15 - Control and initiative: the dynamics of agency in the language classroom

Summary

Introduction

For most language learners, the world over, the success or failure of their language studies depends in large measure on the classrooms that they are in or have been in. A lifelong champion of classroom quality, Dick Allwright, says the following:

The quality of classroom life is itself the most important matter … for the sake of encouraging people to become lifelong learners, rather than people resentful of having to spend years of their lives as ‘captive’ learners, and therefore put off further learning for life.

(2006: 14–15)

There are of course other factors, such as the learners’ goals and aspirations, interests and engagements, the teacher's enthusiasm and support and so on, but these things in themselves also depend a great deal on the atmosphere that is created in the classroom.

Over the years, Earl Stevick has tirelessly advocated for a classroom that promotes a ‘feeling of community’ and thereby creates a ‘world of meaningful action’ (1980: 26). Other researchers and practitioners likewise have argued for the importance of classroom quality (Gieve and Miller 2006), investigated the properties of ‘the good language class’ (Senior 1999) and documented interaction, collaboration, autonomy and so on (Allwright 1988; Benson 2001; Breen 2001). There is no shortage of opinions or desired features regarding what it takes to create a high-quality classroom or lesson.

In this chapter I will focus on the crucial distinction that Stevick (1980) has drawn between ‘control’ and ‘initiative’ and the dynamic relationship between them. I will do this by drawing on my own work on classroom interaction, and expand the discussion by looking at related distinctions such as ‘constraints and resources’ (van Lier 1998) and ‘structure and process’ (inspired by the insights of the great physicist and thinker David Bohm 1998).

My focus will be to take an ecological perspective that looks at three spatio-temporal scales: the institutional scale, the interpersonal scale and the (intra-)personal scale. These scales are equivalent to the three ‘lenses’ or ‘planes’ that Rogoff has postulated (1995: 158) and are given an ecological flavour by emphasizing different spatial and temporal dimensions. On the institutional scale, there are standards, frameworks, assessment demands, budget issues, mandated textbooks and other macro-level concerns that have an impact ‘from above’ on what happens in the classroom.