Classroom Interaction in ELT in Nigeria: Reflections on Professional Practice

: The paper is a reflection on praxis and it explored both the dimensions of classroom interaction and the theoretical orientations that underpin classroom talk. It is set against the background of the primacy of talk in learning and the heightened significance of interaction in teaching and learning contexts where the medium of instruction is not the learners’ mother tongue. This is the ELT context in Nigeria where a foreign language (English) is the overarching medium of instruction from mid-primary education upwards. The quality of both teaching and learning in such contexts will largely depend on the competences and management of interaction by teachers and learners. The study is anchored on Lev Vygotsky’s Socio-cultural Theory of Development and it adopted a qualitative methodology; which interrogated existing literature on the subject as the basis for formulations on practice. The studies evaluated in this paper indicate significant research evidence in support of the variation of interaction patterns in the classroom and the primacy of talk in learning. This aligns to Vygotsky’s view that language plays a powerful role in shaping thought (learning). Based on these findings, the paper presented six strategies that could enhance classroom interaction and promote high learning outcome in the Nigerian ELT context. The paper concluded that a teacher’s classroom practice is a significant factor in determining the degree to which the teacher contributes to the learning outcome.


Introduction
Interaction is a key element in formal learning as the school in general and the learners' classrooms in particular provide a community context for the development of interaction patterns.The teacher plays the role of more knowledgeable other (MKO) and through scaffolding of ideas, assists the learners' cognitive development within their zones of proximal development (ZPD).Classroom communication is a process that involves thinking, talking, and learning activities through which students acquire knowledge.The interaction patterns between teachers and learners are varied and reflect different key principles, approaches, and theories of learning.These include patterns such as: 1) teacher talking to student(s); during which the teacher talks to the students, such as in providing information, asking questions, giving feedback to student questions, and giving instruction on how to perform a task, 2) students talking to teacher; during which students talk to their teachers by asking questions, providing answers to teacher-questions, making observations / contributions, etc., 3) student talking to student(s); during which students talk to each other and to one another while performing pair and group activities, presentations, ice-breakers, warmers, games, etc., 4) whole-class discussion; during which the teacher moderates an open interaction for everyone and these may include mingling activities.Each of these interaction patterns may be more suitable for specific types of classroom activities and communicative events in a modern classroom.For instance, the student-Reflections on Professional Practice teacher pattern would be more appropriate in eliciting ideas and getting feedback from learners; the student-student interaction pattern would be suitable in classroom pair/group activities, while the teacher-student(s) pattern would be more suitable in giving instructions.Both teachers and learners utilize these patterns of interaction in classroom communication.A common feature of classroom interaction is that language is the medium through which it is conducted, and so the linguistic competence of the parties in the interaction would affect the effectiveness of the communication.In contexts where the medium of instruction is a foreign language, classroom interaction would be further hampered by the levels of competence of both teachers and learners in the language of instruction.English is not an indigenous Nigerian language but it is both the medium of instruction at all levels of education beyond primary 3 in Nigeria and also a school subject at the various levels of education.This essay is a reflection on classroom interaction and the strategies that could enhance it in English language teaching (ELT) in Nigeria.
In relation to teacher talk and classroom interaction, Vygotsky [35] believed that language is central to learning and the relationship between thinking, talking, and learning is paramount.For Vygotsky, the process of verbalizing gives substance to thinking; as Corden [6] put it, 'thought is not merely expressed in words -it comes into existence through words'.The Bullock Report used this image explicitly, suggesting that a lesson should be 'a verbal encounter through which the teacher draws information from the class, elaborates and generalizes it, and produces a synthesis.The teacher's skill is in selecting, prompting, improving, and generally orchestrating the exchange' [7].
When teachers listen to their students' interactions, they gain insight into student perspectives of the topics and themes and these could be used to enhance learner-centred instruction.Effective classroom interaction is capable of advancing student progress in academic achievement [13].Galton, Hargreaves, Comber, Walls, and Pell [10] observed that verbal interaction among learners enables students to clarify their thoughts.It is also capable of exposing learners to new perspectives that encourage reflection and independent innovative thinking.Many studies such as Onimisi [27], Hardman, Smith & Wall [13] and Gilliard [11] have suggested that collaborative interaction enables students to enhance their achievement in science subjects and generally develop a positive attitude towards study.

Vygotsky's Socio-cultural Theory of Cognitive Development
Lev Vygotsky propounded the Socio-cultural Theory of Development [34,35] and it is also known as Social Development Theory (SDT).According to McLeod [17], the theory plays significant roles in cognitive development.Vygotsky underscored the important functions of social interaction in cognitive development when he observed that the role of the community is central in understanding meaning from interactions.The implication of this is that the community in which the interaction happens provides reinforcement for learning.
Lev Vygotsky and Jean Piaget are prominent cognitive theorists who developed independent theories in the 1920's and the 1930's but Vygotsky's theory was incomplete when he died at the age of 38.Although both theorized on the processes of learning, their views are different.McLeod [17] summed up the differences between Piaget's and Vygotsky's theories in Figure 1   Vygotsky noted the fact that social learning precedes cognitive development while Piaget emphasized that the cognitive development of children occurs before their learning.In our view, cognitive development is integrative of many principles and it is doubtful that isolated principles such as Piaget's equilibration or strong emphasis on the stages of development (see Figure 1 above) can sustain it.In contrast, social interaction is integrative of many principles that enable learners to construct meaning and so, the cognitive development of an individual will only be completely appreciated against the sociocultural background of the development.While Piaget's position implies that teachers should support their learners to explore their environment and discover learning; Vygotsky's position is that teachers should provide opportunities for learners to collaboratively learn from both the teachers and from more experienced peers, whom Vygotsky described as more knowledgeable others (MKO).
The emphasis on the value of classroom talk in the Bullock Report supported Vygotsky's view of the primacy of talk in learning.Vygotsky's theory emphasized the central role of social interaction in cognitive development [34] and he consistently portrayed interaction and community as playing crucial roles in cognitive development.Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory of Development is most suitable as framework for this reflection on approaches to teaching.First, the theory emphasized the primacy of interaction in learning and this aligns with the focus of this essay on the use of interaction in teaching and learning.Secondly, the theory offered insight for reflection on teacher practices on patterns of classroom interaction.Also, Vygotsky's theory is suitable for a critical evaluation of classroom interaction because "Individual development cannot be understood without reference to the social and cultural context within which it is embedded" [17].

Literature Review on Teacher Practices in Classroom Interaction
The Bullock Report [7] emphasized the educational value of talk and marked a departure from earlier educational views of classroom talk and Myhill, Myhill, & Hopper [21] stated that the report "is itself a reflection of the work of national and international research by names which are now synonymous with the topic of talk: Bernstein (1971), Barnes (1976), Britton (1970), Tough (1977), Wells (1986)." Ahaotu [2] argued that the primary goal in teaching is the sharing of predetermined knowledge and the cognitive development (of deeper thoughts and practices) on the subject.However, he distinguished teaching from arbitrary transfer of information from encoding sources to some detached decoders, such as is common in mass media practice and some religious sermons.While preachers and mass communicators neither assess their audience for learning achievement nor receive significant interaction from them during the communication process, teachers not only test the learning achievement but also engage learners in multi-level interaction patterns such as: teacher-student, student-student, student-teacher, and whole-class discussion.
Through these patterns of interaction, teachers seek to utilize classroom interaction to enhance learner performance and achievement.Classroom interaction becomes a tool of learning because it focuses on the learners and teachers provide multi-level opportunities of learning through it.The principle idea is that teaching should be learning-centred and learner-centred since the goal of teaching is effective learning.The various teaching methodologies attempt to enhance the achievement of learning outcomes by prescribing approaches that emphasize different classroom activities through which teachers and learners share information in mutual exchanges in classroom communication [3].
Contemporary teaching in Nigeria involves communicating scientific and non-scientific ideas in a classroom.Communicating scientific ideas is a craft which teachers and researchers ought to master and deploy similar to contexts of story-telling [14,19,11].However, unlike the language of arts and storytelling, the language of science is formulaic and some science teachers see more need for accuracy of data/methods than for communicative competence.Harmon and Gross [14] noted that scientists and science teachers tend to neglect effective communication skills and often rationalize this with the following reasoning: Why should I go to the considerable effort of trying to make it clear as long as the science is sound and the meaning more or less decipherable?It would be a waste of my valuable time.I am a scientist, not a professional writer.Personally, we have observed similar reasoning among some high school science teachers in Nigeria.Teachers who believe in this perception of science would likely dominate classroom talk and reduce the opportunities of student participation.The task of explaining concepts/formulas and demonstrating how they are applied in science also tends to encourage teacher dominance of the classroom talk in science subjects.Science teachers generally tend to spend more time talking to students and writing/solving problems on the board than non-science teachers.
Okoye [26] studied the influence of classroom interaction and student's cognitive style on achievement in senior secondary biology using student samples in Anambra state, Nigeria.The study found that the inability of some teachers to effectively utilize classroom interaction and harmonize it with students' cognitive styles contributed to students' poor performance in the subject.The author concluded that both classroom interaction and student cognitive styles significantly influenced student achievement in biology among the respondents.This study is significant in its empirical investigation of classroom talk in an English as second language (ESL) situation but it was limited by a lack of a control group of learners that could validate the sample.
Copper and Robinson [5] categorized the patterns of classroom interaction into four: teacher-student, studentmaterial, teacher-material, and student-student-student.In teacher-student interaction pattern, the teacher initiates, guides and directs classroom talk with students as participants [33].Hogan, Natasi, and Pressly [15] found out Reflections on Professional Practice that teacher-guided classroom talk enhances higher level thinking and higher quality explanations than non-guided interaction.Student-material interaction happens when the individual student or a group of students work with texts, science equipment, specimens, software, and the computer.According to Smith [29], student-material interaction involves browsing the Internet, reporting practical work, carrying out experiments, and developing elaborate notes from notes taken in class.Teacher-material interaction happens when the teacher illustrates the lesson with instructional materials and this requires reflective thinking, observation, manipulative skills, etc. [16].In student-studentstudent pattern of classroom interaction, students are able to talk to their classmates in groups while trying to solve problems or make presentations.This interaction pattern involves all the students in the classroom and enables high achieving students to support weaker ones in comprehending the lesson [33,1].However, Copper and Robinson's [5] classification overlooked the essential classroom interaction pattern that enables students to talk to their teachers by asking for clarifications, volunteering information, and answering questions in the classroom.
Fisher, Frey and Rothenberg [9] identified and illustrated four types of classroom talk models presented in Figure 2 below:  According to the authors, the figure above represents the four major categories of opportunities of learning with talk and "These categories are consistent with a gradual release of responsibility model of instruction, which acknowledges that students must assume increasing responsibility if they are to learn" [9].In this model, students are introduced to ideas, are given the opportunities of working with the ideas, and then are asked to complete tasks independently.The four major categories of opportunities of learning with talk are: 1. Teacher Modelling.
3. Collaborative Task. 4. Independent Tasks.Furthermore, Teacher Modelling is introduced during whole class instruction when the teacher's attitude, behavior, skills, and strategies are the same that the teacher wishes to see in the learners.The teacher can activate the learners' prior knowledge, model the use of academic language, and also guide the learners to engage in whole-class discussion events such as: think aloud, read aloud, shared reading, etc. Fisher, Frey, and Rothenberg [9] suggested that at the end of the teacher's modelling, "students can reflect on what they learned through both writing independently and talking with a partner."Guided Instruction enables teachers to determine what their students already know and it could also be used to scaffold learning when learners ask questions that either teachers or other learners would answer.Teachers may also support classroom talk by providing samples of a task and asking learners to spot differences among them, compare and contrast them, etc.The Collaborative Task provides opportunity for learners to learn together; performing tasks which the teacher should not only monitor but should also support by providing necessary guidance.This stage supports significant critical talk as the learners engage in active discussion and collaboration.After this stage of instruction, the learners are ready for the last stage; Independent Tasks.Independent Tasks enable further support talk as the learners engage in self-talk and vocalizations while trying to carry out the task.Although thinking occurs in the mind, it is an important aspect of self-talk.Helping learners develop critical thinking, problem solving, and communication skills is an important goal of all forms of education.The four categories outlined by Fisher, Frey, and Rothenberg [9] supported different aspects of classroom talk as well as the development of these important learning skills.
Furthermore, Myhill [20] investigated the use of talk and the nature and quality of the discourse episodes through analyzing how teachers utilize talk in whole class teaching and learning in UK schools.The study investigated the way teachers use questioning, capitalize on pupils' prior knowledge and help pupils become independent learners.The study illustrated the impact of teacher discourse variously in either supporting or impeding pupil learning and noted that cognitive or conceptual links in pupils' learning are often ignored.
Many studies have concluded that student underachievement in subjects is connected to inappropriate teaching approaches and that a significant proportion of science teaching is still teacher-centred [25,23].For instance, Norom [22] has noted that classroom observation of teachers in many Nigerian secondary schools indicated that majority of the teachers observed do not use appropriate instruction strategies.Uzoechi [32] supported the view that significant proportion of classroom interaction is teacher-centred and cited instances of science classes in which interaction is dominated by the teacher and questioning skills are not fully utilized to enhance classroom talk.Teacher-centred instruction, poor questioning skills, and inability to evoke productive interaction have been identified as common problems in student underachievement in biology [32] and in chemistry [4] in Nigerian secondary schools.

Reflection on Literature
Reflection has been defined, discussed, reviewed, analyzed, and critiqued by different Scholars.Moon [18] defined reflection as a form of mental processing with a purpose and /or anticipated outcome that is applied to relatively complex or unstructured ideas for which there is not an obvious solution.Taylor [31] presented reflection as a stage in the learning process which occurs after a substantial activity has taken place.In contrast, Dewey [8] defined reflection as a particular way of thinking and cannot be equated with mere haphazard "mulling over" something.Such thinking in contrast to reflection is undisciplined.To contribute to new understandings and appreciations, reflection in the context of learning is a collective term for those intellectual and affective practices in which individuals participate in processing their experiences.It may happen in isolation or in conjunction with others.It can be done well or poorly; successfully, or sometimes without success.Reflection is an essential human activity in which individuals recapture, think, ponder about, and assess their experience.It is in this relationship with an experience that learning is important.The capacity to reflect is established in different individuals at different times, and it may be this skill that characterizes those who learn from experience effectively.
Talk has been described as both the medium of learning and a tool for learning (DES 2003) and many teachers believe that they need a tight control over classroom talk in order to achieve lesson objectives and also avoid the embarrassment of being asked questions they are not ready to answer.Although we understand the need for teachers to guide classroom talk in the typical English as second language (ESL) and the generally large classroom contexts such as Nigeria, it is reasonable to expect that essential opportunities of learning would be lost if teachers exercised tight control over classroom talk.Against the little odds of classroom talk veering off the target learning content set by the teachers and probably embarrassing them with questions they are not prepared to answer at the moment, learners whose classroom talk is suppressed are up against significant losses in not learning from their peers, not discussing tasks/ideas, not clarifying their own understanding, not making their views comprehensible to others, not questioning one another, etc.

Reflections on Personal Practice: Strategies for Improving Classroom Interaction
The foregoing review has established that learning is enhanced when teachers adopt a communicative approach in which classroom talk revolves around four patterns that maximally permits learners and their teachers to interact effectively.The following section of the paper presents our further reflection on some strategies we have found useful in our professional practice on the subject.

Select Appropriate Pedagogy
Teachers need to select an appropriate pedagogy or integrate pedagogies that would enhance the effective teaching and learning of the lesson content and to process the instruction through learner-centred classroom talk.Teachers and researchers are in continual search of the methodologies and tools that would enhance the teaching and the learning processes.Although some teaching methodologies are more compatible with efforts to stimulate learners through classroom interaction, there is no manifestly superior pedagogy and approach to teaching.While integrating different pedagogies that suit specific learning activities in their classes, teachers should endeavor to focus on the achievement of an optimal learning outcome and maximum opportunities for classroom interaction and consistently explore opportunities of integrating purposeful student talk into their instructional strategies [9].Of course, the goal should not be to abandon students to learn on their own but rather, it will be to focus on introducing ideas to them, scaffolding ideas/guiding them to work with ideas, and giving them tasks that would be completed independently.Dell Hymes' Communicative Approach (CA) is a prominent contemporary pedagogy that could improve classroom talk.Commonly known as CA and sometimes referred to as communicative language teaching (CLT), the pedagogy proposes that learners achieve more by participating in meaningful communication in the course of learning, especially in learning languages such as English.Lessons are broken down into tasks and activities in which the teacher guides the learners in the CA pedagogy.Learners are guided to engage in various classroom interaction patterns but with an overall goal of increasing student-talk-time (STT) and reducing teacher-talk-time (TTT).

Let your Interaction Design Be Learner-Centred; Let Your Teaching Focus Be Learning-Centred
ELT professionals in Nigeria should endeavour not to dominate the learners or intimidate them with their expertise.Through CA, teachers could provide guidance for their pupils in the process of teaching English and at the same time endeavour not to dominate the learning process.It is important for teachers to focus on the learners and the learning objectives by allotting more STT than TTT in their lesson plans.Learners benefit immensely from the CA pedagogy through activities such as matching, classifying, grouping, games, writing, etc. Okoh [24] encouraged teachers to adopt CA because through it "learner-centredness becomes the centre-piece of classroom methodology.Of course, the learner is no longer conceived of as a passive character or as some soft, soggy, sleepy sponge to absorb, and soak up knowledge from some classroom dictator called the teacher" [24].Onukaogu [28] has advanced the argument the point of learning-centredness or what he described as cooperative learning activities between teachers and learners.A pedagogy that focuses on the learner and learning has the capacity to maximize learning outcome; which is the goal of effective teaching.Many of the studies reviewed above validate the notion that learners achieve more in an interactive classroom and other studies reviewed above prove that learners achieve less in non-interactive classrooms.A good beginning may be for teachers to constantly remind themselves that ELT is a cooperative process.

Include Tasks and Activities as Often as Possible in Your Lessons
Activities and tasks drive classroom interaction, especially when they are delivered through interactive methodologies such as CA.Also, CA tends to be more easily combined with other interaction-based methodologies such as Task-Based Learning (TBL), Present, Practice, Produce (PPP), Community Language Learning (CLL), and Lexical Approach than some other pedagogies.In addition to promoting classroom interaction, CA is also suitable for learner needs of innovation, practice, recycling, matching, etc. that have become hallmarks of an effective teaching methodology; especially in language teaching.Teachers of English in Nigeria should diligently incorporate opportunities for learners to collaboratively learn from them and MKOs.They could achieve this by breaking their lessons on English language into tasks that are appropriate for the four types of classroom talk (teacher modelling, guided practice, collaborative work, and independent work) identified and illustrated by Fisher, Frey, and Rothenberg [9].Apart from promoting classroom interaction and enhancing learning outcome, this strategy also permits the teacher to utilize diverse resources and achieve inclusive practice that supports individual differences.

Let Variety be the Spice of Your Teaching
It is important for teachers of English to utilize a variety of both interaction patterns and teaching/learning resources in order to make learning interesting and also cater for the individual differences in a typical classroom [30].The literature reviewed in this paper demonstrates that it is important to vary the patterns of classroom talk and also to use classroom talk to stimulate learning.It is also important to vary classroom activities in order to fairly present learning activities in forms that appeal to visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learning styles respectively.Each teacher ought to have enhanced understanding of the need and the procedure for using teaching resources that reflect the variation of learning styles in order to generate classroom talk.For instance, teaching and learning resources such as pictures, tables, colourful materials, audio clips, video clips, printed materials, flip charts, etc. should be used to present learning and encourage classroom interaction in the various aspects of teaching English.It cannot be overemphasized that teachers need to use teaching resources to initiate interaction through Teacher Modelling, Guided Instruction, Collaborative Work, and Independent Work as espoused in the study of Fisher, Frey, & Rothenberg [9].When teachers vary the kinds of activities and the patterns of interaction in their classrooms as often as possible, all their students stand equal chances of improved learning outcome because the lessons would appeal to the learner's different learning styles.For instance, they could create various activities that would appeal to all learning styles: speaking, thinking aloud, reading aloud, audio clips, etc. for auditory learners; tracing, matching, grouping, labelling, etc. for visual learners; fixing, unscrambling, mapping, writing, etc. for tactile learners; and mingling, finding, games, etc. for kinesthetic learners.
In a lesson on speaking skills in English, a teacher could select appropriate video clip of native speakers and use it to teach native speaker strategies (such as eye contact, pausing technique, and the syllabic /r/) to English as second language (ESL) students in Nigeria.They could pre-teach the topic and demonstrate the content that they wish to see in the learners using the categories of opportunities of learning with talk [9].They could also explain key learning points on the topic such as the differences between hesitation and the fluent use of pausing technique, the conditions for the syllabic roll of the consonant sound /r/, and the cultural requirement of eye contact in native speaker English, etc.They could then divide pupils into appropriate number of groups depending on class size and instruct each group to identify and note specific incidents in the video.After a brief period of inter-group discussion to harmonize each group's notes, teachers could ask each group leader to present the group summary of a specific strategy to the class while the other groups fill in with any extra ideas they feel were omitted in the presentation.The teacher could then summarize the learning points and give the learners independent tasks suitable for their level.These may be in the forms of gap filling, summary completion, and writing/reading/further listening tasks that the learners would have to complete independently.We believe that this practice would provide opportunity of learning through interaction for many students and enhance the learning outcome of lessons.

Manage the Classroom Effectively
The use of activities and tasks may degenerate to noise making and distraction of learners if the teacher fails to manage the classroom effectively, especially during group activities.The following are suggested guidelines for effective classroom management: 1) maintain equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) at all times; do not allow the learners to conclude that you prefer or dislike any learner, 2) avoid discouraging remarks even when learners obviously gave poor feedbacks or could not complete a task, 3) ensure that roles in role-plays (such as: group leader, secretary, presenter, etc.) are rotated among learners during different class activities; otherwise, you may unwittingly breed jealousy in your class and perhaps, hurt the self-esteem of the learners you either neglect to assign roles or that you always assign negative and unimportant roles, 4) effective time management during activities is important; ensure accurate timing for the tasks you give learners, 5) give short clear instructions before handing out the task to learners; ensure that learners understood the task by asking them to repeat the instructions aloud.In practice, effective lesson planning and the ability to improvise are invaluable tools of effective classroom management.These tools determine adaptations and personal modifications that could be made to enhance classroom interaction in view of differences in teaching contexts (including large class sizes, individual differences, availability of resources, infrastructure, etc.).

Engage in Continuous Professional Development
ELT professionals in Nigeria may improve the quality of their classroom interaction by engaging in continuous professional development (CPD).They could achieve this through a combination of channels such as: joining English language teacher associations, participating in professional ELT events, and undertaking certification courses.These are avenues of continuously improving professional practice and updating skills.Extra certification such as: Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults (CELTA), Diploma in English Language Teaching to Adults (DELTA), Teaching Knowledge Test (TKT), etc. are invaluable tools of professional development and they are globally recognized.Their curricula promote global best practices in language teaching and their focus on English is an extra advantage to ELT professionals in Nigeria.Also, when English language and Literature in English teachers join professional teacher associations (TAs) and participate in ELT events, they connect to a network of good practice in which mentorship, resource materials, and in-service-training are abundantly available.For instance, the English language Teachers Association of Nigeria (ELTAN) organizes regular workshops for its members spread across Nigeria at the national, state, and state-zonal levels.These workshops promote trends in global best practices in ELT, including classroom interaction.

Conclusion
Overall, the career goal of every teacher is to attain the highest level of efficiency and ranking in teaching career and to impart positive learning on students.Both Vygotsky's [34,35] socio-cultural theory of development and Dell Hymes CA have influenced teaching pedagogy and both promote increased classroom talk.The teacher plays a significant role of manager of learning in the attainment of quality education.Goe [12] has identified four categories of quality markers that enhance teachers' professional value -teacher's qualifications, teacher's characteristics, teacher's practices, and teacher's effectiveness.Teachers' qualifications among other things include their credentials, knowledge, and experiences that they bring with them when they enter the classroom -the coursework, grading system, his knowledge of the course, experience, certification and evidence of participation in continued learning (ancillary training and professional development).We are aware that laudable credentials alone do not make a good teacher.But charisma, positive characteristics, attitudes, attributes, collaborative nature, and openness to new ideas could transform a teacher with lowly credentials to an effective professional.The classroom practices a teacher chooses to interact with the learners and the teaching strategies she/he employs are significant factors in the value-added assessment of the degree to which the teacher contributes to the learning outcome.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.A comparison of the cognitive development theories of Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky.