Facilitating interaction in class

The evidence suggests that there are a number of conditions under which students find it difficult to participate spontaneously in class discussions.

However, the evidence also indicates that students will adapt their learning strategies to their environment ( Volet & Renshaw, 1996), and will be willing, even keen, to participate in class discussions and other activities in a supportive environment.

Students are more likely to feel that participation-based learning is valid and satisfying if you:

• ensure that they know how their participation will contribute not just to their learning in general, but specifically to their final marks for the course
• explain clearly the goals and purpose of any participation-based exercise, and how it relates to the final exam, if there is one
• give them 'closure' by providing post-activity summaries to clarify for them what has (or should have been) learned, and how that learning emerges from the activity

It should make it easier for students to participate if you can:

• organise the seating in the classroom to maximise eye-contact, to avoid any position having special status, and to facilitate whatever movement may be called for around the classroom.

Classroom seating

You don't always have much choice about the room in which you teach, or the layout of the furniture in it, but obvious factors to consider include:

• Can you seat the whole class in a circle, so that everyone can see everyone else?
• Do you or the students have or need a surface to write on?
• Do you as teacher need to be at the head of the class (in front of the whiteboard / at the long end of a table), or can you put yourself in a less dominating position in the classroom?
• Can the students move quickly and easily into small groups?
• Can you move easily around the room when the students are working in small groups?
• Does everybody who needs it have easy access to the board or any equipment being used?
• provide visual aids (charts, diagrams, realia, notes on the whiteboard) wherever possible to focus the discussion and help students to keep abreast of it as it develops.

Many teachers will go to some lengths to provide powerpoint slides, handouts, etc., in lectures to help students follow the thread. But they will not necessarily do this for tutorials and seminars - possibly because they expect (and want) the discussion to be freer, wider-ranging, and less predictable. Unfortunately, what is unpredictable is much harder for a non-native speaker to follow.

Did you find the tutorials useful?

I had some problems with the tutorial, because that teacher, he had a very strong Australian accent, and I couldn't take notes very clearly, because he speak in his own way and he would not repeat what he had said – the time was very limited. So I felt very difficult to take the notes. That was the biggest problem.

This was the tutorial, not the lecture?

For the lecture, we already had the lecture notes, it was very clear; if I did some pre-reading, I knew the content, it wouldn't be very difficult. But the tutorial, we didn't know what he would say; and he didn't put the tutorial answer on the WebCT; so it was really a big problem for me at that time.

— Keith

• utilise small-group discussions in your classes

See next page: Small group work.

• establish firm ground rules for discussions, ensuring a level playing-field for all participants

Ground rules for discussions

As far as possible, you would want to make sure that

• people know and use each others' names
• the procedure for taking the floor is understood
• all participants know and respect who has the floor
• speakers have time to speak without interruption
• all contributions are acknowledged and wherever possible built on by following speakers
• anyone has the right to request that the discussion move on to another point

With regard to establishing a set of ground rules and ensuring that the students are aware of them and take them on board, Habeshaw et al. (1992) recommend negotiating the rules with the students at the beginning of the course :

If … you give some time at the beginning of the course to specifying them, you have the opportunity to ensure that the group has the ground rules it wants rather than a set of rules based on false assumptions and traditions.

Students who are unused to setting their own ground rules [and most 1st-year students will be] may find it difficult at first to see what you mean and will be wary of making suggestions. They may find it helpful if you take the activity in two stages: first explain the principle of ground rules and together make a preliminary list; then, after one or more tutorials, ask them, in the light of their experience, what changes they would like to make to the list.

(p. 23; see also pp. 63 ff.)

The initial drafting of the rules can be run as a small group exercise in itself. You might, for example:

• give the students a short list of rules based, e.g., on the above dotpoints
• ask them to form groups of 3 to 5, and for each rule decide if it should be kept as is, modified or dropped
• bring the class together again, and ask them to vote on each rule (include your own vote in the score)
• call for amendments and run a vote on their adoption

Once compiled, the list could be posted on the course's MUSO website for future reference and subsequent discussion or amendment.

Habeshaw et al. also note that (p. 24):

The best way of ensuring that the ground rules are kept is for group members to be scrupulous from the outset about reminding people when they break them. It is important that you as a teacher don't see yourself as being above the law: you should encourage students to remind you if you break a ground rule and accept the reminder when they do.

Initially some students may be afraid of causing offence by insisting on the rules, even with other students – let alone the teacher. In that case it might help to nominate a particularly assertive student to be "Keeper of the Rules" for the duration of the class, with the express responsibility of calling any member of the class, including yourself, to order for any infringement. (This role might rotate from class to class, or be dropped after one or more classes, once the point had been made.)

• ensure that in any formal role-playing exercise each participant has a clear idea of their role, their goal, and the means (linguistic or otherwise) to achieve the goal
• give them, or refer them to, resources for the language they need
• ensure that silent participation is recognised as legitimate
• recognise that at times students will need to clarify issues for each other in their own language, and that this is not (necessarily!) a sign of disinterest, disrespect or disaffection
• consider utilising alternative modes of interaction such as an online forum or chatroom

You will find further suggestions on making tutorial teaching more effective in a companion site to this website, Inclusive teaching for diverse learners .