Encouraging Students to Interact with the Teacher
Roger Nunn

Conversational analysts place great emphasis on the fact that conversation is a participant-managed system in which there is a constant process of adjustment between participants to ensure that real communication takes place. This is particularly true when communication is between members of different cultures, between, for example, my Japanese students and myself, a British teacher. Of particular relevance to this discussion is the notion of self-selection. Self-selection is a term used in the analysis of turn-taking to indicate that a speaker was not nominated to speak by another participant, but selected him or herself (Sacks et al. (1978:12/13)). In the case of teacher-fronted classroom interaction, it is difficult to persuade students that they may self-select when the teacher is speaking. The formal setting of the classroom and large class sizes exacerbate this difficulty. This lesson plan aims at initiating a system which encourages students to self-select whenever they haven`t understood.
Target Language - Asking for Clarification
It is advisable to isolate a few expressions for the students to focus on. Five seemed to be the maximum in one lesson for a post-elementary class. (Based on Geddes and Sturtridge 1992)
Excuse me, I didn`t quite catch that.
I`m sorry, could you repeat that more slowly, please.
I still haven`t quite got that. Would you mind repeating it again, please?
I`m sorry, I don`t understand. What does X mean?
Could you spell that, please?
Lesson Steps
These steps all have the ultimate goal of getting students to use the function of asking for clarification in whole-class conversation with the teacher. The measure of success of the lesson will be the extent to which the students actively ask for clarification in the last stage of the lesson.
Step 1. Listening
Present a conversation that illustrates the use of the target language in context rather than drilling it out of context.
Customer: I`d like a stamp for Afghanistan, please.
Assistant: Excuse me, I didn`t quite catch that.
Customer: I`d like a stamp for this airmail letter to Afghanistan.
Assistant: I still haven`t quite got that. Would you mind repeating the name of the country again, please?
Customer: Afghanistan.
Assistant: Afghanistan, sure. That`s 110 yen.
Customer: And I`ve got another airmail letter for Qatar.
Assistant: I`m sorry. Could you repeat that more slowly please?
Customer: Yes, sure. I need another stamp for Qatar.
Assistant: Could you spell that, please?
Customer: Sure. Qatar is spelt Q-A-T-A-R.
Assistant: Q-U-A
Customer: No. There isn`t a U. Q-A-T-A-R.
Assistant: Q-A-T-A-R. Oh, I`ve got it. Near Saudi Arabia. That`s 110 yen too.
Customer: My father is a philatelist. Do you have any special stamps?
Assistant: I`m sorry. I don`t understand philatelist.
Customer: My father collects stamps.
Assistant: Oh! I understand. Yes, We have some very nice collection stamps this week.
It is helpful to ignore the target function at this stage, and to set questions only on the content of the conversation. In this way, students become very familiar with the conversation before the main point of the lesson is taught. After this stage, a gap-filling exercise is used to focus only on the target phrases. Checking the students` answers around the class provides an informal opportunity for modelling the pronunciation of the phrases, practising making key words prominent and imitating intonation patterns. In this way, the selected examples of the target language of the function of asking for clarification have been practised just before they have to be used in the next exercise.
2. Pair and Small-Group Practice - Information Gap
Information gap activities are frequently designed for pairs. The exercise below could also be used in pairs. However, pairwork is not the best means of practising turn-taking and doesn`t really practise self-selection at all as it is always clear whose turn it is next. My suggestion is to encourage practice in larger groups before moving to a teacher-whole-class situation. In the exercise below, each student in the group has different information and some of the words are selected to be both difficult to pronounce and to understand, so that adjustment between students is certain to be necessary. It is vital to establish an "English-only" rule for this type of exercise for real adjustment to take place. Students must first exchange information before going on to discuss it. Note that students must successfully exchange the information because they will need it for the second stage of the activity.


Common Instructions on Each Student Worksheet You have to choose someone to organize a club for Japanese and foreign students to