to the movies.

T: What did you do last night?

S1: I went to the movies.

T: Good. How did you like the movie?

• Avoid helpful sentences completion.

SOME IDEAS FOR THE THIRD TURN

Not so good Improved

T: What do you think about smoking?

S1: Smoking is …(pauses)

T: (immediately)A bad thing, yes I agree

T: What do you think about smoking?

S1: Smoking is…

T: (wait time) How can you say it in a different way?

• Using clarification requests.

SOME IDEAS FOR THE THIRD TURN

Not so good Improved

T: What did you do on mother’s day?

S1: I gift my necklace my mother.

T: Good! A necklace is beautiful.

T: What did you do on mother’s day?

S1: I gift my necklace my mother.

T: What do you really mean?

• Avoid extended comments. Redirect it intervention to the class.

SOME IDEAS FOR THE THIRD TURN

Not so good Improved

T: Where would you like to travel?

S1: I’d like to travel to Cuzco.

T: Yes Cuzco is great. I traveled there last month. It was beautiful. I stayed in a nice hotel and I tried its typical food. Next time, I’ll visit Mancora.

T: Where would you like to travel?

S1: I’d like to travel to Cuzco.

T: Great! What are two things you would like to do there?

OrT:Great! Does anyone else like Cuzco? Why?

• Your idea… • Prepare an IRF interaction pattern to show

your own suggestion. Think about the questions used at the beginning of this presentation or other concepts like “reciprocal teaching”.

SOME IDEAS FOR THE THIRD TURN

Your idea…

T:

S1:

T:

Conclusions

• By monitoring how we react to our students’ responses, we can reduced our talking time and make classroom interaction more interactive.

• Your conclusion