Inner and outer 177Examples of switches following these patterns can be found in many
other classroom data, for example McTear (1975), where he comments on
the complexities of FL classroom exchange structure; when his data is re-
analysed, separated into Outer and Inner, these complexities largely disappear.
Ellis (1984:109–11) talks about ‘medium-oriented’ and ‘message-oriented’
interactions, and quotes an example of data from Allwright (1979) to which
the application of Outer and Inner may well prove enlightening. A student,
Igor, introduces and pursues the topic of taxis in Moscow at the expense of
the teacher’s focus on vocabulary building: another student escaping from
Inner to Outer. It is also interesting to note what Ellis has to say about the
suitability of certain types of lessons and styles for aiding natural language
acquisition, and to interpret his advice on providing ‘learning opportunities’
for students in terms of Inner and Outer, but this is beyond the scope of this
chapter.
INNER POVERTY
When examining utterances that occur on the Inner, and comparing them
with utterances on the Outer, there are striking differences, both in exchange
structure and move structure.
At the level of exchange, Elicit exchanges on the Outer typically consist
of three moves, I, R and F (Initiating, Responding, and Follow-up.) On the
Inner Independent, only two moves: I and R; as we have seen the F move
belongs to the teacher and is almost always evaluative.
At the level of move, it was evident that one-act moves were the norm
on the Inner, whereas on the Outer, Initiating moves consisted of up to
six acts, the norm being two or three. One would expect the teacher’s
Initiations to be more complex; for one thing, she has a native-speaker
competence, for another, she has complicated interactions to set up. However,
student moves also sometimes consisted of more than just the head act
when on the Outer. Words like ‘Erm’, ‘Ah’ and ‘Eh?’ abounded as signal,
pre-head and post-head acts on the Outer and served to keep the interaction
going. This finding, too, has obvious implications for language learning
and teaching.
THE ‘COMMUNICATIVE’ CLASSROOM: CITATION,
SIMULATION AND REPLICATION ACTIVITIES
The lessons that I recorded and analysed were typical samples of English
Language Teaching at the time, at the elementary and intermediate level. The
system of analysis that I developed for these lessons would need to be extended
and refined before it could handle some of the kinds of communicative activities
which are becoming more and more common in classrooms today. Sinclair
and Coulthard chose the classroom as the setting for their original analysis
because the clearly defined roles of teacher and pupil and the teacher’s responsibility