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"In English language teaching, interaction is used to indicate the language (or action) used to maintain the conversation, to teach, or to interact with participants involved in the teaching and learning processes in the classroom"

https://www.myenglishpages.com/blog/classroom-interaction/#:~:text=In%20English%20language%20teaching%2C%20interaction,learning%20processes%20in%20the%20classroom.

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This article tries to define classroom interaction and how different approaches dealt with interaction to provide learning and teaching opportunities.

A shift in perspective

Gone are the days when the teacher was considered the sage on the stage whose job was to fill students' heads with knowledge. Learners are not recipients to be filled, but humans with their own personal needs who want to initiate their own learning and develop their skills in a threat-free environment.

This shift in perspectives has its manifestation in the classroom. Classroom interaction has become of paramount importance in the teaching and learning process.

Definition

The term "interaction" is made up of two morphemes, namely inter and action. It is a mutual or reciprocal action or influence. In English language teaching, interaction is used to indicate the language (or action) used to maintain the conversation, to teach, or to interact with participants involved in the teaching and learning processes in the classroom.

Different perspectives

Classroom interaction can be seen from different perspectives according to the approach adopted in teaching.

Behaviorism

From a behaviorist perspective, classroom interaction is reduced to modeling, repetition, and drills. The most salient feature of classroom interaction in a behavioral model is the use of techniques that bring students' behavior under stimulus control. This model focuses mainly on the transmission of the right behavior to students by means of stimulus, response, and reinforcement. This approach to teaching is mainly teacher-centered. Students are mere recipients whose control over interaction is reduced to the minimum. The interaction flows, most of the time, in one direction, from the teacher to the students. They rarely work collaboratively to construct their knowledge.

Cognitivism

The cognitive model of classroom interaction is based on the learner's processing of what's happening in the classroom to make sense of the world. Here, the learner is actively involved in the learning by means of two processes, namely assimilation and accommodation. These are complementary processes through which awareness of the outside world is internalized by learners. The input that the learner receives is processed and adapted to learners' prior knowledge. Learners are actively engaged in the learning by questioning and making sense of the world. The students are invited to make hypotheses, ask questions, and experiment. The aim is to auto-regulate their learning and find a state of equilibrium between the prior knowledge and the new one. The interaction flows freely between the teacher, the students, and the language taught.

Social constructivism

Interaction is at the heart of the social human development is constructivist theory of learning. Learners make sense of the world not only by means of internal processes (what happens in the mind) but also through the social dimension of learning. This theory contends that socially situated and knowledge is constructed through interaction with others.

Types of classroom interactions

Taking the different main participants in classroom interactions, namely students and teachers, one can think of the following possible patterns:

Teacher-students.

Students-teacher.

Students-students.

One may argue that the more the initiative comes from students in classroom interaction, the more learning is taking place. In other words, the more students are free:

to ask and answer questions,

to make decisions about the learning process,

to participate in discussions,

to initiate conversations,

the more they contribute to the learning process.

Teacher-centered vs. student-centered classes

It is worthwhile noting that there is a huge difference between classes where the focus is on teaching and classes where the focus is on learning:

Teacher-centered classes:

The focus is on teaching

They are lecture-focused

Students' talking time is low.

Students have little say on what's happening

The students have to listen, take notes, and memorize what they are being taught

In these classes, teachers do not provide an opportunity for interactions among students. Most of the classroom interaction is teacher-student oriented.

Student-centered classes:

The focus is on learning.

The focus is not on lectures but on tasks.

Students work collaboratively in small groups to answer tasks.

Tasks are designed in such a way that they have the potential for more than one answer.

Students talking time is high.

Students are provided with sufficient time and opportunity to listen and consider the ideas of others.

Critical thinking is promoted.

You may also be interested in this thought-provoking article by Scott Thornbury
I is for Intersubjectivity

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Classroom Interaction - My English Pages

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This article tries to define classroom interaction and how different approaches dealt with interaction to provide learning and teaching opportunities. Gone are the days when the teacher was considered the sage on the stage whose job was to fill students' heads with knowledge.

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By Chura Bahadur Thapa & Angel M. Y. Lin

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By Chura Bahadur Thapa & Angel M. Y. Lin

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"Classroom interaction has been considered one of the most important pedagogical research topics in language classrooms in recent decades, mostly due to the influence of the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky. Vygotskian sociocultural theory (Hall & Walsh, 2002) views the act of language learning as a social activity in which children build their knowledge through the help and scaffolding of more knowledgeable peers or teachers".

https://neltachoutari.wordpress.com/2013/08/01/interaction-in-english-language-classrooms-to-enhance-nepalese-students-language-learning/

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By Chura Bahadur Thapa & Angel M. Y. Lin

# data[].attributes.subject
By Chura Bahadur Thapa & Angel M. Y. Lin

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"Interactions in language classrooms are important social activities for students through which they not only construct knowledge, but also build confidence and identity as competent language users (Luk & Lin, 2007)"

https://neltachoutari.wordpress.com/2013/08/01/interaction-in-english-language-classrooms-to-enhance-nepalese-students-language-learning/

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"In the field of second language acquisition, negotiation of meaning through modified input occurs in interactional conversation. Conversational negotiation and linguistic adjustment provides comprehensible input that is integrated into acquired language (Mayo & Soler, 2013)"

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1164991.pdf

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"According to (Ellis, 1991), second language is acquired in 3 phases. The first is noticing linguistic features (input) related to shortterm memory and perception; the input is then called an Published by Australian International Academic Centre PTY.LTD. Copyright (c) the author(s). This is an open access article under CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.8n.6p.147 initial intake. Comparing the old and new linguistic features is the second phase in acquiring the second language. The last is when the language learner develops new hypothesis based on the comparison of old and new input and store it as a final intake. Then, Van Lier (in Hermanto, 2015) added that interaction mediates input and intake with meaningful activities; therefore, it is prominent to facilitate acquisition. Not only input, Swain wrote that comprehensible input is not sufficient enough if the language learner does not have ample opportunities to use the language (Mackey et al., 2012)".

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1164991.pdf