What is Intellectual Interaction?
Classroom is a heterogenous place where teachers and different students
from different socio-economic settings come together and learning happens. Therefore,
the interaction has to be managed by everyone taking part in teaching-learning
process because interaction is a reciprocal action that people do together and
in a cooperate way. In that sense, the intellectual interaction among learners
and between learners and teachers happens in a classroom setting.
Why Intellectual Interaction among Teachers and
Learners is Important?
In an
ESL classroom, what becomes important in language learning and teaching is that
in addition to increase students’ linguistic knowledge, language teaching is
also expected to focus on the language as well as a channel to convey
information, to develop ideas, comprehension, and to negotiate concepts. The
interaction in a classroom has long been considered important in language
learning for students’ personality development. Because, it is proved that language
and interaction are involved in human development and learning. Through
interpersonal communication, students learn and develop to respect and listen
others, show empathy, knowledge sharing, obey the ideas and comprehend
behaviours of people in sociocultural perspectives.
Thus,
intellectual interaction builds students’ confidence and identity of being
familiar with peers and teachers. Therefore, they do not hesitate to express
their opinions, as well as be confidents enough to ask and clarify doubts if
they have during classroom hours. When students integrate and interact with
each other, they learn from their peers and try to learn themselves alone.
Therefore, learner autonomy is enhanced. Additionally, they discuss and find
solutions to make tasks success. Therefore, their thinking skills get
developed.
How Intellectual Interaction can be Increased in an
ESL classroom?
Classroom Organization
In order to increase intellectual interaction in the
classroom, it must be a pleasant place to maintain communication between
learner-learner and teacher-learner. The number of students is matter. Maximumly
20 students per a classroom is effective. Because, if the amount is high, the
teacher is not able to pay attention to each and every learner. Due to this
reason, the interaction between teacher- learner will be distracted. Further,
the sitting arrangement is also important to consider to help learners to
maintain peer interaction. There, sitting in pair way or group wise will be
effective in an ESL classroom. And also, the classroom should be spacious
enough to students to keep their mentalities free to start conversations with
others. Thus. If the classroom is attractive with pictures which are related to
the lessons will create topics for learners to discuss with other learns.
Creating a Cooperative Learning Environment
Luk and Lin (2007) state that language
learning is a social activity in which learners build their knowledge through
the help from more knowledgeable peers or teachers. Intellectual Interaction
can be developed through activities, especially through cooperative activities
like pair works and group activities nearly 4-5of learners groups, There,
learners get opportunities to share their ideas (learner-talk time) by engaging
activities like drilling, role-play, sharing experience tasks, terror card,
jigsaw, listening activities etc. as well they play their roles as a note
taker, a facilitator, a presenter etc. Assigning these roles is crucial to prevent the students to digress from
discussion their topic and contribute meaningfully in the whole learning
process while developing skills of negotiation and collaboration. Therefore,
their intellectual interactions will be increased.
Developing bond
between teacher and learner
Strong teacher- learner rapport
encourages healthy classroom interactions. In an ESL classroom, some students
can understand a concept once it is presented, while other will require more
explanations and more time. In such instances, teacher should be gentle to
learner and try to connect with those learners kindly. Then the anxiety,
backwardness of learners will be disappeared, and start learning confidently. Additionally,
by
walking around the classroom and monitor learners’ interactions and support
them when in need build positive interactions between teacher and learner. Therefore, it is evident that
emotional support increases intellectual interaction between teacher and
learner.
Interaction is essential in an ESL
classroom because learning a language is not only knowing linguistic content
but also a social activity. In order to develop intellectual interaction among
teachers and leaners, aforementioned strategies can be used.
Prabhavi Wedaarachchi
The article well structured in three main stages: definition to intellectual interaction, importance of it and strategies for intellectual interaction elaborates the idea of interaction patterns in the ESL classroom. The writer sees classroom interaction as a must for personality development of the learner. the body of the article exemplifies the effective techniques to maximize interaction between teacher-learner and learner-learner. Furthermore language learning is interpreted as a social skill which can be acquired in the classroom. The article will be more interesting if the intellectual interaction is elaboratively defined. A descriptive article...
ReplyDeleteThe article briefly but clearly explains classroom interaction and why it is important within the classroom. The author has stated three strategies to increase classroom interaction and the classroom activities that she has highlighted are effective to build a positive environment within the classroom to engage the teacher and learners in a more interactive relationship. As the author rightly points out, within a classroom with high teacher-learner interaction, the learners are more likely to work actively without any anxiety. Overall, a good explanatory article.
ReplyDeleteHey Prabavi. Happy to see your new post here. You have mentioned under the classroom organization that interaction is effective for maximally 20 students per classroom. However, it is problematic in the Sri Lankan context where there are more than 40 students per class. You will also agree with that. So, it is somewhat difficult to maintain interaction in a larger student classroom. The teacher has to divide each class and do interactive activities for each group on different days. Assigning a role to each student will prevent the students from moving away from the discussion. You have emphasized that point and it will be added to my teaching process when I do discussions in the classroom. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteThis article gives an informative description of the interaction between teachers and students. And the writer gives an introduction to why intellectual interaction among teachers and learners is important and finely points out how intellectual interaction builds students' confidence and identity of being familiar with peers and teachers. She has pointed out several strategies and how they have been a great support to the implementation of the classroom.
ReplyDeleteGreat info!!
Thanks for the great post Prabhavi! The article is very descriptive as well as very attractive. Under the importance of the intellectual interaction among the teacher and the students, you have mentioned a great point. You have said that the intellectual interaction builds the students' confidence and identity among the peers; which is very true. You have mentioned several facts under classroom management. However, it is questionable whether it is practical to have only 20 students in a classroom in order to have purposeful intellectual interaction among the students. Because we all know that in Sri Lankan context we have atleast about 35 students in the classroom. However, I think we can have several groups within the classroom and we can mix these groups in a daily or weekly manner so that all the students will be interacting with each other. I like that you have mentioned that language learning is a social skill, which is very true. We should encourage our students to improve this skill as a life skill, so that they will be able to climb up the life's ladder in more efficient and organised way.
ReplyDeleteThe article is very descriptive and very informative. It provides a comprehensive idea about the intellectual interaction in an ESL classroom and how interpersonal skills help to develop the confidence and autonomy of the learners. Also it is mentioned that the benefits that learners get from cooperative learning tasks and activities in the classroom context. It is also true fact that, if the amount of students in the classroom is very high, it distracts the relationship between the teacher and the learner. However, this is an interesting article. All the facts are clear and concise and organized very well. Useful content!
ReplyDeleteHere writer conveys a significant message. Mostly we can see in the classroom, that teachers interact with the students who work properly in the classroom or only engage with rapt rows of students. But "interaction has to be managed by everyone taking part in the teaching-learning process", this sentence precisely explores the idea teacher should know to interact with all the students in the class. writer rightly pointed out the fact that personality development is the fundamental thing to developing language learning. So the teacher and student interaction is the chain to combine this personality development and language learning.
ReplyDeleteShe considers the peer interaction with each other, regarding this matter how learner autonomy enhances with this interaction, better explain in this article. Furthermore, She explains the 2 ways of increasing interaction in the ESL classroom. How classroom organization and cooperative learning environment assists to create better intellectual interaction in ESL classroom.
So it is better understood that this is a fruitful article.
The essay begins by defining intellectual engagement and providing background information. Prabhavi, you did a fantastic job on this article. You have identified the crucial points that must be presented in relation to this subject, then divided your article into those sections, outlining each one. This article responds to the questions of what, why, and how. You provided good examples of how intellectual connection can be promoted in an ESL classroom in the how-to section. However, you have only emphasized a few areas of the subject as well. Anyway, I appreciate you helping me learn more about this subject.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the prominent post Prabhavi! This article offers a thorough understanding of the intellectual engagement that takes place in an ESL classroom and how interpersonal skills contribute to the growth of the students' self-assurance and independence. The approaches used to maximize interaction between instructor and student and vice versa are demonstrated in the article's body. The author believes that for a learner to build a strong personality, classroom contact is very essential. In order to help our students to climb the ladder of life more effectively and systematically, we should encourage them to develop this language learning talent as a life skill. Great article!
ReplyDelete