System, Vol. 25, No. 3, pp.

371-384, 1997
Pergamon © 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd
All rights reserved. Printed in Great Britain
P I I : S0346-25 i X(97)00029-8 0346-251X/97 $17.00+0.00

W H Y D O M A N Y S T U D E N T S A P P E A R R E L U C T A N T TO
P A R T I C I P A T E IN C L A S S R O O M L E A R N I N G D I S C O U R S E ?

NGAR-FUN LIU and WILLIAM LITTLEWOOD

Department of English, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hunghom, Hong Kong

Teachers sometimes comment on East Asian students' reluctance to adopt active
speech roles in classrooms. In two large-scale surveys conducted at the Univer-
sity of Hong Kong, however, students gave no evidence of such reluctance. They
expressed a liking for communicative work at school and a preference for uni-
versity classes in which students do most of the talking. What is the cause, then,
of the reticence that some teachers have observed? The surveys indicate that
most students have enjoyed inadequate speaking opportunities at school, where
"listening to teacher" has been their most frequent classroom experience. Many
have low confidence in their ability to speak without prior planning. Although
most see no conflict between speaking English and their Chinese identity, many
feel unease when speaking it. This unease is often reinforced by students' anxiety
to speak well and some teachers' error treatment techniques. Schoolteachers
need to provide more and better contexts for students to develop oral English
skills and use these skills in active learning roles in the classroom. Tertiary
teachers need to develop strategies for encouraging students to step into the
active learning roles which both sides seem to want. These practical implica-
tions will be explored further in the paper. © 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd

INTRODUCTION

In this paper, we will draw on studies which indicate East Asian students' seeming reluctance
to speak, and then on our own surveys which contradict such observations. Next, we will use
our survey data as well as other studies to discern some possible causes of this reticence,
which can be broadly categorised into previous learning experiences and cultural attitudes
towards learning. We will then look at certain strategies for effective student interaction or
participation, especially in an East Asian context. To conclude, we will argue that the hidden
agenda of an active mode of English learning paves the way for classrooms of tomorrow.

T H E PASSIVE EAST ASIAN S T U D E N T

In our professional discourse, we sometimes hear or make comments about East Asian
students' reluctance to adopt active speech roles in class. These comments are not confined
to staff rooms.

371
372 N G A R - F U N LIU and WILLIAM LITTLEWOOD

In their study of the notion of culture in L2 university lectures in Hong Kong, Flowerdew
and Miller (1995) cite lecturers', especially expatriate lecturers', frustration with students'
reluctance to give their opinions, even when asked. They speculate that this "negative
attitude to participation" (p. 358) may have something to do with the local and academic
cultures students operate in. It may also have something to do with the mostly teacher-
centred primary and secondary education students have had.

Similarly, Song's (1995) experience of teaching reading to East Asian students in Ameri-
can universities illustrates their initial unease with group discussions and the extreme
anxiety generated simply by the thought of asking a question in class. Again, culture and
previous education are cited as possible factors shaping students' apparent reticent beha-
viour.

Studies which analyse teacher-student interaction in terms of cultural expectations and

interpretations have also pointed out East Asian students' passive learning role. For
example, in a survey of Chinese students and their British lecturers, Jin and Cortazzi
(1993) find that Chinese students are passive about choosing a research topic because their
criterion for choosing is based on the needs of lecturers and the department. They also
exhibit dependent tendencies and expect to be guided step by step all the way in their
learning, whereas their lecturers have very different conceptions about these matters.

Another example is Turner and Hiraga's (1996) study of the effect of different cultural
assumptions on academic tutorials. They find that Japanese students in Britain appear
passive and unwilling to engage in dialectic and analytic discourse in tutorials and suggest
that Japanese academic culture, which values the demonstration rather than transforma-
tion of knowledge, could be the cause of students' passive behaviour.

There seems to be an increasing body of evidence which paints a largely passive picture of
East Asian students. But should we infer from these observations, as Flowerdew and
Miller (1995) do, that students adopt a "negative attitude to participation"? If they do,
what are the possible reasons? Could it be, for example, a result of negative attitudes
towards English as a medium of communication, or a result of what is known in Asia as
the "banana complex"? Two large-scale surveys of university teachers and students 1 in
Hong Kong (Littlewood and Liu, 1996) have provided some answers to these questions as
well as other explanations for students' apparent reticence.

THE MYTH OF THE PASSIVE EAST ASIAN STUDENT

Our surveys in Hong Kong offer strong evidence that the idea of the passive learner is
largely a myth. One of the most salient findings from our surveys is that students prefer an
active speech role. For example, our data show that when students were in the Sixth
Form, they enjoyed group discussions most out of 12 English class activities (Table 1).

Their liking for speaking English does not seem to have diminished after gaining entry
to university. When asked to state what they prefer in university English classes, the
statements in Table 2 concerning the role of student speech in class drew the biggest
 WHY ARE STUDENTS RELUCTANT TO PARTICIPATE? 373

Table 1. Rank order of liking of English lesson activities in Forms 6 and 7

Rank order of liking English lesson activities

Ist Group discussion
2nd Watching video
3rd Listening comprehension

percentage of agreement. Students like to do a lot of talking and to engage in pair or

group work in class.

Therefore, contrary to what Flowerdew and Miller (1995) believe, our survey results show
that university students in Hong Kong do not adopt a negative, but a positive attitude
towards participation in classroom discourse. Our results indicate clearly that students
welcome opportunities (at least, in their English classes) for active participation at sec-
ondary as well as tertiary levels. This desire for active participation contrasts sharply with
the passive role students are said to adopt.

It is perhaps not surprising, given that most students want to know if their production is
accurate, that their desire to participate in active communication in English is accompa-
nied by an almost equally strong desire to have their mistakes corrected. Some studies
(e.g. Koch and Terrell, 1991) even find that not having speech errors corrected makes
some students anxious. In the views of most students, then, there is not necessarily any
conflict between the demands of fluency and accuracy in communication; they wish to
achieve a high level of performance in both aspects of language use.

EAST ASIAN S T U D E N T S ' POSITIVE A T T I T U D E S TO E N G L I S H

It is sometimes suggested that students' apparent reluctance to speak English is caused by

identity problems, i.e. the "banana complex". (In Asia, it is sometimes said that the use of
English is frowned upon because that makes you a banana, yellow on the outside, white
inside. See, for example, Branegan, 1991.)

However, the results from our survey (see Table 3) show that 89% of students do not feel
that they will lose their Chinese identity if they are good at English. What is more, they
think of English more as an important world language (97%) than a colonial one (57%).
As a recent Far Eastern Economic Review feature article aptly puts it, "English was once
the scorned symbol of colonialism. No more. Today it is Asia's unifying tongue and its
language of opportunity" (McGurn, 1996: p. 40).

Table 2. Methodologypreferencesin universityEnglish classes

I prefer a class in which: Agree (%)
Learning focuseson the importanceof fluency 82
A lot of attention is paid to listening and speaking 83
Students do most of the talking 78
Materials contain a lot of communicationexercises,e.g. discussions 80
Teacher corrects most of the mistakes that students make 77
374 NGAR-FUN LIU and WILLIAM LITTLEWOOD

Table 3. Attitudes towards speaking English

Statement Agree (%)

I will lose my Chinese identity if I am good at English 11

I think of English as a colonial language in Hong Kong 57
English is an important world language 97
I learn English in order to improve my career prospects 93
I like the sound of the English language 77
I like talking with foreign people in English 76
I often feel comfortable when I speak English 57

We can see that students learn English for very practical reasons--93% learn English
in order to improve their career prospects. Furthermore, their attitudes to English are
positive; a large majority of students in our survey (77%) like the sound of the English
language and talking with foreign people in English.

These results echo those found in Asia in general (e.g. Shaw, 1981; Richards, 1993). This
means that as Asians acquire stronger cultural identities, English becomes less a threat.
And because English is mostly perceived as a world language, it could be said that it is no
longer the property of the English and has in fact acquired a status that is far less culture-
specific than before. One can like a foreign language without necessarily identifying with
its people or culture; one can learn a language without diminishing one's cultural identity.

Nonetheless, in spite of these favourable attitudes, there are still 43% of students who feel
uncomfortable when they speak English. Now that we know their unease is not related to
identity problems, we will explore other possible causes.

PLAUSIBLE MYTHS FOR STUDENTS' APPARENT RETICENCE

If students do show reluctance to speak English in class, our results show that it is not
because they do not want to. Neither is it likely to be a result of negative attitudes towards
English as a medium of communication. If it is true that they were hindered at one time
by perceptions of English as a language of colonisation (e.g. Pierson et al., 1980), these
perceptions now seem to have diminished (Yu and Atkinson, 1988; Pennington and Yue,
1993; Pennington, 1994). Speaking good English now seems perfectly compatible with
being Chinese.

Another most frequently cited, yet suspect, reason is the unique Confucian or Buddhist
culture of East Asian students. Like Asian values, the biggest clich6 about Asia today,
Confucian values have become a convenient explanation for any observed or actual
behavioural trait. For example, Scollon and Scollon (1994) state that the Confucian tea-
cher-student relationship does not encourage student questioning in class because "ques-
tioning might be thought of as saying that the teacher had not taught well because there
were still unanswered questions" (p. 17).

However, in Chinese, the term for knowledge is made up of two characters. One is "learn"
(~t) and the other is "ask" I]'d]). This means that the spirit of enquiry, the act of questioning,
 W H Y ARE STUDENTS R E L U C T A N T TO PARTICIPATE? 375

is central to the quest for knowledge. It also implies an active role for the learner.
Buddhist teaching also seems to place a great deal of emphasis on disciples asking
questions: it is thought that one has not learned until one starts to ask questions.

Wong (1984), too, argues that students are influenced by the Confucian tradition. She
observes that many Hong Kong secondary students have unspoken "rules" that govern
English use in class. These rules are: one should not speak English in front of one's peers,
and one should not answer the teacher voluntarily in English. Why do they have these
rules? Wong (1984) cites Confucian "maxims of modesty" as one reason. Confucian
teaching is thought to instill the impropriety of shining in front of one's peers. The
assumption here is that speaking English equals showing off. However, the overwhelming
instrumental motivation for speaking English all over Asia, as our and other surveys
show, makes this explanation dubious too.

No doubt there are students who always know the answer and are confident in their
English but remain silent through a sense of modesty. No doubt there are also students
who think questioning might be interpreted as not giving the teacher "face", which the
Chinese are said to be pre-occupied with (Hwang, 1987; Ho and Crookall, 1995). These
attitudes may be reinforced by the strong sense of hierarchy that exists in some Asian
societies (Scollon and Scollon, 1995). More often, however, as we will show later, it is less
a question of modesty or face than one of competence and confidence.

POSSIBLE CAUSES OF S T U D E N T S ' A P P A R E N T R E T I C E N C E

If students actually prefer a more active speech role in class, what is the cause, then, of the
reticence that some teachers have observed? In this section of the paper, some possible
reasons and remedies for this alleged reluctance to speak English will be addressed.

Lack of experience in speaking English

One of the most striking findings of our surveys is how limited indeed students' experience
of using spoken English in active, questioning roles has been.

As Table 4 shows, students enjoyed few opportunities to speak English in class, since listening
to the teacher came top as the most frequent activity (out of 12) in English classes when they
were in the Sixth Form, followed by writing essays and reading comprehension exercises.
Similar results were found in a separate survey of secondary school students (Yu et al., 1996).

Table 4 also indicates that outside class, too, speaking English is not among the three
most frequent activities. Indeed, both this survey and that of Yu et al. (1996) indicate that

Table 4. Rank order of frequencyof English lesson activitiesin and outside class in Forms 6 and 7
Rank order of frequency In class Outside class
1st Listening to teacher Listening to practice tapes and songs
2nd Writing essays Reading newspapers
3rd Reading comprehension Watching TV programmes
376 N G A R - F U N LIU and WILLIAM LITTLEWOOD

it is the least frequent activity outside class. This is not surprising since English is not used
in everyday communication in Hong Kong, except in restricted circumstances at work. In
fact, Hong Kong resembles what Kouraogo (1993) refers to as an "input-poor environ-
ment", where most communication in the English classroom and outside the classroom is
carried in the LI. The lack of opportunity for practising the language is a major factor
contributing to students' poor English performance in input-poor environments.

Lack of confidence in spoken English

Students' lack of experience in speaking English is especially serious because frequency of
practice opportunities alone seems vital to their confidence and proficiency. ANOVA
analysis of our survey data shows that the effect of frequency of oral activities in Sixth
Form English lessons is significant (p < 0.0001). The more speaking students did, the higher
they rate their ability to speak and vice versa, which indicates that students feel confident
about their oral proficiency simply because they have had a lot of practice in speaking.

Not only is frequency of speaking an important factor in self-perception of competence, it

was also found to be the only factor which has a significant effect on overall HKAL
English results (p < 0.0001) and HKASL 2 English results (p < 0.0001). Again, frequency
alone matters: students who had lots of oral practice got better English results in public
examinations.

ANOVA analysis also reveals that only the frequency of oral activities has a significant
effect (p < 0.0001) on students' attitudes: the more often they did oral activities in the
Sixth Form, the more positive their affective attitudes 3 to English and vice versa. In other
words, students feel uncomfortable speaking English simply because they have not had
much practice in it. The pedagogical implications of this are clear.

Anxiety from high performance expectations

Another ANOVA analysis indicates a further possible reason for students' unease. Their
affective attitudes to English have a significant effect (p < 0.0001) on their speaking self-
rating: the more negative the affective attitudes, the lower the self-rating. A separate survey
(Yu et al., 1996) indicates that when students speak English, they have a strong concern
to speak it well. Taken together, these results suggest that many students feel a sense of
unease speaking English simply because they do not think they are performing well enough.

It appears then that there is a strong correlation between students' sense of ease when
speaking English and their self-perception of their own competence. In other words, stu-
dents' actual performance may be adequate according to others, but they themselves do
not evaluate it positively. Some even think that they must speak perfectly in order to be
judged competent as a person. This could well be a source of their reluctance to speak
spontaneously.

Related to this is anxiety about standing out in a group or the likelihood of making a fool
of themselves, especially when they are not confident about their English. The concept
of uncertainty avoidance, which Hofstede (1986) identifies as a characteristic of some
cultures, may apply here. People in these cultures tend to avoid situations, especially
public situations, which they perceive as unclear or unpredictable. Speaking up in class,
 W H Y A R E STUDENTS R E L U C T A N T TO PARTICIPATE? 377

especially raising questions and comments, is a potentially risky business in many

students' eyes. In speaking in front of a group, students run the risk of being wrong or of
revealing their self-perceived weakness in English.

Perception of learner role

One last possible reason for students' reticence revealed by our survey results is the mis-
match between teachers' and students' perceptions of learner role.

Not all forms of class participation are equally valued by students. As can be seen in
Table 5, when university teachers and students are asked to choose two features out of 10
that they consider most important for successful spoken academic communication, they
agree that unplanned, spontaneous speech is the most important. But teachers see the
ability to raise appropriate questions or comments as the second most important aspect,
whereas students see it as one of the least important. A similar contrast between
the expectations of lecturers and the performance of students was found in a study by
Flowerdew and Miller (1992).

In view of the strong importance attached by students to oral communication ability, it

may appear strange that "raising comments and questions" does not rank high in students'
views of what is important for academic success. Since these views about the importance
of raising comments and questions depend strongly on one's conception of the students'
role in the learning process, our results suggest that there might be an important mismatch
between students' and lecturers' conceptions of the nature of learning at tertiary level.
Here teachers see the effects of an educational background which has socialised students into
accepting a passive learning role which is not appropriate to the tertiary context.

Thus the results of our surveys confirm those of previous studies (e.g. Lai, 1994) in revealing
an important shortcoming in the preparation that many students receive for their university
career. This is their lack of experience in using English as a vehicle for spoken communi-
cation and active, exploratory learning in class. It appears that their previous education
has provided them with inadequate opportunities to practise spoken English and has at
the same time socialised them into adopting passive roles in the classroom. As a result, many
of them lack confidence in their spoken English and cannot perform without feelings of
anxiety.

SOME P R A C T I C A L I M P L I C A T I O N S

All of these findings suggest that a two-fold strategy is needed. In their English classes (at
school and university) students need many more opportunities to activate their language

Table 5. Features considered important for successful spoken academic communication:

a student-teacher ranking comparison
Teacher Student
Communicate successfullywithout planning 1st Ist
Raise appropriate questions or comments in class 2nd 8th
378 N G A R - F U N LIU and WILLIAM LITTLEWOOD

and gain experience in using it for spontaneous communication. At the same time, in all of
their classes, students need to gain more experience of active methods of learning in which
they adopt an active, questioning role which is appropriate to tertiary level learning and,
indeed, required for success in the modern world.

The first part of this strategy is mainly in the hands of specialist English language tea-
chers, who now have a wide range of techniques at their disposal for developing students'
communication skills. Introducing such techniques into more and more classrooms in
Hong Kong must rank as a high priority for pre-service and in-service teacher education.
The second part is perhaps more problematic, since it has to be implemented by all tea-
chers in all of the settings where learning takes place. In the final section, then, we will
consider some ways in which all teachers might approach this task in their classrooms and
lecture-halls. These strategies need to address the issue at several levels, e.g. emotional,
socio-cultural, attitudinal and linguistic.

Coping with anxiety and examining attitudes towards learner role

Given the mainly passive learning experience students have had, addressing the emotional
and socio-attitudinal aspects of students' anxiety and habitual behaviour becomes a
priority. One way of helping students is through activities which heighten their awareness
of how certain emotional and attitudinal factors might be shaping their behaviour (see,
e.g. Crookall and Oxford, 1991).

These group activities, including what Foss and Reitzel (1991) term "rational emotive
therapy", in which students share and examine their beliefs to see if they make sense,
serve as safety valves through which to release some of the anxiety which has been
shown to be significantly correlated with reticence or L2 avoidance, irrespective of stu-
dents' cultural differences (Kleinmann, 1977). Table 6 shows an example of these group
activities. They help students gain support from their peers, develop more realistic
expectations about their own performance and encourage a more positive approach to
risk taking which is widely believed to be an important feature of effective language
learning (Scovel, 1994).

As for examining attitudes towards the learner role, teachers could make explicit their
expectations and their perceptions of this learner role. They could explore with students,
especially freshmen, the benefits of adopting an active role in learning at university. Once
students are clear about what is expected of them and why, teachers could encourage

Table 6. An exampleof "rational emotivetherapy" (Foss and Reitzel, 1991)

I. What irrational beliefdo I want to dispute?
"I'll make mistakes and people will laugh."
"My English is awful."
"My accent is awful."
"1 must speak good English in order to be judged competent as a person."
2. What evidenceexists of the falsenessof this belief?
3. What evidenceexists of the truth of this belief?
 WHY ARE STUDENTS R E L U C T A N T TO PARTICIPATE? 379

them to adopt a more active role and to explore a different mode of learning. To take this
one step further, students' participation in class could even be made one of the criteria for
continuous assessment and feedback, which should have a positive washback effect.

Using buzz groups

As shown earlier, listening to the teacher came top as the most frequent activity in English
classes. Could so much class time be taken up by teacher talk that students do not get the
practice needed? Apart from tackling anxiety and attitudes toward learner role, teachers
need to create an affective environment and more opportunities favourable to uninhibited
yet focused talk.

The use of small discussion or buzz groups should achieve such a purpose. Students
could be gently eased into a more active role by small discussion groups of no more than
six people. Many teachers find groups of three or four participants ideal for most tasks.
(It appears that working in groups of seven or above does make students anxious,
possibly because that is not very different from working with the entire class; see Koch
and Terrell, 1991.) These small buzz groups can be used for a variety of purposes other
than discussion: for instance, they could be slotted into lectures at appropriate
moments for brainstorming, questions and comments, clarification of concepts, and
critical feedback.

Students are more willing to participate in buzz groups if they have particular tasks to
complete or precise objectives to achieve. For example, instead of the limited number of
questions from the teacher almost always answered by students who are called on, stu-
dents can be encouraged to ask questions in a buzz group. Because a question is generated
by the group, it is no longer the sign of slow learning, the sign of deficiency which some
students consider questioning to be. Another example of purposeful group work is the
jigsaw puzzle format in which every participant has a different task and must contribute
his/her allotted piece(s) if the whole task is to be completed. In a university tutorial set-
ting, for instance, each participant can be responsible for an in-depth analysis of a ques-
tion or one aspect of a discussion topic.

Buzz groups, like other forms of group work, harness a behavioural trait well documented
in cross-cultural psychology: the relatively collectivist approach to human interaction in
East Asian cultures (Hofstede, 1986; Bond, 1991). They break the monotony of the usual
question-answer-feedback pattern and present less risk or threat to students because they
have the safety of the group, which is relatively a more supportive learning environment.
(We should be aware, however, that this safety could be exploited by students who prefer
to hide themselves in such a group.) They allow for greater learner participation and
responsibility, making learners become less dependent on the teacher and more dependent
on the group for their learning. This helps to shorten the hierarchical distance between
teacher and student mentioned earlier as a possible cause of students' reticence. Buzz
groups also present learners with more practice opportunities, especially in speaking
English. This kind of carefully structured group work which requires the use of English in
a low-risk environment would also boost students' confidence in using the language. What
is more, teachers could get the feedback they need in a short round-up session where
students report their ideas to the whole class.
380 N G A R - F U N LIU and WILLIAM LITTLEWOOD

Designing speaking tasks for success

Students love small discussion groups. In addition, these buzz groups get them niore
involved in the teaching-learning process. But some research (e.g. Lee, 1994) has shown
that, when using English, students with low proficiency tend not to adopt communica-
tion strategies which they would normally use when they use their mother tongue. Worse
still, a buzz group could experience a total communication breakdown simply because
the utterances are incomprehensible.

There seems to be a case for addressing these issues at the linguistic level, e.g.
reminding students of or teaching them the kinds of strategies needed for successful
spoken communication. These strategies include turn-taking and giving verbal/
non-verbal feedback and "repair" strategies such as asking for repetition and clarifi-
cation.

In some cases, it is necessary to teach specific language for doing these things. For exam-
ple, some students need to be taught the language of clarification; they need to see exam-
ples of paraphrases and be encouraged to use them when they do not have the right
word(s) to express themselves. In many circumstances, teachers need to provide students
with appropriate and accurate linguistic models. For instance, one way of helping stu-
dents to learn how to ask questions is "hearing these questions formulated regularly and
accurately during the lesson" (O'Neill, 1991: p. 303).

For learners whose proficiency and confidence are low, the need for teachers to plan
or design activities for success is more urgent than that of designing for uncertainty
or spontaneity. These learners need to have the unpredictability level of a task cut
down to the minimum. One way of designing speaking tasks for success is by exten-
sive preparation either in or outside class so that accuracy, e.g. of pronunciation, as
well as fluency can be achieved. Teachers need to remember that students who are
accustomed to a passive mode of learning would need to be guided step by step
along the way to uncertainty, spontaneity and autonomy. However, for learners
whose proficiency and confidence are comparable to the English majors in Ho and
Crookall's (1995) project, the unpredictable and precarious nature of a task (in this
case, a large-scale simulation) is what it takes to break students away from their
traditional passive role.

Using feedback as an integral part of learning

Apart from giving learners the tools or support to learn effectively in groups, teachers
need to make sure that they are given explicit feedback or correction. The value students
place on error correction seems to point to the importance of giving feedback on
speaking activities. Although this need not always come from the teacher, it should be
an integral part of the learning process. For example, using simple and clear assessment
criteria, different groups of students could share with the teacher the responsibility of
giving evaluative feedback on different aspects of the task. If this feedback is done with
great sensitivity to students' self-esteem in a trusting and supportive environment, it
should enhance their confidence and proficiency rather than inhibit their desire to speak
English.
 W H Y A R E STUDENTS R E L U C T A N T TO PARTICIPATE? 381

SUMMARY

The results of our research indicate two areas of development which have implications
both for English language learning and for wider aspects of students' learning.

1. Before students enter university, they need to experience more opportunities to

develop active skills in oral English and to use those skills in active learning roles in
the classroom.
2. At tertiary level, everybody concerned needs to explore strategies for encouraging
students to move towards more active roles. These strategies include:

• clearer communication about the importance attached to active roles in class;

• encouragement to move away from socio-cultural attitudes which reinforce passive
roles and silence;
• signals or feedback that underline the value of students' contributions rather than
their incompleteness;
• creating space for student participation, e.g. through buzz groups and other non-
threatening contexts;
• ensuring the success of student participation, e.g., through preparation that
increases students' linguistic competence, including accuracy of expression;
• teaching communication strategies for raising questions and participating in
discussion; and
• clarifying interaction procedures and providing models or examples.

CONCLUSION

The questions of why many students appear reticent and how as teachers we can encourage
participation or interaction in our classrooms are underpinned by the implicit assumption
that participation does make a difference. As far as L2 learning is concerned, research
results have been mixed (Pica, 1994). But as Nunan (1995) maintains, research outcomes
depend a lot on the type of interaction, how it was arranged and how the data were collec-
ted. As teachers, we can rely on our own sensitivity to the learners' needs, educational and
cultural backgrounds to tell us how far we can take them on an active mode of learning,
how and in what way learner participation can make a difference in our own situations.

It is obvious that learner participation is no panacea for all classroom problems. In fact,
the more we base our classroom on learner participation, the more we must be prepared
for the unpredictable. Teachers will, therefore, constantly be faced by Allwright's (1984)
question: "Why don't learners learn what teachers teach?"

One easy answer is that they are not ready yet (Pienemann, 1989). Related to this are notions
of learnability and universal grammar. Scovel (1994) contends that some phonological,
morphological and syntactic features of English are so marked and non-universal that they
present pervasive problems for learning. Another answer could be the non-target-like inter-
language input students constantly receive from a linguistically and culturally homo-
geneous group (Wong-Fillmore, 1992). In "input-poor environments" (Kouraogo, 1993),
382 NGAR-FUN LIU and WILLIAM LITTLEWOOD

the adverse effects of poor teaching and infectious peer interlanguage should not be
underestimated. A further answer lies in what Nunan (1995) calls agenda and process
mismatch: teachers would be busy trying to teach something while learners are busy
learning something else; teachers would be busy trying to get learners to learn in a par-
ticular way while learners are busy learning in their own preferred ways. These gaps can
be bridged if we make explicit our teaching agenda and its rationale as well as take into
account learners' learning preferences. At the same time, it is worth remembering that
there will never be a one-to-one correspondence between teaching and learning and that
the effects of group work or student participation are highly context-dependent.

Apart from implications at the level of classroom practice, learner participation has broader
implications for current educational thinking. Students' concern for an active speech role
and teachers' desire for them to move away from a passive learning role appear to fit well
into the learner-centred philosophy advocated by many (e.g. Nunan, 1988; Shulman, 1995).

We would like to argue that there are values inherent in this philosophy that are necessary
for effective functioning in the modern world. More than ever before, there is an urgent
need to keep up-to-date with rapid changes, be they technological, social or economic.
More than ever before, one is confronted with new information from a bewildering vari-
ety of sources. The ability to relate this new information to past learning and one's own
experiences of the world, to question the reliability and usefulness of this new information
and to communicate it to other people, becomes increasingly important. One needs to be
a critical consumer and an effective communicator of information. A passive learning
environment is not likely to foster this kind of ability.

Nunan (1995) argues that the knowledge, skills and sensitivities required of learner parti-
cipation are not peculiar to language learning, in fact, they provide a rationale for many
educational systems around the world. Implicit in many officially stated goals of educa-
tion is the development of the individual's ability to face new situations and new challen-
ges, to be more pro-active and to take on more initiatives than before. The challenge for
teachers and educators is to make sure that these macro goals are achieved at the micro
level of the teaching-learning process.

NOTES

IThe surveys were undertaken as part of the LEAP (Learning Experience, Attitudes and Proficiency) Project,
which was funded by the University Grants Committee in Hong Kong. We would like to thank the 437 lecturers
and 2156 students who responded to the questionnaire surveys and all the teachers who helped in the question-
naire administration.
2HKAL and HKASL are public examinations taken before entry to university in Hong Kong.
3principal factor analysis (SAS) identifies a group of attitudes which are termed "affective". They include atti-
tudes to the sound of English, to speaking English and learning motivation.

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