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with the teacher, students can increase their language storage and so; improve their knowledge of language as much as possible” Yanfen and Yuqin, 2010:76.
According to Brown, 1997:212-213 “Interaction is the collaborative exchange of
thoughts, feelings, or ideas between two or more people, resulting in a reciprocal effect on each other“. Theories of communicative competence emphasize on the
importance of interaction as human beings use language in various contexts to “negotiate” meaning, or to get an idea out of one person‟s head and into the head
of another person and vice versa. Through interaction, students can increase their language storage as they
listen to or read authentic linguistic material, or even the output of their fellow students in discussions, skits, joint problem-solving tasks, or in other dialogue
tasks. In interaction, students can use all they possess of the language, all they learned or casually absorbed in real life exchanges. Even at an elementary stage,
they learn in this way to exploit the elasticity of language Brown, 2007. Interaction in the classroom occured when there is communication between
the teacher and students. The exchanges of teacher talk and student talk occured in various kinds of occassions. Teacher talk influences student talk.
b. Interaction in EFL Classroom
Interaction is the fundamental fact of classroom pedagogy. “Everything that
happens in the classroom happens through a process of live person – to – person
interaction Allwright, 1984:156 ”. Classroom interaction is an important concept
for English language teachers, because through interaction teachers provide language input for students. It is supported by Long 1996 that interaction
facilitates acquisition because of the conversational and linguistic modifications
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that occur in such discourse and that provide learners with the input they need. The relationship between teacher‟s plans and the output in classroom interaction
can be seen in figure 1 below:
Syllabus Input
Method Practice Opportunities
Atmosphere Receptivity
Figure 1. The relationship between plans and outcomes from Allwright and Bailey 1991, cited in Ellis, 2008:784
To facilitate classroom interaction, the teacher plans their lessons activities by making selections of what to teach syllabus, how to teach method, and how to
create such classroom atmosphere that the teacher willing to be Ellis, 2008. When the teacher acted on, their plans result in „classroom interaction‟. The
interaction provides learners with opportunities to encounter input or to practice the L2.
There is also a state of „receptivity‟ which defined as „an active openness‟ a willingness to encounter the language and the culture. In traditional language
classroom settings, teacher is the one who becomes the major portion of class time Richards and Lockhart, 1996. They provide learners with instruction and explain
activities; clarify the procedures that the students should use on an activity and check students‟ understanding on lessons. Through the interaction, learners have
opportunities to understand and use the language they comprehend.
1. Teacher Talk
Talk mediates learning because we learn in and through language Vygotsky, 1994. Since any classroom interaction consists of „Teacher talk‟ and
„Student talk‟, and because “A major portion of class time is imployed by the
Classroom interaction
