Interaction in ESL classrooms

Zahra Zamani

A community of learners can be defined as a group of people who interacts positively through sharing values and beliefs and actively engaging in learning from one another—learners from teachers, teachers from learners, and learners from learners. They thus create a learning-centered environment in which students and educators are constantly and intentionally interacting with each other and thus constructing knowledge together. Learning communities are connected, cooperative, and supportive. Peers are interdependent in that they have joint responsibility for learning and share resources and points of view, while sustaining a mutually respectful and cohesive environment.

Students can learn a great deal from each other when they are given the opportunity to interact in a well-designed group work through organized activities.  However, there are always some students who do not know how to effectively work together in groups or do not believe in learning from their peers. It is therefore important that teachers give them some compelling reasons to work together.

I think teachers need to emphasize on collaborative interactions in class activities which lead to sharing knowledge through discussions, cooperating to introduce solutions and finally solving problems. When they encourage their students to work together within a safe and encouraging environment, they should be ready to compliment the students who are active in discussion groups, and enthusiastically monitor the process of sharing knowledge to prevent spreading misconceptions.

I personally appreciate promoting interaction time in ESL classrooms because it means that the students are given an invaluable opportunity to learn collaboratively while interacting. It provides students with different chances to express their ideas, and to be exposed to diverse perspectives. As an important factor in promoting collaboration and thus in educational development, teachers should create a safe environment for their students to interact with each other and participate in activities in which they can learn from their peers. Besides promoting learning, through class interactions, students can develop other skills such as organizing and planning learning activities, being open to counter ideas, giving and receiving feedback, and evaluating their own learning. As such, this can be an ideal language learning situation.