Cơ hội học tập ngoại ngữ được tạo ra qua sự tương tác trong lớp học bởi giáo viên mới và giáo viên nhiều kinh nghiệm chỉ có phần mở rộng tạo ra cơ hội học tập

This study investigates the interactional patterns of the novice and the experienced teachers in EFL classrooms and uncovers the difference of learning opportunities created from classroom interaction by each group of teachers. Through video taping and observing 10 EFL classes of English majored university students, the researcher examined the teachers’ employment of the IRF sequence (Initiation – Response – Followup) in their classroom talk. The study has found that due to the significance difference in the way the teachers used the IRF sequences in their talk, the experienced teachers were able to generate more learning opportunities in terms of cognitive development, lexical acquisition and lesson involvement than their novice counterparts. Moreover, not only teachers but also students were capable of creating learning opportunities for themselves when they are empowered. Also, the research recommended a new way to view the IRF sequence in future studies about classroom interaction.

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

GRADUATION PAPER

L2 LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES IN CLASSROOM INTERACTION CREATED BY NOVICE AND EXPERIENCED TEACHERS: DOES ONLY F MOVE

MATTER?

HÀ NỘI – 2018

Supervisor: Nguyễn Chí Đức, PhD Student: Bùi Quỳnh Trang

Course: QH2014.F.1.E2

ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH

KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP

CƠ HỘI HỌC TẬP NGOẠI NGỮ ĐƯỢC TẠO RA QUA

SỰ TƯƠNG TÁC TRONG LỚP HỌC BỞI GIÁO VIÊN MỚI VÀ GIÁO VIÊN NHIỀU KINH NGHIỆM: CHỈ CÓ PHẦN MỞ RỘNG TẠO RA CƠ HỘI HỌC TẬP?

HÀ NỘI – 2018

Giáo viên hướng dẫn: Nguyễn Chí Đức, PhD Sinh viên: Bùi Quỳnh Trang

Khóa: QH2014.F.1.E2

I hereby state that I: Bùi Quỳnh Trang, QH2014.F.1.14E2, being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (English Language Teacher Education) accept the requirements of the College relating to the retention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation Paper deposited in the library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper

Signature

Date

03/05/2018

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

When I decided to conduct this research project, I was eager to prove myself and wished to experience as much as possible in this last project of my undergraduate life However, reality struck me with hardship since day one, for my research skills were too weak, yet qualitative research was too much of a challenge to a student researcher It was my supervisor, Dr Nguyễn Chí Đức, who guided me through every step along the way slowly but firmly and enlightened me with his cool manner and his careful scaffolding when I got stuck From him I have learned from the most basic concepts of a qualitative study to how to be a real teacher and most importantly, to believe that I am capable Thanks to his guidance, I have achieved much more than completing this project Though no words could explain my gratitude towards Mr Chí Đức, I still want to send him my sincere thanks for everything that he had done

to help me thrive and an apology for the difficulties that he had to endure to make my journey easier

I also want to thank all my supportive research participants in the University

of Languages and International Studies, who had allowed me to join their classes as

an observer despite all the inconvenience I brought I could never have completed this study without them and I hope that they find my research findings beneficial to their teaching and learning in some ways Special thanks also go to my Defense Committee, anonymous examiners for their contribution to the completion of this study, to my former research methodology teachers, Ms Hải Yến and Mr Hải Hà and my former research partners for giving me a good start with research and making me less diffident along the way

Next, my gratitude is extended to my closest friends, Thao, Duy, Ngan, and Phuong Anh, who never seemed to run out of kind words to cheer me up though they might be in much more challenging situations than I was Finally, I send my gratitude

to my beloved parents, who have been the pillars of support for me and my endless inspiration This research is a reminder of their support and love for me

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the interactional patterns of the novice and the experienced teachers in EFL classrooms and uncovers the difference of learning opportunities created from classroom interaction by each group of teachers Through video taping and observing 10 EFL classes of English majored university students, the researcher examined the teachers’ employment of the IRF sequence (Initiation – Response – Follow-up) in their classroom talk The study has found that due to the significance difference in the way the teachers used the IRF sequences in their talk, the experienced teachers were able to generate more learning opportunities in terms of cognitive development, lexical acquisition and lesson involvement than their novice counterparts Moreover, not only teachers but also students were capable of creating learning opportunities for themselves when they are empowered Also, the research recommended a new way to view the IRF sequence in future studies about classroom interaction

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii

ABSTRACT iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vii

LIST OF TABLES viii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Background and statement of the research problems 1

2 Research aims and research questions 2

3 Potential contributions 3

4 RESEARCH DESIGN 4

4.1 Sampling 4

4.2 Data collection 5

4.3 Data analysis 5

5 Structure of the paper 6

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 7

1 Classroom interaction and the IRF sequence 7

2 L2 learning opportunities from classroom interaction 8

2.1 Definition of a learning opportunity 8

2.2 Learning opportunities created through the IRF sequence in classroom interaction 9

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 13

1 Research Aims and Research Design 13

2 The research context 15

3 Research questions 16

4 Participants 16

4.1 Novice teachers 17

4.2 Experienced teachers 18

4.3 Students 18

5 Data collection instruments 19

5.1 Video and audio recordings 19

5.2 Observation 19

6 Data collection procedure 20

6.1 Data collection phase 1 21

6.2 Data collection phase 2 21

7 Data analysis procedure 22

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS 23

1 Key features in classroom interaction created by the novice and the experienced teachers 23

1.1 Novice teachers 23

1.2 Experienced teachers 27

2 Learning opportunities created through the interactional patterns by the novice and the experienced teachers 35

CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATION 39

CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION AND LIMITATION 43

REFERENCES 45

APPENDIX 1: TRANSCRIPT OF VIDEO DATA 47

APPENDIX 2: SAMPLE SIGNED CONSENT FORM 54

APPENDIX 3: SAMPLE OBSERVATION NOTE 55

S1: The first student

S2: The second student

Ss: Students

T: Teacher

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 Overview of the learning opportunities in the previous studies 9

Table 2 Two groups of teachers and the number of classes observed in the research project 16

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1 Background and statement of the research problems

Most of the research in the field of language learning was constructed based

on one idea that language development has a close connection with interaction according to Vygotsky (1978) in his Sociocultural Theory Ellis (2000, as cited in Hall and Walsh, 2002) claimed that “Sociocultural Theory assumes that learning arises not through interaction but in interaction” (p.186) This means that our acquisition of language, thinking and communication skills comes from our daily social interaction (Hall and Walsh, 2002) In this way, if language classrooms are considered small communities where teachers and students interact, language learning stems from the interaction between them, especially in classrooms of a foreign language, where students have limited exposure to the target language outside of their language classrooms This assumption makes the link between L2 learning and teacher-student interaction worth studying to uncover many language learning opportunities that might be created from this type of interaction As language acquisition starts with interaction, learning opportunities that can be created within interaction are pivotal to foster L2 development

Within the field of classroom interaction, there has existed a line of research that focuses on investigating the application IRF sequence (Initiation – Response – Follow-up) as units of classroom talk These investigations, which employed a quantitative approach to looking at learning opportunities created by classroom interaction, shared one similar conclusion that classroom interaction did not often create enough opportunities for students to learn In a study on teachers’ use of positive feedback in the F move, Wong and Waring (2009) pointed out that the abuse

of such a practice prevented learners from scrutinizing their answers and engaging further in discussion Moreover, in another study that also focused on classroom interaction in an EFL class in China, when the teacher performed the IRF sequence strictly, very little teacher-student interaction happened and there was no room for

student-student communication The teacher talk was found to account for 60 percent of the classroom talk, but the teacher failed to expand the teaching content and generated almost no episodes for negotiation of meaning (Wei and Jiang, 2013), which, in turn, took away many learning opportunities from students

However, some recent research projects that looked into the in-class employment of the IRF sequence proved that teacher’s interaction with learners in the class did facilitate students learning Using follow-up questions after a student’s response, recasting his/her answers and/or having a longer waiting time prior to the

F move all promoted students’ engagement in the lesson and enhance their level thinking skills (Kim, 2010; Sert, 2017) These studies have touched upon a variety of aspects relating to classroom interaction but not yet on other factors such

high-as context or student-student interactions Besides, it is noted that previous research

in this area has often centered on the F move rather than the I and the R move Nor there has been much research relating to the comparison between novice and experienced teachers in their designation of classroom interaction Therefore, this study is hoped to fill the gaps above and provide more insight into the areas that were often overlooked by previous studies

2 Research aims and research questions

This study aims at investigating the key patterns that feature the interacting style of novice and experienced teachers in their EFL classrooms and the difference between their interactional patterns From these features, the learning opportunities created by the novice and experienced teachers will be uncovered and compared to see which group can generate more opportunities and why they are capable of that These findings will be meaningful to me as a future L2 teacher since I can rely on the results of this study to identify my weaknesses and design suitable strategies to improve my teaching skills This research is also hoped to help many other novice teachers working in a similar L2 teaching context in Vietnam and provide some

implications for teacher training course designers Therefore, this study will seek answers to the following questions:

1) (a)What are the typical interactional patterns of novice teachers and experienced teachers?

(b)What are the differences in these patterns of classroom interaction between the two groups of teachers?

2) (a)What are the learning opportunities generated from the classroom interaction created by the novice teachers and experienced teachers?

(b)What are the differences in learning opportunities created by the two groups of teachers?

3 Potential contributions

This case study focuses on a pool of teachers working in an English majored environment and teaching learners with a relatively strong language proficiency level However, the findings of this research will not be restricted to a limited context of language specialized schools only It is a common belief that learning opportunities are beneficial to students’ acquisition of a language regardless of their majors Besides, the ability to encourage language learning is essential to all language teachers Therefore, the results of this study can be transferred to other circumstances of universities where English is taught as a non-majored subject

In addition, this research project can also contribute to the development of pre-service and in-service teacher training programs The result might raise the awareness of teacher training program developers about the importance of classroom interaction On the other hand, in-service teacher training also gains certain advantages as the findings might point out some rooms for improvement in teachers’ interaction with students so that these teachers are able to brush up their skills and maximize the effectiveness of their teaching

Regarding contribution to the research field of classroom interaction, this study is expected to bring more insight into the knowledge of teacher-student interaction and student-student interaction This present study will attempt to view teacher talk with the IRF sequence and consider all three moves and their roles in classroom interaction The results hopefully can fill in the existing gaps in the literature of this field

4 RESEARCH DESIGN

This research is a contrastive case study between a group of novice teachers and a group of experienced teachers in Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, ULIS The study will compare the quantity and quality of learning opportunities which each group of teachers creates for their students Therefore, in order to extract meaningful information from the data, the researcher will keep an open mindset when analyzing the data

4.1 Sampling

The sample chosen for this research is a group of four lecturers (two novice teachers and two experienced teachers) in Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, FELTE, ULIS More specifically, the two novice teachers, have just graduated from university for one or two years and started their teaching at ULIS after their graduation Both of them graduated with High distinction degrees and The two experienced teachers have had from five to twenty years of experience teaching in university These four selected participants are currently working at English 1 Division, Faculty of English Language Teacher Education

The reasons for making teachers the main participants of this study are as follows First, since teachers play a prominent part in forming classroom activities, for example, facilitators, assessors, or lecturers, their actions and talks in class are rich sources from which learning opportunities can be formed Besides, due to their responsibility to engender as many opportunities for students to learn as possible, the ability to create such rich environment to nurture students learning is essential

to all teachers and therefore worth investigating

In addition, students in the classes taught by the aforementioned teachers will also participate in the study as a distinctive source of information, independent from that of the teachers This particular group of participants only joins the study to provide evidence for teachers’ interaction with students and the influence of that interaction on the learning process All the participants will be required to give consent to the use of their information, voices and images for research purpose only

4.2 Data collection

In terms of data collection, the researcher will observe and record three to four classes taught by each lecturer, which equals 10.5 to 14 hours of teaching The collection of data will be in the form of 10 to 16 videos and about 24 to 32 audio recordings in total There will be from 10 to 16 English lessons recorded from classes in the same academic year and with similar learning conditions and students’ level The content of the lessons will not be predefined; instead, various lessons of all four language skills will be recorded and observed

Regarding data collection instruments, the researcher chooses video/audio recording and classroom observation as the three main instruments The main data are expected to be recorded in form of videos, with all the interactions between teachers and learners during the each 3.5-hour lesson, which served as concrete evidence when analyzing the data Second source of data is from audio recordings

of students talks These will be used to triangulate the results from video analysis that the learning opportunities found in classroom interaction help student acquire language and skills Last but not least, classroom observation allows the researchers

to subjectively record the progress of the whole lesson and later use these notes in transcribing and examining the data from video and audio recordings to prevent overlooking importance details

4.3 Data analysis

In terms of data analysis, all the data collected will be analyzed using grounded theory approach First, all the video and audio will be transcribed into texts and closely examined to identify the patterns of any learning opportunities that

emerge from the data These patterns will then be coded and classified into groups, which will be processed by the researcher and another coder to increase reliability, then compare with the literature to sort out the distinctive ones After discovering the findings, the researcher will make implication and draw conclusion from the analysis results

5 Structure of the paper

This paper consists of six chapters The first chapter, Introduction, provides

an overview of the motivation to this study, research problems, research aims/questions and the potential contributions of the study Next, I shall go on to state the overview of key concepts and theories relating to the field, define research gaps from a critical review of previous studies in Chapter 2, Literature Review This chapter will also explain how the present study is expected to fill in these gaps The next chapter, Methodology, will describe the whole procedure of this research project The overall research design, research aim, research questions, the profile of the research participants, the methods of data collection and analysis will be explained in detail in this chapter All the results of the above process will be reported in the Findings Chapter In the Discussion and Implication chapter, the results will be further discussed and compared/contrasted with the findings of previous studies to explain how they fill in the aforementioned research gaps New and unexpected results will also be analyzed if any in this chapter Some implications for teacher training as well as recommendations for future studies will

be highlighted in this chapter Last but not least, the Conclusion will summarize the major research findings and also state some limitations of the study

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

In this chapter, I will first provide definitions of key concepts in the present study before reviewing previous studies about different language learning opportunities created by classroom interaction and finally uncovering research gaps that this research project is expected to fill

1 Classroom interaction and the IRF sequence

Classroom interaction has been considered a fruitful field of research, as many researchers have explored in order to shed lights on this area The most common framework that most research used might be the IRF sequence proposed

by Sinclair (1982) He suggested that all classroom interactions follow the three basic moves, which are teacher’s initiation (I), student’s response ( R ) and follow-

up (F) In the I move, the teacher introduces a task or poses a question to set off a discussion, which is followed by students’ response The F move is where the teacher gives feedback and expands the conversation purposefully Together they form an exchange, a unit of classroom discourse In this discourse, teachers and students play the main roles of contributors The teacher, to Sinclair’s belief, owns the I move entirely The teachers are always in charge of giving instruction, asking questions and students respond to what is expected from the questions The teachers then evaluate students’ answers by providing short, immediate feedback, or prolong the exchanges with more questions It is the teachers who facilitate tasks, assign speakership and decide how much students can contribute to the lesson

The IRF sequence has been found prevalent in many language classroom discourses around the world Previous studies have pointed out that, in most of the classrooms surveyed and observed, teachers always exert their control on the three moves of the IRF When studying 14 English classes for university students in China, Jiang and Wei (2013), for example, found that teachers controlled at least 60 percent of the classroom talk They lectured, explained tasks and asked questions,

thus giving students very little amount of time to answer to the point and they took the floor back either for evaluation or follow-up This obstructed learners from contributing to the lessons and demotivated them from engaging in the lessons, as can be seen from the observation, most of the students did not make effort to involve

in the lesson progress

2 L2 learning opportunities from classroom interaction

2.1 Definition of a learning opportunity

Learning opportunities created through classroom interaction have been defined in many different perspectives (Waring, 2008) According to Crabbe (2003,

as cited in Xie, 2011), learning opportunities can be considered as “access to any activity that is likely to lead to an increase in language knowledge or skill” (p.241) Zhu (2016) defined learning opportunities through the lens of teacher-student interaction as “an opportunity that teachers and students can grasp, discover, create and maintain cooperatively in social activity, which may lead to learning” Waring (2008) provided a more systematic review of learning opportunities in L2 learning

in two categories which were the cognitive approach and the sociocultural approach The cognitive approach (Long, 1996, as cited in Waring, 2008) considered learning opportunities as a process in which learners received input from the social interaction, processed information and produced output The most typical example

is the negotiation of meaning, when students get the opportunities to constantly process input and produce output in order to solve a problem Next, Waring (2008) also defined learning opportunities in the light of sociocultural approach, based on Sociocultural Theory by Vygotsky (1978) Accordingly, a learning opportunity happened when learners participated in social interaction and performed certain roles either as initiators or the receivers of information Therefore, less controlled conversations create better opportunities for students since they have more rooms for creativity From the mentioned approaches, it can be observed that there are some similarities in the definitions First, learning opportunities have a strong

connection to social interaction Next, learners need to take the initiatives to perform

an activity that promotes learning Hence, it can be concluded that learning opportunities are incidents that students gain when they actively participate in interaction with others Based on the nature of this study on classroom interaction, this definition based on sociocultural approach was adopted for the further investigation in the later part of the this research

2.2 Learning opportunities created through the IRF sequence in classroom interaction

There has been a myriad of research focusing on the learning opportunities generated from these three moves in a classroom of different cultures In language learning, it is essential that teachers can create as many opportunities for their learners to expose themselves to the target language as possible

Language

knowledge

Planned/incidental focus on form and focus on forms, Acquisition of new vocabulary (Dolson, 2014)

Language use Negotiation of meaning

Verbal and nonverbal interactions between students and teachers

Thinking

skills

Teacher’s questions (Kim, 2010; Ong, Hart & Chen, 2016; Zhu, 2016)

Self-reflection and self evaluation

Table 1: Overview of the learning opportunities from the previous studies

Among many studies about classroom interactions and learning the second language, there are several learning opportunities that can be created by teachers or sometimes by students themselves in the F move to help students get familiar with the target language Dolson (2014) studied teacher’s speech in a semester of a grammar and writing course for university students to see what kind of vocabulary students could have learned from their teacher’s speech He stated that repetition of

a language item, such as a word or a grammar point, could enforce students’ recognition of the form and meaning of the item Later, when the student encountered the item again, there would be high chance that they were able to use the item correctly Zhu (2016) argued that teachers’ questions “urged students’ negotiation of meaning and involvement in language use” (p.217) By answering teachers’ questions, the students gradually discover the meaning and form of language that they confused previously Answering also involves using the target language with a purpose Besides, Miri and Quassemi (2015) observed video tapes filming more than nice instructors of English for academic purpose classes and used stimulated recall to reveal how teacher’s language foster language learning opportunities They also found that when teacher relied on translation to the first language, it created a negative habit in the learners who tend to depend on L1 and limit their own chance to expose to the target language

The teachers’ prompts were also believed to do wonder for students’ cognitive ability Teachers’ clarification of ideas was able to force students to reconsider their answers, thereby improving their responses and also engage students in a deeper thinking process (Ong, Hart & Chen, 2016) They also claimed that when teachers required students’ elaboration of their initial answers, they also motivated students to examine their issues and perform a series of high-level thinking activities such as explaining and self-evaluating, which was beneficial in the development of critical thinking The findings were well supported by other research that teacher’s questions to students were also considered promoting learners’ understanding of the subject knowledge (Kim, 2010)

In addition, teachers’ extended F move can improve students’ participation Kim (2010) investigated two teachers’ questioning techniques and how their students’ participation and language use were influenced by teachers’ instructional practice According to Kim (2010), teachers’ questions were able to engage learners

in class sharing and positively affected student participation Another factor that was believed to affect students’ engagement in classroom discussion was teacher’s wait time Rokni and Yaqubi (2012) videotaped and observed ten English teachers in order to examine their wait time and its effect on students’ participation They stated

in their study that teacher’s limited wait time could reduce the amount of time student needed to produce quality answers or to contribute ideas fully Longer wait time allowed students to arrange and elaborate on their answer and take and hold longer turns to participate in the discussion

The aforementioned studies have proved that the researchers of this field agreed that teachers’ F move could foster students language competence and cognitive thinking and strengthen their engagement in the lesson Although there has been a diverse range of studies on the benefits of the F move in generating learning opportunities for L2 students, research that investigated the role of the teacher’s initiation and students’ responses or, in other words, the I and the R move remains relatively limited Meanwhile, studies relating to classroom management of novice and experienced teachers were diverse The scope of these studies was large, covering many aspects of teaching such as decision making, classroom management

or lesson planning In her study, Tsui (2003) concluded that experienced teachers had quick information processing, more efficient lesson planning and their responses to unexpected events in class were more flexible Regarding classroom interaction, it has been mentioned that there has not existed any study comparing learning opportunities generated by each group of teachers for learners in the L2 classroom; therefore, the quality of the learning opportunities they created need more investigating However, the amount of research that zoomed in the novice and experienced teachers in the area of classroom interaction was again rather limited

Therefore, this study will be conducted with a view to exploring the I and R in the IRF sequence to see their capacity to generate learning opportunities for learners and also providing more insight into the comparisons between two groups of teachers

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

1 Research Aims and Research Design

As previously mentioned, this research aims to identify and compare the learning opportunities that novice teachers and experienced teachers create in their classes to facilitate students’ learning It is expected that the results of this study will add to the knowledge about L2 learning and teaching, thereby helping teacher trainers decide the suitable training for each group of teachers Thus, it is vital that all behaviors and speeches produced by the teachers in class be carefully investigated because learning opportunities can be derived from these details

Considering the aim of the study, the researcher chose a contrastive qualitative case study to conduct the research In order to apply qualitative research, understanding what research means is essential Research, as defined by Merriam and Tisdell (2015), is an investigation into a case, a problem or an issue with a

“systematic manner” Built up from the foundation of research in general, Merriam and Tisdell (2015) stated that rather than calculating and evaluating the issues based

on numbers, qualitative research analyzes the meaning of people’s experiences and their interpretation through documents, observations or interviews Qualitative researchers are “interested in understanding the meaning that people have constructed” (p 15) Also defining qualitative research based on its subjects of interest, Creswell (2013) agreed with the previous authors that qualitative research focused on clarifying the meaning that a person attaches to a social issue and interpret them to develop a new theory or triangulate old ones Because of the nature

of qualitative research, it is suitable for the study First, qualitative approach instruments allow the researcher to gain access to the learning and teaching environment in person and collect rich data in forms of document, observation notes, and video – audio files These can provide a clear and detailed insight into the way teachers use their interaction with students to create learning opportunities Besides,

qualitative data are with greater depth, which offers more evidence to support the findings Other approaches cannot provide enough information to draw conclusions about this topic due to their objectivity and numerical data

One of the designs of qualitative research is the case study “Case studies, in their true essence, explore and investigate contemporary real-life phenomenon through detailed contextual analysis of a limited number of events or conditions, and their relationships” (Zainal, 2007, p.1) A case study only investigates aspects belonging to the case, which could be a person, a group or a program, an entity with limited boundaries Yin (1948, as cited in Zainal, 2007) listed out three categories

of a case study, namely, descriptive, explanatory and exploratory research This research project is an exploratory one, for the inquirer will collect and analyze the data from fieldwork before constructing research questions This not only offers authentic data but also requires a smaller amount of data compared to quantitative data, which shortens the data collection process In addition, the small sample size will let the data be explored more thoroughly and more concentrated

This research is a contrastive case study between a group of novice teachers and

a group of experienced teachers in the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, ULIS The study compared the quantity and quality of learning opportunities which each group of teachers creates for their students through their designation of classroom interaction The learning opportunities mentioned might cover a variety of aspects of language learning, including vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, reasoning skills or critical thinking skills, and even learning strategies This study is expected to uncover the most typical pattern in teacher-student interaction in L2 classes of novice teachers and experienced teachers From the findings, conclusions related to how the difference in their teaching experiences can affect the teaching quality and the opportunities to learn for students Therefore, this study can contribute to the construction of the training programs for both groups

of teachers, so that both novice and experienced teachers can support their students

better It is also considered beneficial to the novice group’s improvement of teaching skills since they could reflect on their current weaknesses and define their rooms for improvement

2 The research context

The study was conducted at the University of Languages and International Studies, where the researcher was currently studying All the participants are lecturers and freshmen of the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education (FELTE) who were highly supportive of the research project with their consent to the data collection process In addition, the English majoring environment at FELTE provides a favorable condition for the researcher to arrange the observation schedule due to the high frequency and a variety of lessons per week to choose

Second, this faculty is chosen because it is strong in training language teaching methodologies The Faculty of English Language Teacher Education has been reknown for All the teachers participated in the study graduated from this faculty, which means they all had been well trained in language teaching and had the same education background This university is also the leading institution in training language teachers; teacher trainees are provided with strong theoretical knowledge and a diverse range of teaching techniques These skills and knowledge can be applied in almost every context of language teaching; in fact, teachers graduated from this school are found working in different teaching contexts Therefore, the influence of knowledge, teaching skills and language proficiency on classroom interaction on the research findings is mitigated Last but not least, because the researcher has been studying in the school for years, her understanding

of the learning and teaching scenes at ULIS helped collection and interpretation of data become more convenient

3 Research questions

The study aims at answering the following questions:

1) (a)What are the typical interactional patterns of novice teachers and experienced teachers?

(b)What are the differences in these patterns of classroom interaction between the two groups of teachers?

2) (a)What are the learning opportunities generated from the classroom interaction created by the novice teachers and experienced teachers?

(b)What are the differences in learning opportunities created by the two groups of teachers?

Novice teachers 6 lessons

Ms Lan Class A – Social Reading & Writing: 4 lessons

Mr Long Class B – Academic Speaking & Listening: 1

lesson

Class C - Academic Reading & Writing: 1 lesson

Experienced teachers 4 lessons

Ms Mai Class E – Social Listening and Speaking: 1 lesson

Class C - Social Listening and Speaking: 1 lesson

Table 2: Two groups of teachers and the number of classes observed in the

research project

4.1 Novice teachers

The novice teachers are the newly graduated ones or have less than 3 years

of teaching as full-time teachers There are two lecturers, one female and one male, who agreed to participate in the research project They are currently lecturers who teach English to freshmen in Faculty of English Language Teacher Education (FELTE), ULIS In this study, they are addressed as Ms Lan and Mr Long, which are pseudonyms They respectively graduated from ULIS in June 2016 and June

2015 and became lecturers in English 1 Division, FELTE in June 2017 Regarding their experience in teaching, they used to be private tutors for high school students and now they are teachers for several English centers teaching learners of different age groups Before becoming university lecturers, both of them had little experience teaching English to university students since their main learners were secondary, high school learners and current employees They were selected randomly among many teachers that are teaching English skills at FELTE, ULIS

4.2 Experienced teachers

Two teachers included in this group, Ms Kim and Ms Mai (pseudonyms), have had more than 7 years of full-time English teaching experience by the time they participated in the study They both had been teaching at ULIS for more than

7 to 10 years and had studied Master of TESOL in Australia Their experience in English teaching was not only limited to in-class teaching but also extended to new course design or teacher training One of them had been supervising newly-recruited teachers in the faculty to help them strengthen their teaching skill The other lecturer used to be an English teacher in a high school and conducted teacher training classes

at northern provinces around Hanoi Both of them are highly skilled in class management and organizing learning activities in class; in addition, they are supportive to answer all the questions during the data collection process

4.3 Students

In two phases of the data collection process, the researcher was given consent

to observe five among thirty classes of the first year With around 25 to 30 students

in each class, there were nearly 150 students who agreed to participate in the research project, providing data in forms of images and voice in the video and audio recordings and their performance (writing pieces and speeches) in order to triangulate data from the teachers They were all freshmen enrolling in the two-year English training program Their entrance scores were defined by the national university entrance examination in June 2017 By the end of the second semester, they were expected to achieved CEFR1 B1+ / B2- In the program, they were taught

by the same group of teachers and used the same set of learning materials approved

by the school’s managing board The English level of the students enforced the credibility of the research as the difference made by language ability and learning environment was minimized

5 Data collection instruments

5.1 Video and audio recordings

The main instruments to collect data were filming and recording lessons In terms of videotaping, the researcher planned to film all the activities and teacher – student interaction (e.g., instructions, understanding checking, exercises checking) Since this study was qualitative in nature and the purpose of the study was to investigate the interaction between teachers and students and their behaviors in class, the data needed to demonstrate correctly and in detail all these interactions in forms of images and sounds This resulted from the fact that sole memory and observation notes failed to cover all the smallest details of the lesson On the other hand, videos and audios are able to supply such details from speech and action to facial expressions and postures, giving the coder more evidence of learning to analyze Therefore videotaping lessons’ procedure is more appropriate than other instruments

However, due to the fixed position of the camera at the back of the classroom, the videos only captured the teachers’ talk and actions in class while the students’ reactions were not consistently recorded Also, almost all individual consultations between teachers and students in class or personal feedback during in-class practice were not recorded clearly These limitations of the video data were compensated by the audio recordings The researcher randomly puts two recorders at two different positions in class during each lesson to record student-student discussions and teacher-students conversation The data from audio filled in the gaps existing in the video data and provided a rich source of evidence to verify the findings of data

major instruments that helped the researcher understand the lessons, thereby analyze the data more effectively and easily Moreover, observation was able to support the video data in case the video quality was not good enough When observing, the researcher noted the procedure, main content and the outcome of the activities Moreover, the moments that were expected to have generated learning opportunities were also recorded Regarding which criteria were used to identify learning opportunities, the researcher intended to look for the types of opportunities that had been identified by previous studies

6 Data collection procedure

The researcher planned to observe and record two to three classes taught by each lecturer, which equaled to 7 to 10.5 hours of teaching (each class lasts 3.5 hours) The collection of data was in the form of ten videos and audio recordings in total There were 10 English lessons recorded from classes in the same academic year and with similar learning conditions and students’ level Each video lasts about

2 hours The content of the lessons were not predefined; instead, various lessons of all four language skills were recorded and observed as long as the researcher received consent from teachers and all students

The data collection process was divided into two phases according to the timetable of first-year students to the researchers’ convenience The first phase lasted 4 weeks of November 2017 – the last month of the first semester The second phase occurred after the semester break and exams, from January 1 to January 29 Both phases were carried out with the same procedure The researcher started by seeking suitable participants and invited them to join the research project Each teacher received an invitation letter with brief information about the study and detailed description of the observation process so that they can consider whether to join the research Each class had a short briefing session either before or on the first day of observation in which the students were provided with information about the study, their rights and responsibility In total, four among thirty lecturers of English

1 Division and along with five groups of freshmen that they were teaching gave their consent

6.1 Data collection phase 1

The first phase of data collection lasted for a month with one 3.5-hour observation in Ms Lan’ Writing and Reading class every Wednesday afternoon from 1 pm to 4.30pm For each observation, the researcher only set up one camera

at the back of the class which recorded the interaction between students and teachers In addition, one or two extra recorders were placed close to a random group

of students in the class to assure that sound quality of the group discussions After each lesson, all spoken and written outputs of students (if any) were collected for further triangulation of the audios and videos data Observations notes were also kept separately and would be used to assist coders in the coding process

At the end of phase 1, the researcher observed four lessons in total and had collected four videos of the lesson progress, five shorts audio recordings of sample students’ group work and forty-eight pieces of writing as students output after the second and the third lessons The writings were recorded as the samples of performance of the students, since the researcher intended to examine the outcome

of the lessons observed to identify evidence which confirmed that students had taken advantage of the opportunities created by the teachers If there were any of such incidents, it could be verified that the learning opportunities were real and the findings of this study could be reliable

6.2 Data collection phase 2

The second phase of data collection was within 4 weeks of January, the beginning of the second semester This time the researcher observed 5 classes of the other three lecturers with two lessons each person, which made a total six lessons observed The procedure was the same as the previous phase At the end of phase 2, the data collected consisted ten videos for 10 lessons observed and all the audio files, documents, and observation notes

7 Data analysis procedure

After collecting all possible data from filming and observation, the researcher saved all the videos and audio files into separate folders on the computer First, the videos were watched several times to examine each separated move in the IRF sequence All teacher-students interaction was chunked into the I, the R and the F move and each separated move was analyzed in the first coding round After Coding Round 1 had finished, the typical patterns of interaction of each group of teachers were identified and noted The most common patterns were chosen to compare and contrast between the two groups In the second stage of coding, the researcher paid more attention to the effect of these interactional patterns back on the classroom interaction and how the IRF sequences function as a whole Learning opportunities were found at this round These incidents were then marked and cut out of the original data and stored in two different folders for novice and experienced groups These video cuts then were analyzed individually by an independent coder to reduce the subjectivity of the data interpretation The coder would be provided with knowledge about different types of learning opportunities in the L2 classroom and was required to identify the interactional patterns and learning opportunities appeared in the given data Later, two coders discussed all the data chosen to check

if there was any conflict in interpreting data until the final results were agreed on

In addition, the respective audio files and documents related to the video excerpts chosen were examined in the same ways as the videos to find evidence for learning opportunities taken or missed Finally, conclusions were drawn from the data about how novice and experienced English teachers generated learning opportunities in class

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS

This chapter will present the findings from the data analysis process First, all the typical interactional patterns that the novice and the experienced teachers created in their classroom will be described according to the IRF structure This is to answer the first research question These patterns will subsequently be compared and contrasted between the two groups of teachers This will be followed by my unpacking of learning opportunities that each group of teachers created from their classroom interaction patterns The results from such unpacking practice helps me

to answer the final research question

1 Key features in classroom interaction created by the novice and the experienced teachers

1.1 Novice teachers

One of the most prevalent patterns that emerged from data provided by the novice teachers was that their initiation (i.e., the I move) was often controlled in terms of content and language use, which leads to the limitation in students’ engagement and contribution

In the I move, these teachers often used “What” questions in order to elicit more information from the part of students and check their understanding of the materials or exercises at hand “What are the problems?”, “What kind of sentences should we use?”, “The order?” and “What order?” are just a few examples to name

It is clear that these questions usually aim at the two lowest levels of cognition in revised Bloom’s Taxonomy (2001), which are recalling knowledge and checking understanding Since the questions do not focus on difficult tasks, the structure and the vocabulary range in this move are relatively common and straightforward Thus, students did not have many opportunities to pick up new language codes (e.g., new lexical and/or grammatical items) through listening to their teacher talk

These features can be observed in the following excerpt: