In recent years there bas been a veritable explosion in the teaching of, and demand for, Italian. In Victorian government primary schools, 50 of the 130 teachers ...
Lo Bianco, Joseph (1987). Linguistic Interactions in Second Language Classrooms - Italian in Victorian Primary Schools. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, Italian in Australia - Applied Linguistics Series S, 4, 172-196.
LINGUISTIC INTERACTIONS IN SECOND LANGUAGE c;LASSROOMS - ITALIAN IN VICTORIAN PRIMARY SCHOOLS Joseph Lo Bianco Commonwealth Schools Commission INTRODUCTION This paper addresses the
learning of
Italian in Australian primary
schools. Its focus is the nature and quality of the linguistic These are related to two different types interactions contained in them. of program and to some hypotheses about second language learning from which some predictions about the prospects for successful acquisition can be made.
The problem In recent years there bas been a veritable explosion in the teaching of, and demand for, Italian. In Victorian government primary schools, 50 of the 130 teachers appointed to permanent community language and bilingual education programs teach Italian at the request of the school community. Harris (1984) shows that at the national level, or the 296 insertion programs functioning in government and non-government schools (i.e. where classes are organized by community groups but held in regular schools during normal school hours), 270 are for teaching Italian; and that the great majority of these programs are in Victorian primary schools. Cahill (1984) surveyed 1,350 primary school students across Australia about their language preferences and reports remarkable uniformity according to· linguistic background: among Anglophone students the rank order of preferences is French, German, Italian; whereas among non-Anglophone students the order is French, Italian, German. Be also surveyed schoolcouncil or board members in this question and found very strong support ARAL Series S No. 4, 1987: 172-196
J.
�
l
for Italian, which was a long way ahead of the next two in rank order, : Japanese and Greek; these were followed by Indonesian, German and French. such data at a macro level can give no sense of the nature arid quality of the programs in the schools, or of their prospects for success. The primary school sector has .seen very rapid growth in the number and type of second language programs available. This is the area of least experience
in the teaching of languages and therefore intuitive wisdom about second language teaching, bilingual methodologies and mother tongue education is scarse. In fact there are serious reasons for doubting that the bulk of the primary programs will deliver anything like reasonable levels of communicative skill in tbe target language. Tbe nature and quality of tbe linguistic input is believed by many researchers to be tbe key variable in language acquisition. Speech addressed to Children acquiring their first language bas been shown to be bigbly redundant, syntactically simplified, repetitious, and related to ,,concrete objects and identifiable events in tbe immediate environment (Landes, 1975; Wagner-Gough and Hatch, 1975). For Dulay and Burt (1981) and for Krashen (1981, 1982) the nature of the linguistic input in second language aoquisitiOn ought to be broadly similar to that available to first language learners. Hence a major preoccupation with researchers bas been to study the nature and quality of tbe linguistic input, the nraw material n from whioh tbe target language is learned. For Dulay and Burt (1981) one of the optimal facto�s in promoting second Students need to nsee n language acquisition is comprehensible language. language input. For this to happen the input needs to be exclusively in the target language and be accompanied by concrete referents and mime. This form of contextualized language input (here-and-now talk) is produced by the widespread use of visual aids and motor activities (Krasben and Terrell, 1983). Krashen's theory puts forward an interrelated set of hypotheses based around a fundamental distinction between Conscious learning by formal study, which he calls Learning, and informal naturalistic learning, which be calls Acquisition. Acquisition generates utterances, and is ultimately
superior to Learning which produces consciously monitored and formalized Tbe crucial idea for Krasben is his performance in the target language. •tnpu� hypothesis" which maintains that language is learned by understanding messages which are "a little beyond" the learner's current level of knowledge. The input hypothesis is based on the reversal of the ideas of audiolingual teaching of second languages, which argues that learners must first acquire linguistic structures which are then practised in communication, leading to fluency. Creativist positions bold that ·structures follow meani.ng,
and that naturalistic approaches are therefore
more successful in imparting fluency. It follows that in order. to evaluate school programs, it is necessary to look at the language input. The aim of this paper is to analyze the linguistic input in typical Italian classes at the primary level. Sample and methodology A.survey was conducted of Italian programs in Victorian government primary schools. The small number of programs which assume that the students are either developing their mother tongue or extending their dialectal Italian to encompass standard forms were not considered in this study. The remaining programs all assume that Italian is taught as a second language, The first, representing the and these fall into two broad types. overwhelming majority of the programs, involves two hours of instruction per week. Italian is seen as the subject of study more for attitudinal, socio-cultural and affective goals than for expressly linguistic goals. The second type is represented by a small number of partial immersion programs in which the target language is used as the means for transmitting content in a range of subject areas. For the sake of convenience, the first type is referred to here as insertion programs, and the second as immersion programs, since they have much in common with the program types usually known by these names. Jibst of the data tor this article bas been drawn from three lessons in three different schools, two with insertion programs and one with an All three schools are located in the new and immersion progr am. growing areas of Melbourne's south eastern suburbs, where Census
These suburbs also show a low overseas sbow a high population growth. born proportion .of the.total population and particularly low number of Italian born residents. Tbe schools, which are �ocated in billy, leafy areas with comfortable, new, middle class housing, have enrolments of between 300 and 325 with very few students of Italian speaking background. The programs come under the Victorian government's permanent teacher allocation to its community languages teaching programs, and the teachers are all young, Italian background.
Australian born female generalist teachers of
Data from the first two schools were· obtained from. two separate lessons taught by two different teachers to Grade II classes. In each case there
were
28 children who had been learning Italian two hours a week over two years and four months. Nooe of the Children were of Italian background. An observation instrument was used to code exchanges during the class, involving real time scoring: every 60 seconds the dominant linguistic event was recorded according to categories modified from those provided by Jarvis and Adams (1979) •. (For details, see below). Data from the third school were obtained from one fully recorded lesson in Grade v. There were 18 children in the class who bad been learning Italian for two or three hours a week over two years in partial immersion The data presented are drawn from a social studies lesson programs. concerning different types of houses. In one important respect the linguistic input available to the students in the immersion program class is superior to that available in the insertion program classes. The amount of time devoted to Italian or to the subjects taught in Italian lends itself to simple quantification. Tb.a weekly time allocation per grade in the immersion program. is as follow. GRADE Preparatory
I II III
IV V and VI
HOURS/WEEK
Calculated on the basis of 40 school weeks per year, the lowest annual time available is 80 hours for Preparatory and Grade II students, and 130 hours for Grade IV students. If this configuration were maintained the present Preparatory level childl'en would have received a total or 740 hours of Italian instruction by the end of Grade VI. These figures represent a the schools every year difference instruction
substantial time allocation difference between this school and of lessons one and two, where only BO hours are available at level. over the entire duration of primary education, the would constitute two and a quarter years of additional at the rate of two hours per week.
RESULTS Lessons one and two of the insertion Programs An analysis of the verbal interactions in tbe two insertion program lessons is presented in Tables 1(a) and 1(b), 2(a) and 2(b). Tbe first table in each case represents entries for spoken and written language used by the teachers, the second refers to the students. Tbe categories used for analysis of the functions performed by the teacher's and the student's utterances are as follows. Teacher's utterances:
SPOKBII LAIIGUAGE FURCTIOHS
rn
= Classroom •anage.ent
Information rrorision explanation (e.g. in relation to a game/activ ty � Proafting •= Mode ling the target languafe (TL) Rhetorical questioning/talk ng = La�ter = Ex !cation of a TL rule (grammatical or phonetic) • Inferpersonal c01111unications/greetings = Discipline 11 • Error correction 12 • Translation 13 = Accompaniment/singing or recitation
i I
= Repetition/reinforcement
lol
!l
WRITTEN LAIIGUAGE FURCTIOHS
Presenting written language Reading aloud Writing on blackboard Explaining written laJJ.£uage Listening to reading (individually or chorally) Writing in childrens' books and error correction
177 Student's utterances:
INITIATOR
Ts
Student == Teacher
§POKER LAHGU!GE PUH!,IIQft§ Nominative
rn
11
== == =
== =
seeking about form fanTLtion
Into
b
TL message
Inter eraonal communication/greetings Laughrer Counting Singing Prepared lines/drama Refetition In eractional function Creative construction of TL Cassette accompaniment/recitation or singing
WRITTEN LAHGUAGE FUliCTIOBS
!il
== == =
Reading aloud (including reading songs) Reading silently Reading own composition aloud teacher reading Listenin Writing ra at blackboard b in own book
lo
Since an utterance may fulfill more than one function, the number given for the total utterances in the last column of all four tables is smaller than the number for the total functions�
SPOKEN LANGUAGE
FUNCTIONS UTTERANCES
WRITTEN LANGUAGE
FUNCTIONS FUNCTIONS -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2
3
4
ITALIAN 2 ENGLISH 5 19 1
5
2
6
7
8
9 10 11
SUB TOTAL
6
SUB TOTAL
8
3
3
11
6
2
32
8
8
40
37
2
40
11
11
51
43
4
3
12 13
2
3 4
5
TOTAL
TOTAL
MIXED
TOTAL 7 19 1 3 2
4
Table 1(a): Teacher talk cbaracter1st1cs (lesson one, school one}
INITIATOR S
T
SPOKEN LANGUAGE FUNCTIONS SUB TOTAL
1
2
3
4
5
6
WRITTEN LANGOAGE FUNCTIONS 7
8
9
.
10 11
SUB TOTAL
1
2
3
4
5
SUB TOTAL
FUNCTIONS
UTTERANCES
TOTAL
TOTAL
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
20(1) ITALIAN
5
9•
�· !
ENGL ISR
3
7
3•
20
9
1.•
8
8
12•
11•
1
52
.E_• 5
8
2
4
6
82
6•
32
10
.E! 23
15
8
MIXED NONVERBAL (2)
----�-------------------------------- . ------------------------------------------------- --- 5
5
5
13
13
5
33
22
1 21
15
TOTAL
28
(1)
Excludes 12 •singing• entries
(2)
•
31
12
10
6
11
98
8
9
9
45
13
96
19
150
54
The language functions are not spoken language functions since these entries score non-verbal activities Choral utterance Highly prompted utterance Table 1(b): Student talk characteristics (lesson one, school one)
SPOKEN LANGUAGE
WRITTEN LANGUAGE
FUNCTIONS UTTERANCES
FUNCTIONS --------------------FUNCTIONS ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------2
3
4
5 6
ITALIAN 1
3
2
ENGLISH 6 15 2
7
7
8 9 10 11 12 13
MIKED
2
TOTAL
9 16 2 12 2
2 3
4
5 6
SUB TOTAL
13
6
3
SUB TOTAL
3
3
2
40
11
11
5 9
3
3
58
12
12
TOTAL
TOTAL
14
7
51
39
5
8
70
54
Table 2(a): Teacher talk characteristics {lesson two, school two)
INITIATOR T
S
SUB TOTAL
17
2
19
SPOKEN LAHGUAGE FUNCTIONS 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 SUB TOTAL
WRITTEN LANGUAGE FUNCTIONS UTTERAHCES FUNCTIONS 1 2 3 4 5 SUB TOTAL TOTAL TOTAL
-------------�------------------------------------------------------------------------------8
ITALIAN 4•
9
.!!..
10 11•
2
7
48
10
9
77
30
22
5
2• ..3..•
j_
ENGLISH 3
16
4
18
MIXED NON VERBAL (1)
20
TOTAL
40
20
16
11
44
24
1 20
32
5
3
20
23
75
20
3
21
33
174
56
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------(1)
•
4
17 11
2 16
8
99
9
Tbe lan guage t"Unctions are not spoken language functions since these entries score non-verbal activities
Choral utterance Highly prompted utterance
Table 2 (b): Student talk characteristics (lesson two, school two)
Tbe first lesson comprised three basio'aotivities; practice of greeting routines; presentation, recitation and singing of a verse of a song; and labelling (by colouring-in) of a nominative activity to praotise greetings. Tbe
teacher• .e.
talk was oventhelminglJ oonoerned with managing the cla.ee
and explaining the activities. 86J of her total talk wae in English. Mllob of her talk. in Italian was highly prediotable to the atudenta, i.e. it was "e%Jlected" language although some new vocabulary was learned (this was. however, •enDaeed• in English). Indeed, all the Italian uaed in the lesson gave the tmpre&aion of being delivered as an object of attention in English and OOl'.lsequently rarely in itself delivered a niessage. No problem solving tOOk place, and no extended-usage turns were employed. Many teacher utterances resembled bolopbrastio speech (e.g. nbamb1ni« with rising intonation) and were intended as a caution against fW"ther noise and lack of attention to the instructions given in Engl18l:I. The student talk was all addressed to the teaober and. entirely initiated Altbougb mostly in Italian t it was either highly prompted or in by her. oborwi, or both. The major tuuetions performed were naming, counting and greeting exohange� Greetings wer-e recognized and usually exobanged auooesatullY (although ohorally) 1 and occasionally without pr0$pting. Words (o:r occasionally phraaei,) performed practised functions 1 e.g. ns1gn.orina? Can I �···, and very little communicative exchange ooourred in Italian ,. All messages vere conveyed in Fngli&b. No instances ot students uaing Italian to OOJDIRUtlicate a measage were recorded or observed. On the other han:d, neither mixed utterances nor f'oreigper talk aimPlif'ied f'orms vere noticed trOlfl either teacher Qr students. absence of such forms may indicate the way in which the language used this lesaon involved few risks, creating a highly predictable virtually ritualized Mt of linguistic e:xcbangea*
nor The in and
A :major component of the second lesson consisted of the teacber working 1fith individual studente a't correcting the York in their books. A class vocabulary recognition and recall game was also plaJ� t in which one child leavea the room, tbe others eonspire to bide a card with a number behind
one of them,
tbe child returns on bearing the choral •1vant1• 1 counts the cards which remain, nominates the missing number and identifies the culprit. Tbe children greatly enjoyed the lesson, and particularly the activities. Tbe beginning and end of the lesson were signalled by "Buon giorno, Grade II", clearly cutting off the informal chatter in English at the start, and ending the organized anarchy of the game at the close of the lesson. This lesson showed an inadequacy in the instrument used for observation: in some instances it was unable to determine accurately any •dominant linguistic event•, except perhaps •chatter• among the students. Furthermore, the written work was difficult to classify as either Italian or English, since it involved colouring-in to nominate a greeting which was labelled in Italian, the picture clearly indicating the state of health ffbene• or •male• of the actor. Revertheless, results were not unlike those of the first lesson. The dominant feature of this lesson was again the prevalence of English utterances from the teacher (72S). In order to check that this predominance of English utterances was a widespread characteristic of teacher talk, additional supportive data were collected. Data were recorded in the same way as before from four more lessons by the same teachers with the same grades, but only five of the functions were analyzed. Table 3 shows that 77.SS of all teacher talk was in English; 1•.BS in Italian; and 7.5S in a mizture of the tvo languages.
CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT
INFORMATION PROVISION & EXPLAIIATIOHS
REPETITION/ REINFORCEMENT
PROMPTING
MoDELLING OF TARGET LANGUAGE
TOTAL
21 110 1 = !OS 11 10 = 7S 142
= = = =
------------------------------------------------------------------------------ITALIAII ENGLISH MIXED TOTAL
3 29 5 37
= = = =
s.1 s 78.3S 13.5S 26.oS
1 61 1 63
= 1.5S = 96.8S = 1.ss = 44.3S
1 a 2 11
= = = =
9.os
12.os 18.0S 7.7S
7 = 33.oS 12 = 57.os 21 = 14.7S
9 = 90S
Table 3: Aggregated teacher utterances :f'rom tour lessons by five functions
14.8S 77 .4S 1.ss 1oos
The figures thus fully confirm the dominance of English. In particular, the 96.Bj use of English for information provision and explanation about activities and classroom work confirms it for all those functions which could be characterized as communicative within the classroom context. In the case of lesson two, the teacher also used some mixed expressions such as •1et's contiamo", •all right, man! g!U• and "everyone, man! sulla tests�
The students' talk in the second lesson was also overwhelmingly in ,response to the teacher's clear signalling, and although largely in Italian, it was either highly prompted or in chorus or both. It mostly dealt with counting or naming functions. Greetings were recognized and
understood. All messages comm.UI1icated were clearly signalled either non verbally or in English, confirming tbe rather ritualized practice of language use noted in the previous lesson. Lesson three of the immersion program An analysis of the teacher's language input to the students' in lesson three reveals the followiilg: (1) exclusive use of the target language; (2) absence of minimal forms and low number of lexical simplifications; (3) correction of errors by accepting the students' uttterances and repeating them in the oorreot form, occasionally also expanding them and placing them within a phrase or sentence; (4) variation of question formats, often With the inclusion of clues or examples of semantically related items to stimulate the student's recollection or to contextualize the items. The-particular topics The teacher only used Italian during the lesson. for which it was used were determined by the subject content of the This topic limitation was beneficial for comprehension since the lesson. students were able to use inferences from their knowledge of the subject matter to enhance comprehension. The teacher made frequent use of concrete referents and visual aids.
The teacher's preferred technique for signalling a modelled corr�ct form were either repetition, as in (1) a_nd (3); or contextualization, as in (2).
(1) (2) (3)
S1: T: S4: T: T: SS: T: SS: T:
camera da letto/ la camera da letto . ubhm la doccia/ bravi . la doccia . � la doccia
••• cosa si fa nella sala da pranzo. Assimina t I mangiare nella sala da pranzo/ nella saia da pranzo sit/ io mangio + I J& mangi'g/ SS: mangia/ T: mangi& . benissimo ••• I
When students were reading and hesitating the teacher would however interrupt to model a correct form in response to an error. (4)
81: nella lavanderia c'I una lavatiss un = =una/= S1: =una ( inaudible) I
T:
In (5) Examples of teacher's variation of question formats follow. uses a synonym and in (6) a stress, a pause and an exemplification.
(5) (6)
ahe
T: obi mi sa dire le - s - nominare le stanza della casa . come si cbiamano tutte le stanze7 . Rachel I T: e nella lavanderia cosa c 1 e7 nella lavanderia . dove la mamma lava • i panni I
Finally, the teacher accepted utterances in either English or Italian, but the students seemed unsure about her ability in English and often used �ome Italian with her, if only to say nsignorina n and then continue in English. The students sometimes used Italian also among themselves. Most of their utterances were characterized by virtually ritualized routines to accompany their written work and peer correction. Their utterances in Italian were invariably short, frequently consisting only of nouns used in ways similar to the holopbrastic phase of children's first language acquisition .. In many cases required articles were omitted or articulated prepositions were reduced to simple articles, as can be seen in the following excerpts. An outstanding characteristic of the children's discourse in these excerpts is their collective construction or negotiation of meaning.
The students sometimes progressed from nominating
functions to discussions about tbe task to be performed next or the qualities of the nominated subject. S4: che cosa scrive? I a-t1l/ ab I ? (iDBudible) I sl ok ocobi? I S5i no ok ocobi I televisione? I Sll: SS: s, das 1st un televisione e. I S4: s I SS: • i. I S4: a ti SS: a I I S4: a • I SS: DO I , SZI: olie cos'e? I SS: cbe cos'i? I (giggling ) S4: (iua1ioI'6Ie) S5i Lisa ..&il • come scrive I S4: A'l@l!Tiia I -- --SS: arr, giggliug lgigglingl 84: ebb I giggling SS: cbe cose scrive? I S4: ab. le seria I SS: aeria sedia = S4: , = serdia sedia = I SS: cbe oos'e? I S4: data it I SS: tar - tutto? I 84: uh - la doccia. ve got on here I SS: that is. 11 bagllo. tutto e la camera da letto un cucina e sala da pranzo 8� I (8) SS: uel baguo I S4: oaiuo I SS: nel bagno I S4: net bagno I
(7)
�: �:
ii
. 1
:ff �; S5 r grazie I S4: 85: 84: SS: S4: 55: 84: S4: SS: s4: SS: S4: ss: SB: S4: SS: S4: SS1 51': S5: Sll: SS: 54:
prego I nella cams da letto I 8 tut to camra da letto I oam.on I da Ietto da letto I cam.era I ciiiiira da letto •• I Ae.simina + I sf I cbe colore e I bl� I blu bagno t I 81 / �o oun blu bla - (inaudible) io € rosa bagno I eh I a�petta al bagno si nero I nera I io nera I io nero I tutto nero I
In a close analysis of turn-getting and turn giving during lesson three, the following categories adopted from Allwright (1980:168-169) were used:
Turn getting: 1. = Accept: 2. = Steal: 3 • = Take: � • = Take: 5. = Make: 6. = Make: 7 . • Make: 8 • = Miss:
Respond to a personal solicit. Respond to a personal solicit made to another. Respond to a general solicit. Take an unsolicited turn, wben a turn is available. Make an unsolicited turn, during another speaker's turn but without the intent to gain the floor. Start a turn with the intent to gain the floor during another speaker's turn. Take a wholly private turn. Fail to respona to a personal solicit.
Turn giving: 0
=Fadeout and/or give way to an interruption.
= Hake turn available without making a general or personal solicit. P = Make a personal solicit (e.g. by nominating the next speaker). G = Make a general solicit.
Allwright (1980:174) also developed a topic analysis system coded by using tbe following symbols: M = Instances of tbe TL intended primarily as •models•. I = Instances of communication concerned primarily witb information about tbe TL or about models of tbe TL. P = Instances of communication concerned mainly with procedural or pedagogical matters. O = Other. Table� shows tbe turn-giving-and turn-getting scores for tbe teacher, the class as a whole and the students who participated in conversations and whose utterances were identifiable. Five students in this lesson played Two students expressed total no active role in its language functions. lack of interest in Italian, and one even hostility towards tbe program. This left eight active students.
TURN GIVING
TURN GETTING
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- TOTAL TOTAL 0 G p 2 3 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 4 5 6 7 8
10 87 12 0 0 64 10 105 15 55 - 25 0 0 ------------------------TEACHER ------------------------------------------------
6 6 0 SS: CLASS 0 0 6 0 0 6 0 0 0 0 0 S1: RACHEL 18 13 4 18 11 0 1 0 0 1 2 2 0 2 2 S2: PAUL 2 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 s3, BROOKE 10 9 10 5 0 2 1 1 0 0 0 0 11 S4: LISA 0 2 6 0 2 11 9 0 0 2 S5: ASSIHINA 7 3 0 0 0 0 0 6 0 0 1 3 7 0 S6: GLEN 0 2 0 0 0 10 10 7 5 0 2 3 0 0 0 0 0 S7: MATHEW 0 1 1 3 3 3 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 18 10 5 18 13 0 3 S8: GAVIN 1 3 -------------------------------------------------------------------------TOTAL STUDENTS 0 14 85 51 85 60 11 2 6 0 0 17 8 -------------------------------------------------------------------------GRAND TOTALS 190 75 66 25 24 172 63 17 72 12 7 0 0
-------------------------------------------------------------------------Table•: Tµrn giving and getting (lesson thi-ee)
The total number of turns given was 190, of which the teacher allocated 55J; however she allocated 100J of the general turns and 83S of the personal turns. Of the O category turns the students made available 80J. As far as the getting of speaking turns is concerned the teacher accounted for approximately halfo Although the great majority of the teacher's turns (73S) were of type 4, involving the taking of unsolicited turns usually for discourse maintenance purposes, the students• turns were mostly in response to personal solicits from the teacher (61S) or to general solicits from the teacher (20J). However, almost 19S involv�d students making wholly unsolicited turns as represented by categories 4, 5 and 6. The teacher's turns inVolved longer and more complex utterances. They contained virtually all the new information and messages, and set and maintained the discourse. This is not surprising given the age of the students, the na-ture of the lesson and the relatively short time the
students had studied Italian. Table 5 shows the distribution of topics by teacher� students.
class and individual
H I P O TOTAL TOPICS -------------------------------------TEACHER 41 27 25 4 97 -------------------------------------STUDENTS TOTAL 75 3 6 2 86 -------------------------------------88 CLASS O O 4 2 6 81 RACHEL 21 1 0 0 22 S2 PAUL . 2 0 0 0 2 S3 BROOKE 9 0 0 0 9 S4 LISA 0 0 0 97 0 0 85 ASSIHINA 0 86 GLEN 2 1 0 11 0 0 0 3 87 MATTHEW 3 89 GAVIN 16 0 0 0 16 ------------------------------------TOTAL 116 30 31 6 183
i9
Table 5:
Topfc
distribution by teacher,
cla8s and individual
students
(lesson three)
This table reveals the great preponderance of Target Language Modelling in the talk, which is largely a function of the particular objectives of the lesson:
of the 183 identifi�ble in.stances of topics,
63$ concerned H and
16.3J concerned information about M (I). Thus, 8DS of the total language used was primarily or ezclusively concerned with samples and usage of the
target language. The topic distr.ibution· pattern for the teacher•s language shows that 7DS of her utterances dealt primarily or ezclusively with instances of the target language which were intended as models for the students or to provide information about such models. Only 25J This contrasts concerned matters of classroom procedures.and management. sharply with the two lessons analyzed previously.
As far as the students are concerned, 90.6S of the topics which their utterances encompassed dealt with models of the target language (M) and information about it (I). S1 and 88, who gained the largest number of speaking turns,. also modelled the greatest number of target language items, although 83, S4, 85 and 86 also recorded a relatively significant number of these. 81 in particular, and 83, 84, S6 and SS to a lesser degree, exhibited turn-getting behaviour which was more flexible than that
These same students were responsible for virtually all of the students' turns which were obtained in response to solicits (i.e., general solicits, stolen turns, discourse maintenance turns, interruptions and takeover bids). of tbe other students.
As far as the tum-giving patterns are concerned,
their relationship to
the topic analysis shows that the teaOber•a behaviour can be characterized as predominantly soliciting individual students to model an item from the target language and to a significantly lesser degree making
general turns available for the same purpose.
The majority of the topics coded as procedural-class management issues were addressed to the whole class. The students• pattern consiste_d mainly of making turns available without either a general or a personal solicit, in the great majority of
cases following an instance of modelled TL. However, the most active students mentioned above, particularly 81 and S8, made personal turns to the teacher or were unable to complete utterances they commenced, and faded out or gave way to an interruption. This sort of behaviour represents an active,
initiating mode of classroom
interaction and reflects Seliger's (1983) notion of high input generation (BIG) among some learners. This involves learners attracting input which, because it is directed at them and largely controlled by them, is comprehensible and yet usually contains structures •a little beyond• (in In other words the Kr&sben's terms) their present level of competence. This would seem to make it acquisition-promoting, input is wanted. particularly
since the lesson content bad such high proportions of M and
I. Fillmore's (1982) research indicated that both teacher-directed and open classroom patterns could be pcsitive or negative in promoting second language acquisition in bilingual programs, depending upon the nature and type of use of the •instructional• language. She also found that the presence of native speakers could be positive or negative, again depending In this on the nature and type of use of the "instructional• language. lesson, there was, for all practical purposes, a complete absence of native speakers of Italian. The negative pctential here is that, given children's preferences for using their peers' language as model rather
than their teacher's (Burt and Dulay, 1981:185), pidginized forms could be modelled. Examples of this are evident in the excerpts of children's language given above : The presence of a high number of HIG learners and an atmosphere in which the students •took risks• readily by using the target language, combined with the teacher's practice of mixing teacber centred (i.e. correctly modelled instances of the TL directed at the w hole class) and more individualized open-classroom activities, would seem to be an entirely appropriate way of accommodating a potential problem. CONCLUSION The teacher's language is the input which the students receive in Italian. It is from this input that they will construct their mental representation of the language. From extensive discussions held with the students it is clear that the teacher's input is their only significant source of Italian, even though the justification for its introduction into the schools was that Italian is the most wide-spread community language in Victoria. In quantitative terms, the implication of this is that the bulk of Italian programs simply do not provide sufficient input: their duration is short, their intensity inadequate, and in insertion programs even the time devoted to learning Italian is largely conducted in English. In qualitative terms, the teacher's utterances in this study were classified in the following way: (i) message-conveying, (ii) management and discipline-related, and (iii) ritualized utterances. The predominant
feature of the message-conveying utterances, as distinct from the other two categories, is their co11DDunicative nature. It is likely to be only with these types of utterances that students are required to •actively listen• (i.e. to hypothesize and negotiate meaning). Active listening involves listeners forming •schemata• or sets of expectations and predictions about the linguistic input in an interactive process which takes place between listener and speaker in order to •negotiate• meaning (cf. Richards, 1983). The earliest stages of second language acquisition should promote active listening. Fillmore (1982) also noted that in classrooms where teachers translated,
the students - or at least some of
193
knowing that if they waited they could obtain It is only when the linguistic the meaning of utterances in English. input is constituted mainly by message-conveying utterances that the classroom can approximate the real world, where functioning in a second language involves a much greater probability of encountering previously
them - would switch off,
unheard and less context-bound utterances. The quality of the classroom situation in second language learning is determined by its capacity to simulate the real world of the second language, and yet provide comprehensible input that is closely tailored to the learner's immediate needs. In our sample, message-conveying utterances by the teacher were mainly in English in lessons one and two of the insertion program, and in Italian in lesson three of the immersion program. Management and discipline-related utterances are usually short, repetitious, context-bound and highly predictable. This means that even on the rare occasions when they were made in Italian in the insertion program lessons, little demand was made on the students, and no effort was
involved in hypothesizing their meaning or structure. In the immersion program, management- and discipline-related input from the teacher was in Italian. Ritualized utterances, as defined here, are pieces of language used not so much for communication as for presentation to the class as objects. They
are marked for practice, usually in chorus, and they rarely convey any new information "a little beyond• the students' current level of competence, to use Krashen's terms. In our sample, such utterances constitute a very high proportion of the Italian utterances in the insertion program lessons, whereas they are very rare in the immersion program lesson. These differences in the teacher's language produced corresponding patterns from the students. In the insertion program lessons where the students rarely needed to hypothesize about the structure or semantic content of the linguistic input, they never took risks in producing the target language. In fact no instances of mixed or inaccurate utterances from the students were observed, which may have indicated active efforts to produce novel communicative utterances in Italian. The important messages were Conveyed in English, and the Italian consisted of safe
Ii!
i.i
them
- would switch off,
knowing that if they waited they could obtain the meaning of utterances in English. It is only when the linguistic input is constituted mainly by message-conveying utterances that the classroom can approximate the real world, where functioning in a second language involves a much greater probability of encountering previously
unheard and less context-bound utterances. The quality of the classroom situation in second language learning is determined by its capacity to and yet provide simulate the real world of the second language, comprehensible input that is closely tailored to the learner's immediate needs. In our sample, message-conveying utterances by the teacher were mainly in English in lessons one and two of the insertion program, and in Italian in lesson three of the immersion program. Management and discipline-related utterances are usually short, repetitious, contezt-bound and highly predictable. This means that even on the rare oooasions when they were made in Italian in the insertion program lessons, little demand was made on the students, and no effort was In the immersion involved in hypothesizing their meaning or structure. program, management- and discipline-related input from the teacher was in Italian. Ritualized utterances, as defined here, are pieces of language used not so They much for communication as for presentation to the class as objects. are marked for practice, usually in chorus, and they rarely convey any new information "a little beyond" the students' current level of competence, to use Krashen's terms. In our sample, such utterances constitute a very high proportion of the Italian utterances in the insertion program lessons, whereas they are very rare in the immersion program lesson. These differences in the teacher's language produced corresponding patterns from the students. In the insertion program lessons where the students rarely needed to hypothesize about the structure or semantic content of the linguistic input, they never took risks in producing the In fact no instances of mized or inaccurate utterances target language. from the students were observed, which may have indicated active efforts The important to produce novel communicative utterances in Italian. messages were
conveyed in English,
and the Italian
consisted of safe
recirculated language "encased" in English. On tbe other band, the students in tbe partial immersion program-had sufficient Italian language resources to creatively construct utterances and communicate simple messages, and with which to learn subject matter content. From extensive discussions with them and from general observation, most students in both programs appeared to be enthusiastic about learning Italian and keen to continue. Their attitudes were open and integrative. This psychological predisposition towards Italian also characterized their views of Italians and Italy. Their knowledge of the latter, however, was rather limited and stereotyped. Also, ·there was considerable social distance in their way of life both from Italians and from any context in which Italian was likely to be spoken. Thus a positiv e. psychological proximity to the speakers of the language being studied contrasted with a long social distance from them. While these
two
characteristics
(psychological proximity and social
distance) are shared by the students in both programs, there is a linguistic one which sharply divides them. Tbe students in the insertion programs are unlikely to acquire at school any proficiency in the language they are learning, because the linguistic input they receive there is inadequate both quantitatively and qualitatively. On the other band, the students in the immersion program are more likely to acquire communicative proficiency in the language if continuity is assured tor their courses. However, we should not forget that insertion classes form the overwhelming majority of Italian programs in Victoria, and that the number of immersion programs is very small.
1.
Legend for transcription symbols: I end of utterance interruption pause question marked by rising intonation SS whole class utterance or a group of students in.chorus T teacher prompts from several students usually involving much simultaneous chatter
=
•
H���to
stress
self correction
inaudible, undecipherable or uncertain utterance
&.i1ta1 letters have oeen used only for proper names.
REFEREIICES Allvrigbt, R.L. (1980) Tuma, topics and tasks: patterns ot participation in language learning and teaching. In D. Larsen-Freeman (ed.) Rowley, Mass., Discourse analysis in second language research. Newbury Bouse: 165-187. Asher, J. (1969) The total physical response approach to second language learning. Modern Language Journal 53:3-18. Burt, M.r. and B.C. Dulay (1981) Optimal language learning environments. In J.E. Alatis, H.B. Altman and P.M. Alatis (eds.) The second language 9lassroom; directions for the 1980s. Oxford Oxford, University Press: 175-192. Cahill,
D.
(1984)
Review of the Commonwealth Multicultural Education Program. (Report to the Comm.Onwealth Schools Commission, Vol. 1). Melbourne, Phillip Institute of Technology. Fillmore, L.W. (1982) Instructional language as linguistic input: second language learning in classrooms. In L.C. Wilkinson (ed.) Commun1cat1on in the classroom. New York, Academic Press: 283-196. Harris, J. (1984) Study of insertion classes funded µnder the Commonwealth (Report to the Commonwealth Schools Etbpic Schools Program,. Commission). Canberra. Jarvis, G.A. and s.J. Adams (1979) Evaluating a second language program. Vol. 19). Arlington, (Language in education; tbeorr apd practice, (USA), Centre for Applied Linguistics. Krashen, S.D. (1981) Second language acquisition and second language learning. Oxford, Pergamon. lrashen, S.D. and T.D. Terrell (1983) The natural approach: language acquisition in the classroom. Oxford, Pergamon and San Francisco, Aiemany. Landes, J. (1975) Speech addressed to children: issues and characteristics of parental input. Language Learning 25:355-379. Richards,- J. (1983) Listening comprehension: approach, design, procedure.
TESOL Quarterly 17,2:219-240. Seliger, B.W. (1983) Learner interaction in tbe classroom and its effect on language acquisition. In e.w. Seliger and M.H. Long (eds .) Classroom oriented research in second language acquisition. Rowley, Maas., Newbury Bouse: 246-266. Wagner-Gough, J. and E. Bate� (1975) The impartance of input data in second language acquisition studies. Language -Learning 25,2:297-308.
