Classroom Interactional Competence in a Japanese Elementary English Classroom

Abstract

The study examined classroom interactional competence in an elementary English classroom in Japan, seeking to illuminate the nature of interactions between pupils and instructors, a Japanese homeroom teacher (HRT) and a native-speaker assistant language teacher (ALT). Six classroom hours at a state elementary school were videotaped and audiotaped, with conversation analysis adopted for data analysis. Analysis revealed that the HRT and the ALT used a wide range of skills for shaping learner contributions such as repeating, clarifying, extending, elaborating, modelling, and translating. The study also revealed that while the HRT and ALT had a number of interactional features in common, they also called upon distinctively different types of interactional resources that in turn contributed in different ways to pupil learning. Whereas the HRT’s use of interactional resources mainly served to assist the ALT’s teaching, the ALT’s interaction was more focused upon the scaffolding of pupil learning.