The Dynamics of the

Language Classroom

Ian Tudor
Universite Libre de Bruxelles
P U B L I S H E D B Y T H E P R E S S S Y N D I C AT E O F T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F C A M B R I D G E
The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1RP, United Kingdom

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK
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Ruiz de AlarcoÂn 13, 28014 Madrid, Spain
http://www.cambridge.org

# Cambridge University Press 2001

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception

and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreement,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press

First published 2001

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

Typeset in Sabon 10.5/12 pt System 3b2 ce

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 0 521 77203 6 hardback

ISBN 0 521 77676 7 paperback
Contents

List of abbreviations page vii

Acknowledgements viii

Introduction 1

1 A changing perspective on language teaching 5

1.1 A new technology of language teaching 5
1.2 Towards an ecological perspective on language 8
teaching
1.3 Learner identities 11
1.4 Teacher identities 15
1.5 Identity and context 18
1.6 Emerging responses, emerging challenges 21

2 The dynamics of teaching and learning 28

2.1 Locating language teaching 28
2.2 Diversity and rationality 31
2.3 A changing research agenda 39
2.4 A dynamic perspective on the classroom 43
2.5 Exploring classroom dynamics 47

3 Visions of language 49
3.1 The language is the language: Or is it? 49
3.2 Language as a linguistic system 50
3.3 Language as doing things: The functional perspective 57
3.4 Language as self-expression 65
3.5 Language as culture and ideology 69
3.6 Overview 75

4 Visions of learning 77
4.1 The diversity of the learning experience 77
4.2 Experiential learning 78

v
Contents

4.3 Analytical learning 85

4.4 Habit formation: Developing automaticity 90
4.5 The role of affect 95
4.6 Overview 102

5 Visions of the classroom 104

5.1 The many meanings of the classroom 104
5.2 The classroom as a controlled learning environment 105
5.3 The communicative classroom 111
5.4 The classroom as a school of autonomy 117
5.5 The classroom as socialisation 123
5.6 Overview 129

6 Methodology and context 132

6.1 Putting methodology in its place 132
6.2 Exploring context 133
6.3 The force of circumstance 136
6.4 Con¯icting rationalities 145
6.5 Overview 155

7 Exploiting local dynamics 157

7.1 The mental context of learning 157
7.2 Cultures of learning 158
7.3 Discovering the rules 160
7.4 A study in educational ethnography 170
7.5 Overview 179

8 Negotiation in the classroom 181

8.1 Teaching as negotiation 181
8.2 Negotiative dynamics 182
8.3 Negotiating classroom identities 185
8.4 A tale of two courses: Negotiating classroom realities 196
among multiple participants
8.5 Overview 205

9 Living with complexity 207

References 215
Index 226

vi
Abbreviations

AKL American Kernel Lessons

ESOL English as a second or other language
EFL English as a foreign language
ESL English as a second language
CLL Community Language Learning
CLT communicative language teaching
LSP languages for speci®c purposes
TL target language

vii
Introduction

This is a book about language teaching which is meant for teachers and
other language educators involved in the practical realisation of
language teaching programmes or in organising teacher education
courses. It rests on the belief that language teaching is a complex,
dynamic activity, and that this complexity is frequently underestimated
both in the popular imagination and in much of the of®cial discourse of
language teaching. The goal of the book is to explore the complexity of
language teaching as it is lived out in classrooms and, in this way, to
provide teachers and other language educators with guidelines for
exploring the dynamics of their own teaching situations, and, thus, of
developing what Elliott (1993a) refers to as `situational understandings'.
Few practising teachers would consider as particularly remarkable the
suggestion that language teaching is a complex activity: many, in fact,
would see it as a statement of the obvious. I feel, however, that this
point deserves to be made for at least two reasons. First, although
practising language teachers are well aware of the complexity of their
task, the same cannot always be said for the other actors who, in one
way or another, play a role in the endeavour of language education;
these are, for example, political and educational authorities, the man-
agement or administration of teaching institutions, clients, sponsors,
parents, and many others. This may result from ignorance in the sense
that these actors may simply be unaware of the precise details of what
teaching entails. It may also, however, result from a more or less
conscious will not to see or acknowledge the realities of teaching:
the elegance of clear, rationally formulated curricula or the con®dent
claims of current `best practice' having a greater attraction than the
complex and often untidy nature of teaching as it is lived out in real
classrooms. And yet, it is often within frameworks set up by these
actors that teachers have to live out their tasks in the classroom. If only
for this reason, then, there is a good justi®cation for recalling the
complex nature of language teaching. Second, and more fundamentally,
there is the question of whether the complexity of language teaching is

1
Introduction

something incidental ± grit in the machine of pedagogical ef®ciency ± or

whether it is an inherent feature of the activity itself. This book suggests
that the latter is the case, and that acknowledging and working openly
with this complexity is fundamental to any honest attempt to under-
stand language teaching as it really is.
Fortunately, there is a growing trend in thinking on language teaching
which explicitly acknowledges and seeks to work constructively with
the complexity of language teaching as it really is, as opposed to how
we might like it to be or feel it should be according to one idealised
schema or another. This trend is discussed in Chapter 1 in terms of what
is referred to as the ecological perspective on language teaching. This
perspective involves a fairly substantial shift in approach from that
which has dominated (and in many ways still dominates) much thinking
on language teaching. The ecological perspective offers an alternative to
a positivistic and hierarchically based approach to the conceptualisation
and planning of teaching programmes. It portrays language teaching as
an emergent phenomenon, i.e. a reality which emerges dynamically
from the actions and interactions of very many individuals working
within speci®c contexts which operate according to rules that are
proper to each as a reality in its own right. The ecological perspective
on language teaching has parallels with the concept of sustainable
development in economics, and with the call for more local forms of
democracy and decision-making in the political ®eld. It also shares a
good deal of common ground with insights which have been developed
in recent years in many ®elds of science and which have found
expression in complexity theory, or the study of complex adaptive
systems.
Viewed from this perspective, if we wish to understand language
teaching as it is lived out in real classrooms, we need to explore the
meaning which teaching and learning procedures have for individuals in
their own terms and not against a template of abstract, situation-
external precept and generalisation. We then need to explore the
dynamics which arise out of the interaction between the individuals
present in each speci®c situation. This can, of course, vary considerably
from one context to another, but the totality of language teaching
emerges from this vast kaleidoscope of detail and diversity. The elegant
plans of educational planners and the generalisations of theorists can
and do in¯uence the reality of teaching as it is lived out in classrooms.
However, they are not the full reality, nor can it be assumed that they
represent a canonical view of what this reality should be. They are
simply elements of the complex dynamics of teaching and learning, i.e.
elements that re¯ect the perspectives on language teaching of certain
groups of participants, but that interact dynamically with the perspec-

2
 Introduction

tives of many other participants. In this view, language teaching is less a

matter of the hierarchical, top-down realisation of ideal curricular
structures and methodological principle than the emergent product a
very large number of local, dynamically self-organising systems.
This book works within this perspective on language teaching and
has the goal of providing teachers and other language educators with
guidelines for exploring the dynamics of their own teaching situations
and of their own interaction with these situations. The book is
organised as follows.
Chapters 1 and 2 establish the theoretical background within which
the book is placed. Chapter 1 brie¯y surveys trends in language teaching
over the last few decades in terms of the shift in emphasis from a
technological to an ecological perspective on language teaching.
Chapter 2 introduces the dynamic perspective on language teaching
which will underpin the subsequent chapters.
Chapters 3 to 5 examine some of the more frequent visions of
language (Chapter 3), of learning (Chapter 4), and of the classroom
(Chapter 5) which teachers are likely to encounter among their students,
in teaching materials, in educational programmes, and in their own
individual conception of teaching. These chapters do not argue for any
one vision of language, of learning, or of the classroom. The goal is
rather to evaluate a variety of perspectives not only in terms of their
own inner logic, but also and crucially with respect to their interaction
with various aspects of context. These chapters argue for an inclusive
acknowledgement of diversity in pedagogical decision-making and seek
to highlight the dynamic interaction between methodology and context.
Chapters 6 to 8 build on Chapters 3±5 to study the dynamics of
classroom teaching from a number of perspectives. Chapter 6 focuses
on the interaction between methodology and context, Chapter 7 on the
exploitation of local traditions of learning and Chapter 8 on the concept
of `negotiation' in the creation of classroom realities. These chapters
make use of the categories of methodological choice discussed in
Chapters 3±5, but do this with reference to a number of case studies
(two in each chapter). Not all of these studies could be considered to
have happy endings; nor are they intended to be seen as exemplars of
`best practice' to be put in a display cabinet for admiration. They are
simply slices of the complex, dynamic reality of language teaching as
lived out by ¯esh and blood people working together in one particular
setting or another. These chapters explore the dynamic nature of class-
room interaction between students and teachers as lived out in speci®c
contexts, with the goal of providing teachers with insights which they
can then use to explore these realities in their own classrooms.
Finally, Chapter 9 brie¯y sums up the main points made in the

3
Introduction

previous chapters and provides a number of guidelines for methodo-

logical decision-making and for teacher education.
As already stated, this book rests on the hypothesis that language
teaching is an activity whose complexity is often underestimated, and
that a key factor in understanding language teaching as it really is
involves exploring the dynamics of teaching and learning as they are
lived out in the speci®cs of individual settings. On this basis, it seeks to
provide teachers with guidelines for exploring their own teaching
context and the `local' meaning which methodological choices can
assume for their students in the speci®cs of this context. The book
therefore questions the idea that pedagogical choices can be made on
the basis of situation-external criteria or notions of `best practice'.
Speci®cally, it suggests that pedagogical decision-making needs to rest
on a critical analysis of methodological principles in the light of their
local meaning, and on the exploration of the dynamic interaction of
students and teachers with the teaching±learning process in the full
context of their lives within but also beyond the classroom.
This book is ®rst and foremost a `teacher re¯ection' text whose goal is
to help teachers explore and respond to the dynamics of their own
situations in an open and realistic manner. The book pursues this goal
in two ways. First, the main text seeks to establish a framework of
reference and to provide stimulus for thought. Second, the tasks (which
are boxed in the text) invite readers to use this input as a basis for
re¯ection on their personal interaction with aspects of language
teaching and for the exploration of their own teaching situation. If
teachers are following a professional development course at the time of
reading, they may wish to relate these tasks to one or more situations in
which they have worked previously. In the case of novice teachers, these
tasks may be used projectively as a guide to their interaction with
concrete teaching situations and to their personal development as
teachers. Some tasks, to be approached systematically, call for a degree
of data collection, and may thus provide a starting point for action
research projects. These tasks can also, however, be used more lightly as
input to the ongoing type of curiosity and observation which is so
important in the teacher's professional life.