A comparison between high-quality context and lowquality context on the quantity of students production of target language in the classroom

A comparison between high-quality context and lowquality context on the quantity of students production of target language in the classroom

Contextualization is an important tool to make language meaningful for students so that they can use it to communicate in real life situations. However, it seems to have been taken for granted in context of Iran. To promote contextualization, an in-service training was administered in Safir Language Academy which focused on different ways of teaching the target language in effective contexts. After the training, teachers’ contexts were rated based on the following criteria: 1) interestingness, 2) sustainability, and 3) language oriented-ness. The purpose of this study is to compare the quantity of students’ TL production in high-quality and low-quality context classes. Conversation analysis was used to analyze performance of students in 6 classes (three of which employed high-quality contexts and the other three had low-quality contexts). The observation revealed that when students were taught by a high-quality context their production was significantly higher than situations when contextualization of the TL was poor, or when there was no context and rules and exercises were presented in isolation. In addition, when high-quality contexts were employed, students were more emotionally engaged and involved in classroom interaction/discussions. The results may help EFL teachers in maximizing the production of TL by students.

Contextualization is an important tool to make language meaningful for students so that they can use it to communicate in real life situations. However, it seems to have been taken for granted in context of Iran. To promote contextualization, an in-service training was administered in Safir Language Academy which focused on different ways of teaching the target language in effective contexts. After the training, teachers’ contexts were rated based on the following criteria: 1) interestingness, 2) sustainability, and 3) language oriented-ness. The purpose of this study is to compare the quantity of students’ TL production in high-quality and low-quality context classes. Conversation analysis was used to analyze performance of students in 6 classes (three of which employed high-quality contexts and the other three had low-quality contexts). The observation revealed that when students were taught by a high-quality context their production was significantly higher than situations when contextualization of the TL was poor, or when there was no context and rules and exercises were presented in isolation. In addition, when high-quality contexts were employed, students were more emotionally engaged and involved in classroom interaction/discussions. The results may help EFL teachers in maximizing the production of TL by students.