ZOOMING OUT FROM THE TEACHER-CENTRED
CLASSROOMMark Beattie
Kanda University of International Studies
The 2020 pandemic has brought about a series of events worldwide which has impacted the vast
majority of society in some way. In post-secondary education the shift from a physical classroom
environment to online has produced a series of challenges for educators. This sudden change
has been uncomfortable for many teachers and students, and dramatically changed the ways inwhich students interact with their peers and teachers in the context of a classroom. Theclassroom as it is commonly thought of has moved from “a unique social environment with itsown human activities and its own conventions governing these activities” (Breen & Candlin, 1980,p. 98) to an online platform with prescribed interaction, primarily decided by the teacher, andits own conventions more strictly regulated by the teacher. A resulting factor of thesecircumstances personally, while teaching during the pandemic, was an increase in the use ofTeacher Talk and in turn a more teacher-centred classroom.
A teacher-centred classroom has many features and arguably Teacher Talking Time is a central
pivot which determines which category the lesson assimilates to. Teacher Talk is commonlyscored on quantity rather than quality (Cullen, 1998). Teachers have often been criticized forspeaking too much and depriving students of the opportunity to speak, whilst speaking sparsely
is considered to be ‘effective Teacher Talk’. This understanding has prompted more efficient
communication on behalf of teachers with an emphasis on facilitating and promotinginteraction (Cullen, 1998). This shift from quantity to quality communication was considered
important, as simply reducing Teacher Talk would not improve language acquisition and would
lead to the detriment of learner interaction (Brock, 1986). These accommodations to physicalclassroom methodology have been shown to benefit learners.
However, during the pandemic many educational institutions started using a software program
called Zoom to conduct lessons. The technology used to create the online classroom allows for
all participants to communicate, but multiple speakers cannot speak and be comprehended at
the same time. Therefore, communication is limited to one person speaking at a time, a form ofturn taking that is completely regulated. In order for the online classes to function as coherently
as possible, all participants mute their microphones, with the exception of one, the speaker. Theteacher, by hosting the lesson, is given special control privileges as host; the ability to mute andunmute microphones is one of those privileges. The teacher, when using Zoom, can mute andunmute students in order to control the lesson. Obviously, this type of control does not exist in
the physical classroom. The software program was created and intended for use by businesses,
thus the control within the software is akin to that of a manager and consequently that structure
imprints onto the online classroom, where it has its own benefits and downfalls.

15.	  Zooming	  Out	  from	  the	  Teacher-­‐Centred	  Classroom.	  Mark	  Beattie.	  Pages	  63-­‐65.	  Literacies	  &	  Language	  Education:	  Research	  &	  Practice,	  2020	  Special	  Section:	  Teaching	  During	  a	  Pandemic.	  English	  Language	  Institute,	  KUIS.

This shift for many from a learner-centred classroom where the teacher acts as facilitator to thelearning process, by empowering students and by promoting pair/group work andcommunication, became very prominent when switching from the physical classroom to theonline classroom. Other aspects of the learner-centred classroom, such as encouraging peer
review and preparing students for assessments relevant to a curriculum designed around thesecharacteristics, became difficult. The curriculum suddenly did not fully correspond andcooperate with my own style of classroom teaching.
Prior to the pandemic I would have considered the majority of my lessons to be learner-centred.
Weimer (2002, pp. 75-76) describes this style of teaching as being a “guide on the side” or“coach”. The students have the materials and facilities that they require. They are guided to
discover and interpret the content which they have been given. It is then through this processthat they learn with the incorporation of their own experiences. I admittedly had been trained
to teach in this style, and the teacher-centred approach did not appeal to me as it was consideredby me personally to be an outdated methodology.
Moving to online lessons resulted in my adoption of a more teacher-centred approach. My
lessons at the beginning of the pandemic were very structured around who and what I imagined
the primary focus to be during the lesson. To my discomfort, it felt that the primary focus of mylessons had become me presenting information to the class. As I reflected on student
engagement and interaction, I realised that in the physical classroom a lot of my communication
had been non-verbal. The use of gestures and the students’ reactions to my instructions wereenough for me to know that what I had said or described was comprehended. However, online
my communication was restricted to verbal communication with limited gestures as they could
not be fully viewed on camera. This constraint for all participants is a limitation of the software.
Participants have the option to view one participant on their monitor or to view all theparticipants in a grid view, which is my own default view in order to address the entire class. It isvery difficult to see all participants and even when viewing students in grid view not all students
are totally visible on screen. Some have their camera off for privacy reasons, and some work on
a separate desk and thus their faces are not totally in view for the entire lesson. When in screen
share mode, there are also limited options on how many students can be seen due to the size ofthe monitor, as sharing portions of the screen reduces the amount of screen space that can beused for viewing participants. To overcome this issue a second monitor could improve thesituation by providing a dedicated screen to view participants.
However, the inability to know if the students did or did not understand instructions left me withfew options. I had resorted to asking students to communicate to me in some way using thereaction or chat function in the Zoom software, to indicate if they comprehended myinstructions. This method was not always clear. In many cases students would signal with areaction: some would physically react by shaking their heads, while others would use thereaction option within the software. Other students may also have understood but I may nothave seen them for the brief few seconds their reaction was communicated. A number ofstudents would not react at all, but it was difficult to know if they did not comprehend what wasgoing on or if they became distracted when I asked for feedback. Consequently, this led me totalk more, for example repeating and rephrasing instructions, and to investigate student
understanding by asking individual students for clarification. Realistically, however, in many
situations I had no clear indication that all students did not understand. This increase in Teacher
Talking Time to compensate for a missing segment in physical classroom communication, I felt,
bored students and centred the classroom around me. Peer communication and learning could
not take place in this environment, even for students who did fully comprehend instructions.
To mitigate this issue, I resorted to giving the instructions verbally to the entire group, thenasking students for a signal to ensure comprehension. If by approximation, half of participantssignalled understanding of the task, I would then put students into ‘breakout rooms’, which is afunction of the software which allows for participants of the class to form smaller groups. Iwould then take a screenshot of the instructions and send them to the students with thecorresponding task via a group chat software tool. The chat function within Zoom does notcollectively allow for students to receive files while in breakout rooms. These extra steps ofinstruction and ensuring quality communication rather than quantity dramatically reduced myTeacher Talking Time. These steps encouraged pair/group communication, promoted peer
scaffolding by more capable students, and allowed me to ”guide from the side“ (Weimer, 2002,pp.75-76) in order to help students achieve learning outcomes and to move the focus to a morelearner-centred classroom.
This development of my own personal teaching style has enabled me to adapt in order to best
meet the needs of the students. This adaption will need to be reflected on as the pandemic
continues and the Zoom software program evolves. As time continues, I think that thecurriculum will itself need to change to suit the limitations of the software which have changed
the possible outcomes of the learners. The 2020 pandemic will no doubt create further
disruption worldwide, in different sectors and industries. As we navigate through these
unprecedented times, we will need to consider the impact on the traditional conventions of thephysical classroom and how teachers can create an online classroom style that corresponds withtheir preferred teaching style and the curriculum.
REFERENCES
Breen, M. P., & Candlin, C. N. (1980). The essentials of a communicative curriculum in language
teaching. Applied Linguistics, I(2), 89–112. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/i.2.89
Cullen, R. (1998). Teacher talk and the classroom context. ELT Journal, 52(3), 179–187.
https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/52.3.179
Weimer, M. (2002). Learner-centered teaching: Five key changes to practice (1st ed.). Jossey-Bass.