Inner and outer 171of work a chairman does, and whether schools have chairmen in Britain,
as they do in America (exchanges 200–31); the teacher participates only as
chairperson, not as language teacher. This is all in the Outer; no attempt
is made to switch the focus to language per se.
2 Mainly the Outer column is used, with the brief sortie into the Inner
Dependent. This denotes the occasional teacher correction or the supplying
of an appropriate word or phrase to help the discourse advance. Again
the emphasis is on the topic, as in (1) above, but the teacher is acting
in the role of linguistic adviser as well as chairperson. This is what
happens in the ‘Women’s work’ discussion which begins in Example 2
above. (See also the following paragraph which describes how the discussion
continues.) This would also be the pattern if a teacher was explaining
or talking about a comprehension passage; here the focus would be
mainly on the meaning; of course words would inevitably be quoted
from the passage in the process and these words would be recorded as
Inner.
3 Stretches of the Inner Dependent column are in fairly regular use. This
reveals a focus on the language, perhaps drilling or other ELT practice
techniques in action; activities which are of a non-interactive nature sometimes
described as ‘mechanical’. In the above lesson, there was a long section
where the teacher was getting each student in turn to practise the pronunciation
of the word ‘months’. Each time the word ‘months’ was, of course, on
the Inner (J.Willis 1981, exchanges 14–22).
4 Stretches of the Inner Independent column are in use, together with the
Outer, and occasionally the Inner Dependent column. This shows controlled
but interactive practice, ‘pseudo-interaction’, with the odd teacher correction
or suggestion for a word or phrase. This is exemplified above, in Example
4, exchanges (265–73).
Very often a Boundary exchange, or a series of nearly consecutive Boundary
exchanges, will show the division between sections such as these. No matter
how ‘free’ the interaction gets during the course of an activity, the teacher
is always empowered to produce a Boundary exchange, to terminate one
activity, and to start another. Exchange (274) is a good example of a Boundary
exchange (see Example 4 above).
Sometimes teachers will try to disguise a Boundary to preserve the surface
cohesion of topic, while still aiming to change the direction of the lesson.
An example of this presented on p. 172 comes after twenty-eight exchanges’
worth of discussion on ‘Women’s work’ which is still going strong among
the students and has now got on to the subject of men being lazy; students
have been trying to ignore the teacher’s interruptions on the Inner, with
corrections of language items, so she has to find a way to get back into the
interaction. She finally does this by focusing on topic and seeming to continue
the discussion: