“旁观者迷，当局者清”：课堂互动中的教师声音与内在逻辑 （中） - 英语教学法原著选读114（签到与积分练习）

公益翻译，请随手转发。感谢！

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以下英文原文节选自David Nunan 2013年在Routledge出版的论文集《Learner-Centered English Language Education: The Selected Works of David Nunan》，为其中间三分之一强。下周将刊出论文的后两部分，敬请期待。

原文（作者：David Nunan）

译文（翻译、审校：武太白）

Heading:

Hidden Voices: Insiders' Perspectives on Classroom Interaction

隐藏的声音：课堂教学互动的内部人视角

Maintaining control over the flow of events

对事件的流动发展保持控制

In reflecting on the lessons, teachers paid a great deal of attention to classroom management, particularly in maintaining control over the flow of events. In a previous study, I noted that this tendency to focus on classroom management rather than pedagogy was something that distinguished less experienced teachers from more experienced ones. (However, I would also reiterate that the concept of "experience", while familiar to most of us, defies definition, interacting as it does with other critical variables such as professional development opportunities and intensity, as well as length of service.)

在对授课进行反思时，教师们对课堂管理非常关注，在对事件的流动发展保持控制方面尤其如此。在此前的一项研究中我曾提出，这种关注课堂管理而非教学方法的倾向正是把经验尚浅的教师和更有经验的教师区分开的那一点。（然而，我还是要重申，尽管“经验”这个概念我们大部分人都熟悉，还是很难定义，它与其他重要变量如职业发展机会、强度以及从教时长都有关联。）

The close attention to managing and controlling lesson "flow" is illustrated in the following extract. In her lesson plan, the teacher had indicated that she intended to run a pair work activity in which students observed each other and then sat back-to-back and described what the other was wearing. This is a fairly standard way of practicing present continuous tense, a difficult tense to practice in any meaningful way because we rarely describe what we are doing in face-to-face interactions. However, during the course of the lesson, this activity simply did not happen—I remarked on this in my observation notes with a query. In the post-lesson debriefing, the teacher reported, "I dropped the activity……it probably would've gone on a bit too long, and as it was, I was short for time anyway, so I made a decision to drop that." Later in the lesson, in response to a question about the selection of partners in pair work and whether she let students self-select, the same teacher reported, " Oh, I get them to mix around. I like to change the pairs quite a lot. That's why it's good to get them in two groups and then split them up for a different part of the listening."

对管理并控制授课“流”的高度关注在下面的选段中有所说明。教师在教案中已经说明，她打算进行结对活动，学生要相互观察，然后背对背坐下，描述对方穿的是什么。这是相当标准的办法，用于练习现在进行时态，这种时态难以进行有意义的操练，因为我们很少在面对面的互动交流中描述我们正在做什么。然而，在授课的过程中，这个活动根本没做——我在观课笔记中记下了这一点，并打了个问号。在课后的简单回顾中，教师报告说：“我放弃了这个活动……可能它会延续太久，情况是我的时间不够用了，所以我决定放弃这项活动。”此后，在回答“结对活动中同伴的选择、她是否让学生自由选择结伴对象”的问题时，教师报告说：“哦，我是让他们到处走走。我喜欢经常改变配对。让他们分成两组、然后把他们分开进行听力活动的另一部分为什么有好处，这就是原因。”

Another major departure from the lesson plan occurred as students were working in small groups sequencing a transcript of a listening text which had been cut up. The following extract and my field notes illustrate what happened:

另一次对教案的重大偏离出现在学生进行小组活动期间，他们要把一项剪切后打乱了的听力文字进行排序。下列选段和我的现场笔记表明了所发生的情况：

[Students get in three groups on the floor.]

T: I'll give you five minutes to do this, five minutes.

T: [About sixty seconds later, T says] Two minutes. [She rewinds her tape]

T: Come on, this group's nearly finished. One minute. One minute left.

T: Okay, we'll listen to the conversation now. Okay, so as you're listening to the conversation, can you check your sequence?

[The students listen to the interview and rearrange their strips of paper.]

T: Finished? Perfect. What does this mean? [She writes on the board “Erm”.] (Erm) Erm. Is that a word?

S: No.

T: Erm. Is that a word?

S: No.

T: Erm. Why, why've got that there? Why? Why erm?

S: We have some little bit time…

T: It's because we're listening to it. Listening to what's written down, so don't worry; don't think of what does erm mean? It's just erm. And how do they say "yes"? Do they say "yes"?

S: Yeah. (Yeah)—Australian accent.

T: Australian accent do you think? (Yeah yeah) Australian accent.

As I observed this interaction I noted: The teacher is really hustling the students. Several groups appear to be struggling. She then calls attention to a minor fillet on the tape. What's the point? Won't it simply confuse the students?

在我观察到这一互动情况的时候，我记录道：教师实在是在催促学生。好几组看上去颇有困难。然后她把学生的注意力集中到录音的一个小点上。这是什么意思？这不就把学生给搞糊涂了吗？

In the debriefing, the teacher provided the following explanation.

授课后简述时，教师提供了下列解释。

[W]hen they were doing the sequencing on the floor, they were taking quite a lot of time to do that and two groups hadn't finished, and I looked at my watch and I said hurry up, one minute left, and played the tape while they were still halfway through sequencing it. And then I only actually played the tape once. I didn't play it through again, but they'd got the right order by this stage; I just made the decision on the spot to tell them what "erm" and "yeah" were, cause one of them said, "' Erm' what's 'erm'"?

【学生】在做这项排序活动的时候，耗费了好长的时间，有两组还没有完成，我看了看表，我说赶快，还有一分钟，同时播放了磁带，这两组还在半路上，没排完序。那我就只播放了一次。我没有再从头到尾播放一遍，但到这个阶段学生都已经做出了正确的顺序；我就在现场做出决定，告诉他们“erm”和“yeah”都是什么，因为有一个学生问，“‘Erm’，‘Erm’是什么”?

Here is yet another illustration that something which made little sense to an outside observer made perfect sense to those on the inside of the action. I believe this opacity to an outsider of many things that happen in the classroom reinforces the need for classroom stories to be told from the inside. In another classroom, the following interaction took place.

下面再举一例，说明对外部观察者来说不太言之成理的东西对身在局中的人来说完全是有道理的。我相信，对于外来者来说“课堂教学中发生的很多事情不透明”这种情况正印证了课堂教学故事要由身在其中者来讲述的需要。在另一节课上，发生了下列互动。

T: You know when you're agreeing, like Shigeru did to me before, it's nice to say, " Um, and it's good to relax, " and then Jill said, she started to tell Patricia something now, and what does she say, Chong Dok?

S: Well, you see.

T: [T takes over]…it's like this. When you're starting to tell a story sometimes, you start, you say, " Well you see, it's like this." And that means you're starting to tell what it was like. Like Shigeru, he was really telling me a story about why he was late. He could have said " Well, you see, Jill, it's like this. The train missed me this morning." Okay, and then Patricia says, " I've said my increase has been remarkable" and Patricia says—Shigeru?

S: Yes, I saw that, but you must be careful…

T: Yes, that's right. And then Jill says…Yami?

S: Yes, I know.

It is almost impossible to convey interpersonal and affective aspects of the classroom in lesson transcripts. In the preceding extracts, the teacher and students weave the interaction together effortlessly, as though it had been rehearsed. While the interaction is largely meaningless to the outsider, the students find it amusing and make their contributions on cue. As it turned out, the obscure references were to an in-joke shared only by the class. Here is another example of Freeman's dictum that to tell the story one must know the story.

要用授课转写文字来传达课堂教学中人际、情感方面的东西，几乎是不可能的。在前面这段选文中，教师和学生几乎是毫不费力地织就了互动，就好像是排练过一样。尽管这种互动对外来者看来多半是毫无意义的，学生们却觉得这很有意思，并在得到提示后贡献了自己的东西。最后发现的情况是，那些隐晦的所指说的是只有这个班级的同学才了解的内部笑话。这是又一个例子，印证了弗里曼的名言：要讲故事，先要明白这个故事。

In explaining why the previous interaction happened when it did, the teacher reported that:

The students generally welcome both humor and personalizing of material to them. A little humor always helps to maintain interest and motivation. In this part of the lesson, we were using a little story that had evolved during the course.

在解释为什么会发生此前的互动时，教师的报告是：

学生们普遍欢迎幽默，也欢迎教材的个性化。一点点幽默总是能够帮助维持兴趣和动力。在授课的这个部分，我们用了一个在课程进行期间发展出来的小故事。

In addition to illuminating the complexity of the classrooms, the transcripts and teachers' commentaries provide fascinating insights into teachers' styles. The teacher quoted in the following extract was relatively inexperienced and felt that she could not abandon her predetermined course of action, even though the students were evidently experiencing difficulty with it and the flow of classroom events was obviously affected.

除了能够对课堂教学的复杂情况加以阐明，转写文字和教师的点评还提供了对教师授课风格引人入胜的洞察。下列选段中所转述的教师相对来说经验不是很丰富，她感觉到不能放弃此前已经预定的行动路线，尽管学生明显已经感受到困难，课堂活动的节奏显然也受到了影响。

I began to realize the students were finding the activity quite complex and hard, but it was too late to change it or abandon it, as they did need introducing to the vocabulary before starting to read the article. I ended up having to bring the pairs together.

我开始意识到学生觉得这项活动很复杂、很难，但要改变或放弃已经太晚，因为学生的确需要熟悉一下词汇，再开始阅读文章。我最终不得不把各对重归一起。

From the data, it seemed that the more experienced teachers were much more comfortable with monitoring the class and modifying their lesson in the light of ongoing feedback. Here is a typical comment:

从数据来看，似乎更有经验的教师对根据即时反馈监控班级、改动教学进程觉得更能坦然接受。下面是一句典型的点评：

The warmer was beginning to take longer than I wanted to by this stage. I was beginning to wonder whether to pursue it for longer to involve all students in this stage or to move on. I feel less confident of timing at this level than at higher levels.

至此，暖身活动比我想进行的时间要长。我开始想，是继续下去，是全班学生都参与进来，还是继续下一项？在这个水平，我对于时间的掌控不如对更高水平的时间掌控有信心。

Another teacher said, " I realized that as the tape quality was poor I would have to distribute the written language from the tape sooner than expected."

另一位教师说：“我意识到，既 45 36383 45 16432 0 0 6434 0 0:00:05 0:00:02 0:00:03 6433磁带的音质不行，那我还是要比预计更早把书面材料发下去。”

The images and metaphors used by the teachers are also revealing. The data are shot through with references to pace, flow, tempo, and movement. One teacher noted, " Time was running out. I had to keep the pace moving along."

教师们所使用的意象和比喻也很能说明问题。数据里充满了步调、流动、节奏和运动这样的说法。一位教师指出：“时间正在流逝。我不得不保持步调，往前继续。”

In another classroom, the teacher drew an activity to a rather abrupt halt, despite the fact that it seemed to be going well. The teacher accounted for this abrupt change of pace in terms of classroom management by saying, " The time limit prevailed again and I had to draw a halt. This activity was going well. Maybe if I'd anticipated my timings better, I could have given students longer time to work on this role play, which they got quite a lot out of."

在另外一节课上，教师突然叫停了一项活动，尽管看起来活动进行得不错。对这个从课堂管理角度来说显得突然的步调改变，教师是这样解释的：“时间限制到了，我不得不叫停。这项活动进行得不错。也许如果我的时间控制好一些，我可以给学生更长时间来进行这项角色表演，毕竟他们从中获益颇多。”

In this section, I have provided additional data on the importance of the insider's voice in helping to understand the life in language classrooms. In procedural terms, a great deal of classroom interaction is aimed at maintaining the flow of classroom interaction. In research terms, once again, we see that it is difficult to interpret the interactions without additional insights from those on the inside.

本节，我提供了有关内部人声音重要性的进一步数据，来帮助理解语言课堂教学当中现实情况。以步骤而论，大量的课堂互动意在维持教学互动的流动。以研究而论，我们又一次看到，没有来自内部人员的解释，是很难解读种种互动的。

The instructional process

教学过程

One striking point to emerge from the data was the relative paucity of what might be called direct instruction, in which the teacher explicitly instructs the learners. This might seem odd, given the fact that the lay-person probably sees the "bringing of good news" as the central function of instructors. In addition, a great deal of the explicit instruction which occurred came about as the teachers responded to the immediate needs of the students. The majority of these impromptu explanations concerned vocabulary which students found difficult.

从数据中浮现出来的、令人印象深刻的一点是，可以称为“直接指示”的教学相对少见。教师用“直接指示”明白无误地指示学习者该干什么。这看起来可能令人觉得奇怪，特别是在外行看来，教师的核心功能就是“带来好消息”的情况下。此外，所出现的大量明白无误的指示都是在教师对学生现场提出的需求做出反应时给出的。这些临场解释的大部分都关系到学生感觉困难的词汇。

T: …"collateral" actually means sort of security on somebody who is taking out a loan. If I was a very wealthy person—I'm rich and you want a loan—you are poor—I could be your collateral—you would take out the loan and I would have the security for the loan. I would say to the bank " Yami will pay back the money and if she doesn't, I will give the bank the money." Collateral, security, another person arranges to be—

S: Another person guarantee for you to borrow money from the bank?

T: Yes, that's right…

Direct evidence from students that they had "got it" was particularly important for most teachers, and when it occurred, the teacher's decision to engage in direct instruction was vindicated. For instance, in reviewing this piece of interaction, the teacher reported, " I was pleased this explanation was clear to the students. I think I'm gradually improving in explaining, defining, and giving instructions for them."

对绝大部分教师来说，学生给出的、直接证明他们“懂了”的证据是尤其重要的，当这种情况发生，教师进行直接教学的决定就得到了肯定。例如，在评价这段互动时，教师报告说：“我很高兴这个解释对学生来说是清楚的。我觉得我正在解释、定义和给学生指示方面得到提高。”

On some occasions the explanations were prompted by a direct request from a student. In many instances, however, the explanations were prompted by the teacher's intuitive perception of the students' needs. For example, in one lesson the teacher was working with an authentic tape in which an interviewer asked a series of questions about the interviewee's life-styles. Rather than using complete question forms, the interviewer signaled the questions through intonation: " Drink?" rather than " Do you drink?" This gave rise to the following interaction.

在一些情况下，（教师的）解释是由学生的直接请求所引发的。然而，在许多情况下，解释是由教师对学生需求的直觉感知所引发的。例如，在一节课上，教师正在用原声音带上课，录音内容是面试者问了一系列问题，都是有关于受试者的生活方式的。面试者不是用完整的问句形式，而是用语调提示了问题：“喝酒吗？”而不是“你喝酒吗？”这就引发了下面的互动。

T: What question does the interviewer ask? The interviewer? What question does the interviewer ask? What's the question in here?

S: You smoke?

T: You smoke? You smoke? That's not a proper question. Is it really? Proper question is do you smoke? So he says "you smoke?" We know it's a question because…why? You smoke?…

S: The tone.

T: The tone…the…the…what did we call it before? You smoke? What do we call this?

S: Intonation. T: Intonation. You know by his intonation it's a question.

When I observed the lesson, I was puzzled by this interaction. Why "deauthenticate" a piece of authentic interaction by saying that the interviewer was not asking "proper" questions? At the end of the lesson, I asked the teacher about this.

我在听这节课的时候，对这段互动感到困惑。为什么要说面试者没有问“恰当”的问题，从而把一段真实地道的互动“说成不地道”的呢？在授课最后，我问了教师这个问题。

T: …And also the on-the-spot decision of like when it said "drink?".

T: ……还有就是临场的决断，比如录音里说“drink”。

DN: So you hadn't actually planned to teach that? …

DN：所以实际上你是没计划要教那个？……

T: No, I hadn't. I mean, really, that would be an excellent thing to do in a follow-up lesson—you know, focus on questions.

T: 没有。我是说，是的，要是在此后的课堂上那样做是很棒的——你知道的，专注问题的教学。

DN: In fact, what you're asking them to do in their work is focus on the full question forms; and yet in the tape they're using a …

DN：事实上，你在他们活动中要求他们做的事情是专注于完整问句形式；而在录音里他们用的是……

T: …Wasn't, yeah. So, I suppose it's recognizing one question form by the intonation, then being able to transfer it into the proper question " Do you drink?" rather than " Drink?" I mean, that would be good to spend a lot more time on another point. But it seemed like it was good to bring up there. Just to transfer the information.

T：……他们没用（完整形式），是的。所以，我觉得是要从语调来判断一种问句形式，然后能够把这种形式转换成正确的问句“你喝酒吗？”而不是“喝酒吗？”我是说，多花些时间在其他点上也会很好。但看起来这里说一说也很好。就是传递一下这个信息。

Here is another example of classroom interaction which makes little sense within the immediate context of the lesson in which it occurs, but which can be justified within the broader context of the course and the teacher's overall goals and objectives. I asked whether the principal objectives of the lesson—listening to authentic texts for key information—might have been subverted by the secondary aim of introducing and practicing question forms. The teacher, however, was quite comfortable with this.

这是又一个例证，表明授课当堂的语境下看上去没有什么意义的课堂互动，能够在课程的总体语境下、教师的总体目的和目标的背景下得到解释。我问道，授课的主要目标——听地道的内容，获取关键信息——是否有可能会被问句形式介绍与练习这个次一级目标所冲淡。然而，教师对此却不以为意。

DN: I'm wondering if it's too heavy a load to have the twin aims, the aim of listening for key information aim and also aim of the focus on questions. Whether it's better to separate those out and look at the questions in a separate lesson?

DN：我在想，同时设置两个目标，这节课是否太过沉重，要听录音获取关键信息，还要关注问题形式。要是把这两个目标分开，一节课只看一个，会不会更好？

T: What, the question forms…Well, when I first looked at the material I thought it was quite a straightforward listening, so therefore if I give them a split listening, it'll make it more challenging for them. I took the decision to do that and I don't regret that. I mean, question forms are always difficult things to do. They're always difficult to slot in unless you do a whole lesson on question forms. So, to throw them in now and again like that is quite valid. So, to give the both focuses, I thought, was fine.

T：什么，问题形式吗……额，我最开始看这份材料的时候，我觉得这是相当直截了当的听力材料，所以我要是给他们两个目标，就会使材料对学生来说更有挑战性。我做了这个决定，我也没后悔。我是说，问题形式总是不容易掌握的东西。这些形式总是难以把握，除非一整节课都教这个。所以，像这样有机会就练练，是很有用的。所以，我觉得同时关注两点是不错的。

She was able to vindicate this stance by pointing out that:

为了证实她的态度没错，这位老师还指出：

I did anticipate that they would have a lot of problems with question forming; and their intonation and their spelling, and things just need huge amounts of work. But as regards the activities, I didn't feel they were beyond their capabilities at all. I think they achieved quite a lot. I mean initially looking at it, you think, " Oh God, there's so much there." But they did actually succeed in filling the whole thing out.

我预计到他们会在问题形式方面遇到不小的困难；他们的声调、拼写，以及其他东西，都需要大量的学习、练习。但就这些活动来说，我完全不觉得这些活动超出了学生的能力。我觉得他们学会了很多。我的意思是，最开始看的时候，你会觉得，“哦天哪，这么多东西（要学）。”但他们的确做得不错，全都完成了。

Not all direct instruction was concerned with pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary. Several teachers provided input on language skills and learning strategies, such as the following:

并不是所有的直接教学都与发音、语法和词汇有关系。好几位教师提供了语言技能和学习策略方面的输入，例如下面的这一段：

Remember how we've been talking about the importance of looking at the heading and the pictures and some of the big writing to guess what the article's about? So what sort of idea could you get from just not reading the small writing but just looking at the pictures and seeing the heading?

Another teacher took a similar perspective, focusing on strategies for dealing with unknown vocabulary.

另一位教师采用的是类似的视角，专注应对生词的策略。

Before we start to read the article I'd like to help you with some vocabulary, and I've got a special activity that will help you to guess and learn the vocabulary that you need to know in order to understand the article.

Despite the range and diversity of contexts which gave rise to them, and regardless of the skills of the teachers and proficiency levels of the learners, these pieces of discourse all illustrate the central theme of this piece: that the universe in which a particular discourse is constructed is a collaborative achievement of the actors who inhabit that universe.

尽管引发这些行为的语境差异极大、各不相同，尽管教师的技能和学生的语言能力水平也各有不同，这些会话的片段都证实了本篇的中心主题：特定话语形成所在的“宇宙”是居住在该“宇宙”的“演员”们合作搭建起来的。

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Decide whether the following statements are true (T) or false (F):

1.The author does not think the teacher should stick strictly to the teaching plan.

2. The example of the teacher adding the focus on question forms is used to tell us that teachers have their own logic in carrying out their actual teaching.

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