TOPIC AND ACTIVITY

by Mete Akcaoglu
Outline
 Characteristics of Interaction
 Communicative Language Teaching
 Topic Orientation
 Activity Orientation
 Topic – Activity interplay
 Interaction Types
 Participation Structure
 Discourse Boundaries
Characteristics of
interaction
 What does it involve doing?
 Activity

 What is it about?
 Topic

 Sometimes these two elements carry

different weights in interactions.
 Sometimes the process itself is important
 Sometimes the topic in question is important
Characteristics of
interaction
 In our daily life conversations, which end
of the continuum do we tend to fall?
Topic driven vs. Activity driven?
 What about EFL/ESL classrooms?
Communicative Language
Teaching
 In reality “communicative” classroom
seems to be a rarity (Kumaravadivelu
1993) since we cannot manage to make
 Learners active
 Learners ask for information, seek
clarification, agree/disagree
 Go beyond memorized patterns

 Five Macrostrategies
The study
Episode 1
 Episode 1 (script on p19)
 Male teacher with MA
 3.2 years of experience

 He was briefed on macrostrategies

 Speaking class

 Asked process and metaprocess

questions
 Negotiated interaction
 Made use of learning opportunities
created by learners
The study
Episode 2
 Episode 2 (script on p20)
 Female teacher with MA
 4.1 years of experience

 She was not aware of macrostrategies

framework
 Grammar class

 Used deductive methods of presentation

 Very little negotiated interaction
 Failed to utilize the learning
opportunities created by learners
(typhoon example)
Macrostrategies
(Kumaravadivelu 1993)
Create learning opportunities
 Collaboration of learners and the teacher to create such
opportunities
Utilize learning opportunities created by
learners
 Co-participants in creating a classroom discourse
Facilitate negotiated interaction between
participants
 Meaningful learner-learner / learner – teacher interaction
 Negotiated means the learner has the freedom to initiate
interaction
Activate the intuitive heuristics of the learner
 Give learners a chance to infer and internalize underlying
rules from their context
Contextualize linguistic input
 Introducing isolated sentences will deprive learners of
necessary pragmatic cues, thereby rendering the
Characteristics of
interaction
 Rules and routines of interaction are
culturally specific, and might pose
problems for learners:
 Do come see us sometimes!
 I’d love to visit your country one day!

 Mastering in determining what may

constitute a appropriate response to this
kind of comments asks for competence.
 How much can a learner master this skill
in an EFL classroom?
 Now let’s have a look at the types of
classroom interaction
Topic Orientation
 What is “topic”?
 Pretherotical notion of what is being
talked about. (Brown and Yule 1983a,
p71)
 Vernacular term, roughly referring to
“what is talked about” through some
series of turns at talk (Schegloff 1979, p.
270)
Topic
 Two ways of looking at topic that are
relevant to second-language classroom
research:
 unit of analysis
 A lesson can be divided into topics like a
conversation: the homework, a dialogue about
asking the way, presentation of a grammar
topic, pairwork, roleplay...
 in this sense it might be problematic to divide
the lesson into topics. One might say that the
whole lesson was about one topic.
 part of discourse process
 bag metaphor
 a topic is not a topic until it is talked about
Topic
 Participants decide and by means of
markers in the discourse initiate, change
and close topics.
 So, the interaction is organized for the
purpose of raising issues to topical
status, maintaining or changing their
direction.
 Topical coherence is constructed across turns by
the collaboration of participants. (Levinson 1983,
p135)
 In EFL classrooms, how much does this
collaboration work? How much of the
topic is pre-determined by the teacher?
Activity Orientation
 Sometimes, how the interaction is done
is more important than what the
interaction is about.
 However, this is not an either or
discussion, both orientations may and
usually be simultaneously visible in a
stretch of talk.
 If the interaction needs to be successful,
the participants must agree on the
orientation (topic/activity) of that
interaction.
Activity Orientation
 This orientation manifests itself through a
focus of attention on saying things in a
particular way, previously agreed way.
 using full sentences, repeating structures etc.
 In real-life the activity (conversation) rules
are tacit and largely determined by social
conventions.
 In L2 classrooms the activity rules are not
tacit, but often specifically established and
have to be stated until the activity becomes
well known.
Activity Orientation
 The way the interaction flows is specified and
predetermined in advance by the teacher.
 Again, what are the differences between an
activity driven EFL classroom and our daily life
conversations?

 T:But today, we are going to talk about “tag

questions”. Tell me, class, tell me a sentence with a
question tag.
S16:”Is that a book?”
T: No, no, I don’t want normal questions, I want
sentences with a question tag.
S1: “You are a student, aren’t you?”
T: Ok, [writing on the board] “You are a student,
aren’t you?” your friend says. Let’s imagine …..
Topic-activity Interplay
 Sometimes an activity may determine
the list of topics to be talked about.
 SmallTalk limits the range of the issues to
talk about
 Some unstated rules
 Good conversationalists (don’t bore, don’t
be rude, don’t monopolize)
 Smooth topic change
 Regular topic change
 Give others a chance to talk, but in a language
class…
Topic-activity Interplay in
EFL
 Topic and activity are mostly managed by
the teacher.
 In topic driven classroom interactions,
learners appear to be freer in terms of
speaker selection and production, as the
learners talk up the things they bring up.
 However, the teachers still try to keep focus
on the “actual” topic. Why?
 The class time is limited
 Varies from teacher to teacher / class to class

 Teachers preplanned decisions to be

transmitted
Topicalization
 A learner takes up something the teacher/another learner
said an makes it into a new topic. Can we call this “ders
kaynatmak”?

 T: Scientist have made progress, ben okuyorum yine. Progress neydi? Who is
doing the next one?
S1: ilerleme
S1: Scientist have made progress in controlling of the weather, in spite of the
difficulties.
T: Yes we have “of” here and after “in spite of” we have a noun. Scientist have
made progress in controlling of the weather, in spite of the difficulties. Böyle
bir şey var mı, duydunuz mu hiç? Doğru mu bu cümle? Ne dediğini
anladınız, değil mi?
S1: [translates the sentence into Turkish]
T: var mı? hava kontrol ediliyor mu?
S15: ediliyor, ediliyor
S1: yağmur falan yağdırılabiliyormuş.
T: Yağmur falan yağdırıldığı oluyor aslıda.
S16: evet yağmur bombaları varmış.
S15: [in audible remark]
T: Şimşek falan kotrol edebilmek güzel olabilirdi herhalde. OK, sentence
Topic Oriented Lesson
 Exchange of information
 Sequence is preplanned
 Aim is to get information
 Question asked by knower undirected
 Self-selection is common
 Teacher does not select a speaker, general
solicits
Activity Oriented Lesson
 Self-selection is rare
 Private rehearsal turns are more
common than listening responses.
 So,
which one is much closer to real life
conversations?
 Topic oriented talk is closer to real life
 in terms of turn taking rules
Topic-activity Interplay
 During the lesson the interaction
between the topic and activity is often
fluid.
 The dynamics of interaction are too
flexible to be treat that it is composed of
certain “phases”.
 Thus, switches between activity
orientation to topic orientation or
switches from topic to topic and activity
to activity can occur frequently.
 We can identify the boundries with the
help of boundary markers, but we need
to analyze the those unitary sequences
to get information about coherence or
Interaction Types
 We cannot divide the lesson up into
topics and tasks as distinct units
 Every sequence must be examined for
its relative focus on topic and activity in
terms of “more” or “less”
 + Topic

3
2
Instructing
telling
(eliciting)

+
-
Activity

4
1 drilling
talking (playing)

- van Lier
1989, p156
Interaction type 1
Talking

 Occurs at the beginning of a lesson and

illustrates ‘warming up’
 Teacher introduces the topic but the
learners can bring up new topics as far
as they are appropriate.
 Turns are self selected
 Less focus on both activity and topic
Interaction type 2
Telling

 Here the focus is getting the job done.

 Learners ask for clarification when
necessary, and produce listening
responses to indicate their
understanding.
 Teacher talk mostly
 No allocation of turns
Interaction type 3
Instructing (eliciting)

 Focus is information of a specific kind

 Dual focus on both topic and activity
Interaction type 4
Drilling (playing)

 Explicit ritual structure

 Teacher allocation of turns
 The topic is not important as long as the
task is done.
 Assessment of the utterance is done on
the form rather than the content.
Interaction Types
 There are also some instances where the
sequences of interaction is transformed
to another activity type without dropping
the issue.
Type 3 Instructing
(eliciting)

Type 2 Telling
Interaction Type Change
 Who initiates the change?
 Teacher
 The activity may not produce the desired
results (let’s try this way...)
 Learners
 They prefer just talking to more regimented
activities.
 2,3 and 4 to 1
Interaction Type Change
Example

Type 2

Type 1
Lesson Structure
 Random succession of speech acts?
 Itis not, however, there is no common
underlying structure for all lessons.
 Lesson can start and end in all imaginable
ways.
 Which type of interaction might be the dominan
 Type 4
 Type 4 is the furthest removed from natural
conversation, one may raise doubts as to its
value in terms of realistic language practice.
 Teacher talk dominance
 Group work can be useful to provide variety
 However, what crucial characteristic does a
group work need to have to elicit more
naturalistic conversation?
“Information Gap” Tasks: Do They Facilitate
Second Language Acquisition? (Doughty, C.
& Pica, T. 1986)
 Unless a required information exchange task is chosen,
students will interact less and will modify their interaction
less as well.
 (Pica & Doughty, 1983) that individual students produce
more input and have more input directed toward them in
group than in teacher-fronted interaction,
 It appears that group work—and for that matter, pair work
as well— is eminently capable of providing students with
opportunities to produce the target language and to
modify interaction.
 In keeping with second language acquisition theory, such
modified interaction is claimed to make input
comprehensible to learners and to lead ultimately to
successful classroom second language acquisition
 the teacher’s role is critical not only in providing students
with access to grammatical input, but also in setting up
Lesson Structure
 An L2 lesson is a mixture of planned and
unplanned elements
 Planned vs. Unplanned Discourse
 Spontaneous conversation vs. ritualized speech
events
 Planner is the teacher (for the most
parts)
 Learners wait and see what is going to
happen
 Communicative approach tries to give
learners some responsibility in planning
 Teacher is consultant rather than master
Elements of Planning
Local vs. Nonlocal resources

 Cognitive: selecting suitable matter

 Institutional/Cultural
 Methodological: ideologies and beliefs
 Ritual: reliance on trusted and tested
routines
 Social Context: dynamics of gathering
learners and their teacher
 Learning
in a classroom is a
multidimensional phenomenon (Long
1983a)
Participation Structures
 The concept is first introduced by
Philips (1972) referring to structural
arrangements of interaction within the
framework of teacher controlled
instruction.
1. Teacher – whole class
2. Teacher – group (e.g. reading groups)
3. Teacher – individual learner
4. Group by itself (group projects)
Participation Structure
 Erickson (1982) proposed
 Academic task structure, patterned set of
constraints provided by the logic of
sequencing in the subject matter
content of the lesson
 Social participation structure, patterned set
of constraints on allocation of
interactional rights and obligations of
various members of interacting group.
Participation Stucture
 Most discourse analyses of classroom
suggest that the classroom interaction is
predetermined by the teacher.
 What factors influence this occurrence?
 Prespecified activity types, planned
beforehand
 Turn taking rules are not determined by
rules of ordinary conversation
 Participation Stucture

conversation
telling
elicitation

ritual
grop work

The varying configuration of speaking rights and duties of the learners can be consistently related to
the type of interaction taking place. Depending on the type of the activity in progress, what is said,
when is said, how is said can be more or less predictable.
Discourse Boundaries
 Using the information from interaction types and
participation structures it will be possible to divide the
lesson into its constituent sequences or episodes (but
transcription may be needed)
 Classroom discourse may use different markers, maybe
ends and beginnings of episodes provide information about
the management of affairs.
 Any more questions?, All right, OK, etc.
 Opening of a new episode functions as a closing of the old one.
 Teacher leads this – Power of authority
S3: we can’t make rain fall in desert areas, so drought is still a problem.
T: Great! We can’t make rain fall in desert areas, so drought is still a
problem. What does “drought” mean?
S1: kuraklık
T: lack of water. You are right. And the last one.
S2: Control over the weather could save many lives. However, we don’t
In conclusion
 Learners’ participation is entirely predetermined
at times. (there are cases where the learners
make creative contributions)
 The teacher controls the classroom interaction
almost all the time. This is not necessarily a
negative comment. (without control there might
be no initiative)
 Classroom can never just be a replica of the
outside world.
 Nonlocal forces may affect a classroom’s
organization, e.g. the institution’s expectations
 Classroom is locally organized in terms of its
being a social group with its own social rules