the relationship between class size and young …

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UNIVERSITAS PENDIDIKAN INDONESIA (UPI) perpustakaan.upi.edu | repository.upi.edu | upi.edu

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CLASS SIZE AND YOUNG

LEARNERS’ INVOLVEMENT IN INTERACTION

WITH TEACHER:

A Preliminary Study of Two Different-Size EFL Classes

Erfan

Indonesia University of Education

ABSTRACT

Observing the interaction among learners and their teachers is really necessary in

order to know what makes comprehensible input that can be internalized and to

notice effective output for externalization as realization of the function of linguistic

structure. This article focuses on the relationship between interaction patterns in

different class-size, especially the students’ involvement to the interaction.

Employing conversational analysis and qualitative investigation of problems based

on theoretical framework, this study found out that different teachers’ talk initiates

different involvement of interaction. The patterns of interaction between students and

teacher depend on what the content of talk itself is. In this preliminary study, the

teacher of the larger class size tended to talk in order to make the students act

because the talk or the instruction is addressed to many individuals. Meanwhile, the

teacher of smaller class size tended to talk in order to generate students’

communicative competence because the teacher addressed individual. In addition,

because of the pattern of interaction in the context of this study site, the smaller class

size has high-involvement interaction whether between teacher and students or

student and student. The high involvement interaction is apparent in the topics,

pacing, narrative strategies, and expressive phonology, as pragmatic aspects of

high-involvement interaction.

Keywords: class-size, teachers’ talk, and high-involvement interaction

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A. Introduction

Acquiring language in the primary years is really important. Language

reflects the complexity of human brain – because more than anything else, language

is what shapes the human brain during critical period in which each individual moves

from infancy into and through early childhood (Halliday, 2005). In adolescent

period, thinking about language is taken for granted because naturally adult people

tend to pay attention to the function of linguistic utterance rather that conscious

attention to what is heard and said. Therefore, explaining issues about language

education in practical situation is really important to know the map of how language

is used in its acquisition period.

Practically and formally, deliberate language education in childhood period

takes place in classroom, especially for education in which the conscious attention to

linguistic awareness is developed. Many observations on many aspects of teaching

and learning in a classroom have been conducted to reveal what makes difference

among one educational program to others. Debate in determining the effectiveness of

teaching because of some aspects of teaching-learning emerges, such as different

view about class size toward teaching effectiveness (Blatchford, 2003). Debate about

class size affect many aspects of teaching, such as teaching activities, teaching

support, children attention, peer-relation, etc.

The effectiveness of teaching in the smaller size of class, one of them, is

because of the availability of interaction between teacher who presumably has better

knowledge about particular language and his/her students who still evolve to better

use of that particular language. Interaction with the experienced in using language is

really important in facilitating second language learning (Swain and Suzuki, 2008).

Interaction does not only provide more input but also chance to make output for an

enhancement of language use, called externalization.

Observing the interaction among learners and their teachers is really

necessary in order to know what makes comprehensible input that can be internalized

and to notice effective output for externalization as realization of the function of

linguistic structure. However, there should be careful attention to how the interaction

is acted out. Interaction meant by Swain and Suzuki (2008) is a communicative one,

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in which students participate and are engaged in two-way talks so that the talks

become meaningful. This meaningful communication can also provide corrective

feedback for language learning.

This article focuses on the interaction between teachers and students. The

observation about the significance of interaction in classroom has been conducted,

such as done by Swain and Suzuki, but further notice about the relationship between

interaction pattern and class-size, especially the students’ involvement to the

interaction, still needs investigating. This article investigates the students’

involvement in interaction with teachers. Because of diversity of interaction that can

emerge from those variables, the following questions clarify what this article tries to

find out:

1. Does teachers’ talk make students’ high-involvement interaction?

2. Which class-size that shows students’ high-involvement in interaction with

teachers?

Constructive Talk

Teachers’ job involves a lot of talk (Coultas, 2009). Teachers may make

questions, direction, instruction, information, etc., in classroom. What this article

means by talk, particularly teacher’s talk, refers to variety of language sometimes

used by teachers when they are in the process of teaching (Richards & Schmidt,

2002). In trying to communicate with learners, teachers often simplify their speech,

giving it many of the characteristics of foreigner talk and other simplified styles of

speech addressed to language learners. By this teacher talk, teacher tries to make

support as well as demand in teaching process to bridge students for comprehensible

input or stimulate meaningful output.

In determining what kind of talk that teacher should do in the classroom,

Coultas (2009) suggests constructive talk that can lead student to attentive listening

and high involvement in the classroom. She noticed some features of constructive

talk, as the followings:

1. Being ready for the pupils and greeting them on arrival

2. Talking about direct experience and encouraging pupils to do the same

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3. Encouraging students to work in pairs and small groups and training them to

share and value each other’s ideas and opinions

4. Setting up informal debates and panels to encourage students to express their

opinions and giving them a chance to speak to different audiences

5. Allowing students to become involved in peer mentoring or reading projects with

younger students

6. Talking one-to-one with the pupils about the lesson and about other issues of

interest to them

7. Making it clear why speaking and listening are important and recording and

rewarding pupils for progress in this strand

8. Using different arrangements of furniture, different rooms for different activities,

and different equipment, e.g. tape recorders, video cameras and ICT, to record

and develop oral skills

9. Using open-ended questions and allowing pupils to do the same

10. Encouraging pupils to evaluate their learning and showing pupils that you will

adapt your teaching as a result of their feedback

11. Talking about how we learn and establishing ground rules for talk.

Related to class size, the talk of teachers sometimes shows domination in the

classroom. Walsh (2002) identifies some features of teacher’s talk wherein the

following features happen because of too large extent of EFL classroom:

1. teachers largely control the topic of discussion;

2. teachers often control both content and procedure;

3. teachers usually control who may participate and when;

4. students take their cues from teachers;

5. role relationships between teachers and learners are unequal;

6. teachers are responsible for managing the interaction which occurs;

7. teachers talk most of the time;

8. teachers modify their talk to learners;

9. learners rarely modify their talk to teachers; and

10. teachers ask questions (to which they know the answers) most of the time.

Children’s Talking in the Language Teaching Classroom

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In order to be able to talk, children must have acquired the ability to use

language. There are three senses when asserting child’s acquisition of language

(Bruner, 1983: 17):

1. The first is in terms of well-formedness: that he or she is becoming able to make

utterances that conform to the rules of grammar.

2. The second is its capacity to refer and to mean. There might be a child who can

construct utterances that syntactically well formed but that do not mean anything.

3. The third is its function and communicative intent or how to get things done with

words.

In developing children’s language, comprehensible input is necessary. To

understand language, one must have gone a little beyond where he/she is now. In

order to achieve it, the use of context, knowledge of the world, extra linguistic

information is helpful to understand new language (structure) (Krashen, 1982).

Exposure to the target language (language being learned) takes better role, for this

view, than training to use certain function of some structure of language.

The view about language learning above has ever stood out through years

before output hypothesis of Swain’s develops such view. From Swain’s hypothesis,

language learning is expected to be more communicative and meaningful not only in

one-way, teacher to students, but also students to teacher. Therefore, interaction

between teachers and learners facilitates language teaching (Swain & Suzuki, 2008).

Attention, noticing, and awareness of students’ as learning in communicative

situation are increased as they are involved within. In order to acquire language in

those three senses it is very necessary for students to communicate what they have

got so that immediate feedback can confirm the use of the language they have

acquired.

Domination of adult, parents or teachers, to children in terms of

communication is getting attention from children caretaker. This is not only about the

needs of language acquisition but also, in the sense of human right (law) (McLeod,

2008). Allowing children to talk, McLeod adds, makes the work with them more

effective. In language teaching in communicative situation, collaboration between

teachers and students is really necessary to make the communication more

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meaningful, besides giving their right to talk. The chance to talk for children leads

them to high-involvement of children in the interaction (talks).

Another support for this view is article by Brown and Kennedy (2011) about

students’ learning through conversation. Teacher-students interaction supports the

socialization experience of students, and in addition to that, the interaction also

supports the very process of learning. From the beginning to end of the program,

Brown and Kennedy (2011) notice certain shift of conversation pattern between

teachers and learners. At first, the students still need support even to participate in

the conversation, but at the end, classroom conversation became more typical of a

dialogue, of course, with cooperative support of the teachers.

Study about the relationship between class-size and teaching process has been

conducted, as Blatchford, et.al. did for their comprehensive investigation using

multimethod analysis. The result shows that in smaller classes there is more

individualized teacher support for learning (Blatchford, et.al., 2002). Smaller classes

provide more teaching time allocation to each individual. This time allocation

becomes the main reason that students’ individual support from teacher can be

provided. However, longer time allocation doesn’t guarantee for students’

involvement to the interaction.

High-Involvement Interaction Features

Students’ involvement in interaction with their teachers is really important as

indicated in the output hypothesis as externalization and confirmation of their

knowledge. In addition, this involvement also helps the ‘original mental capacities’

in learning language, namely, means-end readiness; a sensitivity to transactional

enterprises; systematicity in organizing experience; and abstractness in rule

formation (Bruner, 1983). By trying to speak up what they mean, students develop

‘means-end readiness’. Transactional enterprises are also constructed as they try to

make interactive talk with others. Systematicity in organizing experience is enhanced

by the practice of experiencing the using of language. Finally, the abstractness in rule

formation is characterized as they do externalization of using the language.

Is every student’s conversation with teacher always good for learning?

Mercer (2002; in Brown and Kennedy, 2002) believes that good conversation for

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learning in the classroom is exploratory talk, which explores students’ emotion or

social behavior in a interactive and collaborative ways.

The characteristics of exploratory talk are included in the high involvement

interaction. Therefore identification of kinds of interaction in the classroom is

identified in the sense of its language features proposed by Tannen (2005). She

identified some conversational styles. By identifying the features of certain

conversational style, she noticed interpersonal involvement of certain conversation

by the following features:

1. Topic

a. Prefer personal topics

b. Shift topics abruptly

c. Introduce topics without hesitation

d. Persist (if a new topic is not immediately picked up, reintroduce it, repeatedly

if necessary)

2. Pacing

a. Faster rate of speech

b. Faster turn taking

c. Avoiding interturn pauses (silence shows lack of rapport)

d. Cooperative overlap

e. Participatory listenership

3. Narrative strategies

a. Tell more stories

b. Tell stories in rounds

c. Prefer internal evaluation (i.e., the point of a story is dramatized rather than

lexicalized)

4. Expressive paralinguistics

a. Expressive phonology

b. Marked pitch and amplitude shifts

c. Marked voice quality

d. Strategic within-turn pauses

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By identifying features above, interaction in the two different-size classes is able to

be identified. This features become means to map the pattern of relationship between

class-size and students’ interaction with their teacher.

B. Method

Main objectives of this study are to depict and to report into visible

presentation about what happened in two classes of different size in terms of the

teacher-students interaction in language teaching process. This article leans towards

employing grounded theory study of qualitative research. This study doesn’t try to

quantify the data with statistical measurement or analysis so that qualitative research

is appropriate for this study (Marczyk et. al., 2005: 17). Grounded theory study is

employed in this study for it can move beyond description to generate or discover a

theory, an abstract analytical schema of a process (Creswell, 2005: 62-63).

In addition, some principle of conversational analysis (CA) is also used in

this article in order to interpret the interaction. Conversation analysis is an approach

to the study of social interaction that focuses on practices of speaking that recur

across a range of contexts and settings (Sidnell, 2009). This article analyzed the

conversation happened in two classes of different size that consist of two teachers of

each class and different amounts of their students. Teachers’ interactions with

students in the classroom – instruction, questioning or consulting – are analyzed in

terms of involvement in the interactions. The pattern that emerges from this study is

the quest of this article.

Selection of sample in this study is by certain evaluation towards the purpose

of this study. This kind of sample refers to sample purposive in which not only

human as respondent is taken into consideration but also its setting and process

(Alwasilah, 2009: 145-146). There are two classes of different sizes. The first class

consisted of one teacher and twelve students of Kabar Baik Elementary School. The

second one consisted of one teacher and two students of Balai Bahasa Universitas

Pendidikan Indonesia Bandung.

In collecting data, this study used video and audio recording. The lessons

from audio and video recordings gives advantages in that it is possible to examine

the teaching process many times as required (Richard and Lockhart, 2007). Therefore

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focus on what to investigate is easy to examine. Moreover, the conversation analysis

requires careful study of utterances in the teaching process. In order to capture such

conversation this data collection instruments is necessary.

After data (recordings) were collected, examination and reflection of the

recordings is necessary to do in many times so that the data can be displayed.

Displaying as a way to analyze data will be used to depict the research question

(Alwasilah, 2009: 164). Later on categorization is necessary to sort the data into

certain categories using constant comparison (Alwasilah, 2009: 162).

Participant can affect the process of the study because of his/her unique

motives, attitudes, behaviors (Marczyk et. al., 2005: 77). Bias can be reduced by

good control of this participant of research. Because qualitative research take the

setting in the natural one, the recordings of teaching process was taken in a careful

technique so that the teaching process went undisturbed and naturally.

C. Findings and Discussion

1. The Larger Class

Topic

In the larger class, there were some topics presented. The topics were still

general, such as movement and feelings. Those topics were presented to the students

repeatedly in different activities, for example, topics about movement, first were

presented in TPR:

Teacher : Stand up!

(Students moved as the teacher ordered)

The use of this TPR, in terms of topics related to high involvement of

communication in Tannen’s (2007) perspective, doesn’t indicate high involvement

because the topics doesn’t refer to personal topics that address individual experience

and generate further ideas for interaction.

Another example of activities conducted in the larger class is as the following

teachers’ instruction indicates:

Teacher: Do exercise page 95! 5 minutes!

(Students begun to do the exercise, matching the vocabulary list and its

picture)

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The instruction above was addressed to all students in the class to do what is

instructed in the textbook. By such instruction, students were expected to do an

activity. To this end, students did not reply teacher’s talk by students’ verbal action,

but by students’ action to do the exercise.

Beside this class used impersonal topics, this class did not show mutual

revelation in teachers talk all along the lesson. Mutual revelation, in which speakers

and interlocutors present their new ideas and showed their experiences along the

interaction, shows involvement in an interaction (conversation) (Tannen, 2007). In

the larger class, the highest involvement of students was in the question or request of

students’ for support in dong the exercise.

A Student : Bu, ini dibagaimanakan?

Teacher : dijodohkan, semuanya pakai bahasa Inggris.

Pacing

In term of speed rate of speech, teacher of the larger class talks in a slow

speed rate of speech. This slow speed rate of speech was very common happening in

young learners’ classroom, in the sense that most of young learners are in need of

clarity of speech so that repetition and slow teacher’s talk is common. The teacher

talk didn’t demand turn-taking of conversation.

Narrative Strategies

There were no narrative strategies in the larger class. It makes sense because

students of the class still have lack of communicative competence in the target

language. In addition, the topics and activities chosen in the class were not

communicative enough.

Expressive Paralinguistic

Expressive phonology was found in this class not in terms of teacher-students

talk but in interaction with other students out of topics of the class. Students’

expressive paralinguistics was not found in terms of English language lesson.

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2. Smaller Classes

Topic

The topics in the smaller class size are various because the interaction

between teacher and students is communicative enough. The teacher didn’t only

instruct the students to do some action, but the teacher, also and most of the time,

talked to make interaction with her students. The topics were always changing in this

class. Activity called “guessing words” took some topics about everything that is

interesting for the students themselves.

Teacher : I have five words, here. Do you know what should we do we

do?

Male Student : Nyambungin kata?

Teacher : No. guess.

Male student : ohh.

Teacher : Do you know, “guess”?

Conversation above shows high-involvement interaction between teacher and learner

because students made critical response to what the teacher asked. The conversation

is communicative in terms of the consistency to the topics.

Personal topics were found in this class. Personal topics that engaged students

emotionally with their personal experience shows that the conversation happened in

the classroom was high-involvement interaction (Tannen, 2007). Firstly, the words

that students wrote on the whiteboard are, all of them, connected to their personal

experience. Later on, they also gave the clues to the words chosen and made reason

why they wanted to pick those words.

Teacher : Lion. (The teacher choose one word on the whiteboard to

guess)

Student: Yes.

Teacher : Is it your favorite animal?

Student: yes.

Teacher : oh, so do you like lion?

Student: yes.

This conversation shows the personal preferences of the student. Interactive

conversation happened although it is still simple. The student understood the

questions that the teacher asked, although they (the students) could not make clear

questions as such.

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Another characteristic of high-involvement interaction is topics shifting

abruptly.

Teacher : Bandung

Male Student : Is it your hometown?

Female Student: No.

Teacher : Is it your house?

F student : No.

Teacher : So what?

F Student : Aku ngasih tahu ke miss tapi miss jangan ngasih tahu ke

arum? (I’ll tell you but you don’t tell Arum)

Teacher : Why not?

F student : Kan rahasia. (It’s a secret)

Teacher : Can you give a clue?

F student : ‘clue’ tuh naon? (‘Clue’, what is the meaning of it?)

Teacher : Clue itu ya semacam ‘ciri-ciri’. (‘Clue’ is something kind of

‘signs’)

This conversation shows how the conversation topics change abruptly. First they

talked about ‘Bandung’ meant by the female student, and then, the topics changed to

the meaning of ‘clue’. The teacher followed the interaction flow in guiding direction.

Hesitation in changing the topics was not apparent, the student asked without asking

for permission or apologizing.

Pacing

Different from the larger class size, this smaller class showed some turn-

taking, inter-turn pause and participatory listenership. As exemplified from the

conversation above, the turn, although still simple, flowed smoothly. Overlap was

not found there, although silences between turns were sometimes found, soon the

teacher took care of it and led the conversation. Participatory listenership was

apparent in the interaction as when someone presented the words, others guessed the

words.

Narrative Strategies

Narrative strategies in this smaller class size were found. One of those

strategies found in this smaller class size is tell more stories. In this, occasion the

female students told the teacher the secret behind the word she presented.

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(The female student whispered to her teacher)

Teacher: Why?

Student : Aku teh kan ceritanya, pertamaya pengen punya mobil. Terus...

: (I’ve got stories that at first I would like to have a car. And then…)

This conversation shows ‘tell more stories’ characteristics as the topics needed

clarifying and involved the student’s emotional experience about her expectation.

Expressive Paralinguistic

Expressive phonology was found in the smaller class size.

Female Student: Is it your favorite food?

Male student: No.

Female student: Ayam goreng kan? Is it your… makanan kan?

Male student: Ayoo…

Female student: Is it you father’s favorite food?

Male student: No.

Female student: Is it your brother’s favorite food?

Male student: Yeah.

Female student: Yeeeeee…

It’s notable ‘ayoo’ and ‘yeee’ is recognized to be expressive phonology in which

involvement of expression is dominant more than its semantic meaning is. By such

expression, it can be assumed that in terms of expressive paralinguistic, this smaller

class size shows a high-involvement interaction.

D. Implication

1. From above discussion, it implies that different teachers’ talk initiates

different involvement of interaction. The patterns of interaction between

students and teacher depend on what the content of talk itself is. In this

preliminary study, the teacher of the larger class size tended to talk in order to

make the students act because the talk or the instruction is addressed to many

individuals. Meanwhile, the teacher of smaller class size tended to talk in

order to generate students’ communicative competence because the teacher

addressed individual.

2. From conversational analysis view, because of the pattern of interaction in

the context of this study site, the smaller class size has high-involvement

interaction whether between teacher and students or student and student. The

high involvement interaction is apparent in the topics, pacing, narrative

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strategies, and expressive phonology, as pragmatic aspects of high-

involvement interaction.

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REFERENCES

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Bruner, Jerome. 1983. Child’s Talk: Learning to Use Language. Oxford: Oxford

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Christie, Frances. 2005. Language Education in the Primary Years. Australia:

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