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“與學生互動還有個好處是他可以訓練學生的聽力，然後也可以訓練學生的 speaking，例如你聽完老師的故事之後，我會問 What did I say?我剛剛說了什麼東 西?有沒有誰可以說得出來?這時學生可能又丟出幾句英文出來，那又是一個 production,學生願意說就是一種學習，至於小組跟小組之間是練習的機會比較多，
又可以提升他們的學習欲望，還有提升課室氣氛。”
[= Another benefit of interacting with students is that I can train students’ listening, and speaking as well. For instance, after students listened to the story, I would ask them
“What did I say? Can anyone share with us?” Students may say something in English, and that is the production. When students are willing to say something in English, it means they are learning. As for the interaction between groups, it provides students more opportunities for practice. This interaction enhances their learning motivation and improves classroom dynamics. ] Extract from the interview with Helen.
Choice of Language
According to Helen, the use of target language is encouraged in foreign language classroom, and it is her obligation, as a language teacher, to provide a rich target language environment for the students. She mentioned several examples in the interview to show how she got her students to interact orally in the target language. For instance, she would begin the 45-minute class hour with some small talk with the students in English to strike up a conversation. She would ask her students some questions based on the topic in the lesson to engage them in the content. In addition, the students were encouraged to practice the sentence patterns in the target language. However, Helen mentioned that the English proficiency of the students varied a great deal. It was difficult to conduct the class in all English. All English instruction only made the weak students feel frustrated and bored. Helen further pointed out interaction did not have to be in all English. The use of L1 in her classroom sometimes made her teaching more efficient and led to more effective learning. She reported that L1 was most often used in her grammar instruction. She used L1 to some degree in the grammatical
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explanation for two reasons. One was that grammar rules were difficult to
understand. If she explained these rules in L2, learning grammar would become a duel burdens to students. The other reason was that using L1 to explain grammar could save lots of time, which made grammar teaching more efficient. Helen explained,
“跟學生的互動類型是我是用 communication 來進行的，我覺得這個東西說實 在話一堂課四十五分鐘你用五分鐘，就國中的學習目標來講，我覺得剛好，可是 我覺得你如果要用四十五分中 all English teaching 真的很難，尤其是對程度不好的 學生真的很挫折。”
[=I interact with my students through communication. I think, honestly speaking, communicating with the students (in English) in five minutes in a 45-minute class would be enough according to English learning objectives of the junior high school.
However, if you want to communicate with the students by all English teaching, it would be very difficult to conduct the class especially for the students with limited English proficiency. They would feel frustrated. ] Extract from the interview with Helen.
“我跟學生的互動大多是英文的還是中文的互動？其實我會看課程的內容，譬 如說我在教一些文法，那種東西比較專業，比較多術語，像是助動詞後面要加什 麼，我就不會用英文去問他們，但若今天我是要引導學生進入到 content 裏頭，我 希望帶一些活潑一點的活動時，我就會用英文去帶，又或者我希望他們可以練習 一下句型的時候，就是當他們學過之後，我也會用英文來讓他們練習。”
[=Do I interact with the students in English more or Chinese? It depends on the content of lesson. When I teach grammar, which involves more special terms, for example, what (kind of verb) is followed by an auxiliary verb? I won’t use English to interact with them. And, if today I want to lively guide my students to the content of the lesson, I will use English. In addition, if I want my students to practice/review the sentence patterns they learned before, I would also use English to let them practice. ] Extract from the interview with Helen.
Activity Type
Helen addressed a serious concern in most language classrooms, that of getting the students to respond in the classroom. She said that the problem of
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getting students to respond is particularly serious with Asians students, who are generally considered to be more reserved. To encourage her students to speak in the target language, she utilized some strategies, and group activity was one of the effective strategies to promote classroom interaction. She mentioned that group activity allowed the students to take more turns, produce more language and promote a great amount classroom interaction. Moreover, learner-learner interaction may be more valuable than teacher-learner interaction because the students would feel free with their classmates to indicate non-comprehension and negotiate for meaning.
Helen also mentioned that information gap was another strategy to promote classroom interaction. She believes that language is a useful tool, and students should be given the chance to use the language to do something, and obtain information outside the classroom. Helen mentioned,
“很多老師可能覺得小組活動比較吵鬧，其實我覺得對他們來講是一個很大很 大的練習機會，因為畢竟老師是一個人對多個人，你的練習機會絕對沒有學生對 學生間練習的多。還有就是老師跟學生間的互動，因為我大部分都會用小組的方 式，所以小組跟老師的時候學生參與度也會高一點。例如他們會做搶答的動作。
就會想趕快拿分數，那這樣有些被動的學生可能就會比較積極。”
[=Most teachers may think that group work would lead to more noise. However, I think group work does give students more opportunities to practice the target language.
In whole- class teaching, after all, there is only one teacher, who has to interact with so many students in class. The opportunities for practicing between teacher-students are much less than those between students-students. In addition, I also like the interaction between the teacher and groups. I often use group work in my teaching because it would enhance their motivation in participating in class. The students eagerly answer the questions in class in order to get extra points. Some passive students would be influenced and become more active. ] Extract from the interview with Helen.
“我自己最喜歡的類型是學生跟學生之間的互動，時間多的話，我喜歡讓他們 做 information gap，假如說他們今天可能要做個 interview，問其他學生喜歡什麼活
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動，他們問完時候接下來我就會抽籤，請問一下同學 What’s Helen’s favorite activity 是什麼?我喜歡的是讓學生去使用那個語言。”
[= I like the interaction between students-students. If I have more time, I would like them to do “information gap”. For instance, they may be asked to conduct an interview to ask the other students’ favorite activities. When they finish the activity, I would draw lots and pick some students to answer me “What’s Helen’s favorite activity?”
I like my students to use the target language. ] Extract from the interview with Helen.