Classroom-language use in teacher-led instruction and teachers’ self-perceived roles

Abstract

Many learners, especially those in a foreign-language setting, draw on the classroom as their primary forum for using and experiencing the target language, still for the most part during teacher-led instruction. Nevertheless, communicative language teaching does not provide a decisive definition of “good language use”. Teachers usually take an eclectic approach and, as a result, are likely to vary from each other in classroom-language use practices.

This study uses quantitative and qualitative data gathered in a semester-long video project as well as supporting documentation, such as teacher interviews, students’ final course grades, and end-of-course evaluations to describe (1) how three (two female, one male) experienced non-native-speaker teachers of German in an intermediate-level multi-section college course differ from each other in the amount of teacher/student talk; L1/L2 use; class pace; turn-taking; and the basic structure and focus of a class (2) how these differences correspond with the teachers’ self-perceived roles; and (3) how students perceive their particular classroom experiences.