ANALYSIS OF IRF (INITIATION-RESPONSE-FEEDBACK) ON CLASSROOM

INTERACTION IN EFL SPEAKING CLASS

Andi Rustandi, Ande Husni Mubarok

English Department, Galuh University, Ciamis
[email protected]

ABSTRACT

This study aims at analyzing the reflection of IRF (Initiation-Response-

Feedback) in speaking class and investigating the dominant sequence
among I, R and F. IRF is a pattern of classroom interaction found by
Sinclair and Coulthard in 1975 that stands for teacher initiation,
students’ response and feedback by teacher. Initiation is the movement in
which teacher initiates an interaction to get the response of the students,
then teacher gives feedback to the students’ response. To obtain the data,
the researcher conducted classroom observation in speaking class in one
university in West Java. The result showed that student response
becomes the dominant sequence of IRF in speaking class. Furthermore, it
is recommended that the teachers should maintain the effectiveness of
classroom interaction and give much opportunity to the students to take
role in classroom verbal interaction through reflecting the IRF pattern in
teaching learning process particularly in speaking classroom.

Keywords: IRF, classroom interaction, speaking class

I. INTRODUCTION

Speaking is considered as an important skill in our life. It has an

important role to communicate with other people in daily life as stated by
Thornburry (2005, p.1) that speaking is a part of daily life that we take it for
granted. It refers to speaking is an important skill in order to communicate
with other people. Therefore, students who learn foreign language, they have
to accustom to communicate in target language. To make students
accustomed to communicate in target language, Writers think that teacher can
create interaction with students in classroom by using target language for the
whole interaction. Interaction is an activity that usually conducts in classroom
and it has an important role to build communication between teacher and
students as stated by Walsh (2011, p. 23) that communication is a central to
all classroom activity.

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Undoubtedly, Interaction cannot be separated from speaking.

Interaction occurs every day in classroom activities between teacher and
students. According to Brown (2001, p. 167), interaction is at the heart of
communicative competence. It means that when students interact with each
other, they receive input and produce output through language which is
acquired by them as their communicative competence. It refers to interaction
between teacher and students in classroom become a central in teaching and
learning process. It can be caused by the exchange of thoughts, feelings or
ideas as a result of input and output of language which is acquired by them
through interaction.

Interaction between teacher and students has led into classroom

interaction. According to Hall (2011, p. 11), classroom interaction is a term
that used to analyze what goes on among people in classroom when language
is involved. From the statement above, the term classroom interaction refers to
the interaction between teacher-students and students-students in terms of
language use during teaching and learning process in classroom. Teacher is
not only interacts to students verbally but he or she interacts to students non-
verbally as well. According to Robinson (2005, p. 17), interaction in the
classroom is channeled through nonverbal interaction. It refers to body
language between teacher and students in classroom. There are many
functions of non-verbal interaction in the classroom, such as expressing
emotion, communicating personal attitudes and supporting speech.

In speaking class, there are several specific features of verbal

interaction as stated by Walsh (2011, p. 33) are as follows; (1) In direct-error
correction, teacher interacts to students to correct errors which made by them
during conversation occurred. Errors are corrected quickly and directly so this
is far-less time-consuming, (2) In content feedback, teacher provides personal
reactions to comments conversation that occurs naturally. It aims to provide
oral fluency practice in which the use of conversational language is
appropriate to their pedagogic purposes and language use.

The appropriateness of using conversational language creates an

atmosphere that is conducive to learning and promotes students’ involvement,

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(3) In checking for confirmation, teacher who seeks clarification and checks for
confirmation has an opportunity to maximize learning potential since she or
he does not always accepts the first contribution that students offered, (4) In
extended wait-time, teacher gives a chance for students to manage their turn-
taking without intervention by teachers. By allowing students to manage their
turn-taking, it will increase the number of students’ response since it will lead
to complex answers and students’ involvement.

Classroom interaction plays important role in the teaching learning

process. According to Dagarin (2004), classroom interaction can be defined as
a two-way process between the participants in the learning process. The
teacher influences the learners and vice versa. Moreover, she continues by
quoting Brown’s statement (2001, 165) that “...interaction is, in fact, the heart
of communication: it is what communication is all about”. Thus, learning will
occur when there is co-operation between teacher and student which make
communication take place.

According to Rustandi (2013), the definition of classroom interaction

can be depicted from the pattern of classroom interaction in Table 1.

Table 1
Classroom Interaction Pattern

Teacher Students

Communication is done because the interactants have some goals to

achieve. In a classroom, communication takes place because teacher has
something to transfer to the students, i.e. new knowledge. Likewise, students
communicate with their teachers and peers because they want to get new
knowledge and share their ideas. In this regard, the communication achieved
through interactive communication between teacher -students and students –
teacher.

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Classroom interaction cannot be separated from the teacher and

students. It has a certain pattern one of them is IRF pattern. This pattern
stands for initiation-response-feedback, is a pattern of discussion between the
teacher and learners. The teacher initiates, the learner responds, the teacher
gives feedback (Sinclair & Coulthard, 1975). The definition of three patterns
can be traced through the following explanation.

Firstly is initiation (I), the movement in which teacher initiates an

interaction, as stated by Dayag et al. (2008, p.5) initiation is the teacher ask a
question or action to initiate students to do interaction in classroom. It is the
effort of the teacher in pushing the students to drop their selves in a
communication or interaction. According to Harmer (2009, p. 111), it is the
stage “when the teacher has to do something is to get the students involved,
engage and ready.” It is also believed that the important way to create the
interactive language classroom because it provides the stimuli for the student
to interact continually.

Secondly response moves (R), what is actually performed by the

students following the initiation which produced by the teacher. Dayag et al
(2008, p.5) state that response is represent the teacher initiate in response of
initiation move by participants act. It means that the students do interact to
response the teacher stimuli.

The last is feedback/follow up (F), the last exchange of a turn which

aims to give feedback to students’ response. According to Dayag et al. (2008,
p.5) that feedback completes the cycle as it provides closure to the initiation
and response. It means that students get immediately the correction or
evaluation for their response.

Some studies related to IRF and classroom interaction have been

investigated and several studies revealed that IRF can build active interaction
between teacher and students in classroom interaction such as (Hong, 2009);
(Pinkevience, 2011); and (Cohen, 2011). Generally, these studies showed that
IRF pattern is the most sequence which occurred in classroom interaction.
Nevertheless, the study about analysis of IRF reflection in classroom
interaction and the dominant exchange among I, R and F as not numerous as

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the number of those dealing with the study of the use of IRF. Therefore, this
study is conducted to analyze the reflection of IRF (Initiation-Response-
Feedback) in speaking class and the dominant exchange among I, R and F.

II. DISCUSSION
The participant of this research is an English teacher and thirty five
students of a speaking class in English department participated in this study.
The reason of choosing this university particularly speaking class is because
the class is active class and uses the sequence of interaction of IRF during
teaching-learning process.

The data were gained through classroom observation. The observation

was aimed to describe the reflection of IRF pattern when teacher-students
interaction and analyze the dominant exchange of IRF. The observation
administered three times in different times. Camera video was settled in the
best position to record the classroom interaction, while the writer sat at the
back of the classroom to take notes on what happened during teaching and
learning process for capturing classroom interaction. Finally, the data
obtained from the observation were analyzed by generalizing and interpreting
the data.

Then the data were then analyzed qualitatively by employing some

steps as transcribing, coding and analyzing. Transcribing is one way of
analyzing data through observation. According to Cresswell (2008, p. 239)
transcribing is the process of convert audiotape recordings in to the data. In
this step, the result of recorded classroom interaction was transcribed as the
main written source to be analyzed by the researcher.

Coding is the process of segmenting and labeling text to form

descriptions and broad themes in the data. Besides, according to Nunan and
Bailey (2009, p.260), interaction analysis system involves the identification of
verbal and non- verbal interaction in terms of the coding and categorization of
utterances. After completing the transcription, the researcher coded each
number of utterances into the category based on Initiation-Response-
Feedback (IRF) pattern. The last is analyzing, that is the next step of analyzing

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data through observation. In this step, the writer analyzed the encoded
transcription of the result of recorded classroom interaction into IRF pattern.

The result of this study revealed that the classroom interaction in

speaking class reflected IRF pattern proposed by Sinclair and Coulthard
(1975). The total numbers of interactions are 393 which are divided into 138
initiations, 177 student responses and 78 teacher feedbacks. These
interactions occurred in teaching learning process. However, the whole of the
interactions cannot be described fully because they have the same pattern.
The three interactions below show the exchanges of IRF taken as sample from
the 393 exchanges.

The examples of interaction between teacher and students can be seen

in excerpt 1, 2 and 3.

Excerpt 1
Teacher Ok class, give your comment or opinion for this group!
(Initiation)
Student I am mom…., Wow that is interesting acting, especially for
Her. Your character seems angry, right? But I think that is not
angry but that is discipline. You show about how to improve
the characteristic of discipline in the class, especially in
lesson English. (Respond)
Teacher Good..(by raising two tombs up) (Feedback)
Excerpt 2
Teacher Well, What do you think of the group of discussion just now?
(initiation)
Student I think that was good (respond)
Teacher Ok. Thanks for the opinion (Feedback)
Excerpt 3
Teacher What a nice performance, is that right? (initiation)
Student Yes ….really good (respond)
Teacher Ok, thank you for the respond (Feedback)

From the three brief excerpts above, it can be seen that in line 1
teacher asked students to give their opinion, in line 2 it can be seen that one
of the students gave an opinion and in line 3 the teacher gave feedback by
answering the student response. In this regard, the lecturer gives an initiation
by asking the student to give a comment. Then, the student gives the response
on the teacher initiation by giving a comment on the performance. Finally, the
teacher gave feedback by giving verbal response toward the student opinion.

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In the pattern above, the teacher always initiate the interaction by

giving question to the students. The initiation happened because of the
students mostly passive in the speaking class discussion. They always waited
what the teachers want to do. Then, the following pattern is response from the
students. The response happened after the teacher initiation by the teacher.
Student responds verbally or sometimes non-verbally. Then, the last pattern is
feedback from the teacher to the students’ response. The feedback usually
used verbal and sometimes non-verbal act.

Every interaction is always initiated by the teacher question and then

followed by the student response by giving opinion toward the teacher
question and finally the teacher give feedback verbally and non-verbally
toward the student opinion. The IRF pattern in classroom interaction in
speaking class including the frequency of occurrences and also the percentage
of types can be seen in the table 2.

Table 2
IRF Pattern and Frequency Occurrences

First Second Third

Types Obs Obs Obs Total %
F % F % F %
Teacher 55 36,4 42 33,1 41 35,6 138 35,1
Initiation
Students 66 43,7 58 45,6 53 46,1 177 45
Response
Teacher 30 19,9 27 21,3 21 18,3 78 19,9
Feedback
TOTAL 151 100 127 100 115 100 393 100

The table above shows that the students response is the highest
score by 35,1 % calculated from three times observation. Then, at the
second place is teacher initiation by doing three times observation
totally 35 %. Finally the third place is teachers feedback in three
times observation by total percentage 19,9 feedbacks . In this regard,
the response of the students is the dominant pattern in the
classroom interaction in speaking class rather than initiation and
feedback.

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Regarding the highest score of student response, this pattern

happened when the class had a group discussion. The class
discussion was given by the teacher to develop students initiation,
however, the initiation of the student were rarely occurred because of
they were afraid of mistakes.
Teacher initiation is the second places due to the students’
passiveness. It is because the discussion of the material that was
given by the teacher was difficult to understand by the students.
Finally, the initiation is the main focus of the teacher to overcome the
death of the discussion.
Finally, the lowest score is teacher feedback. Teacher feedback
is rarely happened due to the lack of response from the students. As
a result the teacher only used verbal response to answer the student
response. The feedback is useful for the teacher to motivate the
students to initiate the interaction.

Regarding to the sequences pattern during classroom activities was

teacher initiation which followed by student response and the last exchange
was teacher feedback. In this case, asking question was used to initiate
interaction to the students, so students could involve responses actively
then teacher involved confirmation to the responses. It was related to Walsh
(2006, p. 5), IRF (Initiation-Response-Feedback) is a pattern of interaction
’moves’ in classroom that stands for I is teacher initiation, R is response by
students and F is feedback by teacher. Furthermore, Tognini (2007, p. 132)
states that IRF pattern is a common sequences in the language classroom
when the teacher and students interact each other. The same result also
showed by Pinkevicience (2011) that some teachers created opportunities
for learner involvement through the implementation of IRF in classroom.

In line with the finding of the study above, this finding strengthen the
previous argument of Kumpulainen and Wray (2002, p. 9) that IRF is the
most widely known of typical classroom interaction patterns. In this
interaction sequence, teacher controls interaction in classroom through
initiating discussion and posing questions to students. After the students

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responded questions given by teachers, teacher finishes the interaction

sequence by giving feedback on student’s response. It is supported by
Zhang (2012, p. 980) who found that more than 50% of classroom
exchanges or patterns are IRF. So that, IRF pattern is possible occurrences
in the all of classroom lesson including speaking class.

Moreover, the second result of this study showed that the dominant
occurred among I, R and F in the classroom interaction on speaking class
was students’ responses. According to Dayag et al (2008, p.5) state that
response is represent the teacher initiate in response of initiation move by
participants act. It means that the students do interact to response the
teacher stimuli. In this study the students gave contribution actively during
the classroom lesson. In contrast with the findings of the study which is
found the result that students response was dominant occurred in
classroom lesson which caused by teacher effort to keep students
participation, a research which conducted by Hong (2009) found that
teacher initiation from the whole of classroom activities was dominant
occurred. From the observation, Hong found that most of teaching learning
activities was devoted to asking question by teacher to the students.
According to Nakula as cited in Saikko (2007, p.24) assumed that nothing
the exact structure of the IRF pattern that would lead to teacher or
students dominance. It depends on the classroom interaction naturally. It
means that IRF pattern gives same chance for both teacher and students to
interact actively as well as dominantly in classroom.

Regarding the interaction during teaching and learning process in

speaking classroom, Walsh (2011, p. 31) stated that interaction is an aid of
showing how teachers can create opportunities for learning through their
use of language and interactional resources. By verbal and non-
interaction, teachers facilitate students’ involvement by constructing
language in which students are involved to create learning opportunities.

III. CONCLUSIONS

Based on the data analysis and the result of the study, the interaction
during teaching learning activities was full of IRF pattern sequences. It can

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be concluded that the kind of teacher-student interaction in the speaking

class is reflected by teacher initiation in which the teacher initiates the
students by giving the questions, soliciting information and identifying the
students who have the next turn to answer. In line with the types of IRF
pattern, in the classroom activities the students’ response is dominantly
occurred. In the case of the dominance of student response, it will depend
on what the material of the classroom lesson and how the teacher’s way in
provoking the students to be active. If the material in classroom lesson is
quite easy the student participation will occurred frequently. On the other
hand, if the teacher’s way in provoking students by giving the initiation, it
can make them interested, so the percentage of student response is
increasing.

Finally, to achieve the better result in conducting classroom interaction

in speaking class, the student should be more actively involved in the
classroom. They should create their own opportunities and find strategies
for getting practice in using and practicing the language, so they can
participate and contribute during classroom lesson well. In addition, they
should increase their motivation in studying speaking English through
learning and practicing the language.

Therefore, it will be better for the next researcher to conduct the study
not only about classroom IRF pattern but the other patterns as well. In
addition, it will be better for further researchers to conduct the study about
classroom interaction in which the other patterns on classroom interaction
such as scaffolding and private speech pattern. Then, further researchers
are expected to observe not only interaction pattern between teacher-
students but also interaction pattern among students.

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