Interaction analysis in the language classroom - Moskowitz's FLINT, its basic assumptions and evaluation

The following paper is to briefly discuss and evaluate Moskowitz's FLINT. FLINT (Foreign Language Interaction) is the class interaction research tool introduced in 1976 by Gertrude Moskowitz. It categorizes teacher and student actions. The instrument is directly inspired by Flanders' Interaction Analysis Categories (FIAC) (Malamah, T.B. 1987). It was adapted for the more specific use, i.e. language classroom interaction analysis.
The basic alteration made from FIAC is an augmentation of the number of the categories. Moskowitz divides the actions into twenty-two sections and subsections. The main divisions include teacher talk's indirect (e.g. asking questions) and direct (e.g. giving directions) influence and student talk analysis (Moskowitz 1976). The breakthrough addition of FLINT is the consideration of affective factors like laughter (Malamah, T.B. 1987). The attempt to analyse the affect in classroom interaction is of a huge importance due to the fact that “feelings and attitudes can make for smooth interaction and successful learning , or can lead to conflict and the total breakdown of communication” (Malamah, T.B. 1987). FLINT also distinguishes between the category of silence and confusion which can be designated by the same action, i.e. remaining silent but are caused by essentially different factors. 'Silence' includes pauses, short intervals between the utterances made for the sake of organization, whereas 'Confusion' describes the moment of miscommunication or communication incomprehensible for the observer. According to Malamah those subdivisions can be grouped in accordance with the purposes of communication. The first group is “communication for a pedagogic purpose focal to teaching and learning”, which includes actions focused on the teaching/learning process (Malamah, T.B. 1987). A purely pedagogical action is, for instance, correcting learner's pronunciation. The second group is “communication for a social (personal/organizational) purpose”(Malamah, T.B. 1987). An example of this kind of communication is setting the time for doing a particular task. Organizing the class is to facilitate the process of teaching and learning. Some instances of communication can match both groups, e.g. jokes.
FLINT can be considered a great improvement form FIAC as it adds to student talk analysis. Contrary to the Flander's tool it includes a such category as students being off-task, which in a poorly conducted class can be the main part of classroom communication. It also attempts to include the observation of the affect in the interaction. However, the observation itself is very subjective because “flow of classroom life is actually under the surface [...] and we must doubt the integrity of the observable” (Breen 1985). The observer can misinterpret students' or teacher's behaviour which leads to false assumptions and unreliability of the observation. Without a direct interrogation the observer can fail to show the real reasons for the communication breakdown or its smooth flow. FLINT, in spite of the endeavours to regard students' part of communication, is still mainly focused on the teacher talk. Therefore, using a such instrument it is difficult to embrace the students' motivations for the particular interactions or learning overall. The observer can only infer whether students motives for learning are instrumental, integrative (Komorowska 1984) or other, which has the crucial part in understanding the communication in the classroom. For instance, is student's eagerness in answering teacher's question a result of the will to stand out or to achieve the proficiency needed for the communication with the target society?
According to Allwright FLINT failed to provide a “sufficiently illuminating account of the data”. Some subcategories seem to be redundant and irrelevant in a particular classroom interaction research. Distinguishing between modelling and orienting information is unlikely to give much new information about the overall classroom interaction. It can be useful only when the observer searches for particular aspects of teacher's communication. For observing the flow of communication FLINT is definitely too detailed. The observer can easily confuse different subcategories, which can affect the quality of the research. The risk of confusion is even higher due to the “ambiguities of the category definitions” (Bailey 1975). Along with “the problem of making rapid decisions [and] the inability to overcome certain prejudices are [difficulties] which the observer [employing a category system] must confront” (Bailey 1975). It is very difficult to take into account every factor while teacher smiles meaningfully, some students are off-task, some remain silent and one answers the teacher's question at the same time. FLINT does not show what to focus on, so the interactions analysed can be random and they will not show the whole picture. Apart from that, FLINT mostly disregards the role of body language in the classroom interaction. It attempts to introduce some notions connected with it, i.e. smile, but any other kind is not taken into consideration in this tool. As the body language is almost 70% of all communication it is a serious negligence in analysing the classroom interaction.
On conclusion, FLINT which is derived from FIAC is the Flanders tool great improvement for analysing the language classroom interaction. It attempts to expand the student talk analysis along with some aspects of the body language communication. However, it still focuses on the teacher talk and even more elaborates on it. It leads to an unnecessary categories extension, confusing for the observer. It is mainly based on what the observer can hear rather than on what he or she can see, which makes the research incomplete. It does not take into account the opinions and reasons for communication provided by both teacher and students. It may risk in the misinterpretation of the observed data. However, some categories employed separately can serve as an instrument for observing a specific type of interaction.

References:
1) Allwright, Dick. (1988). Observation in the language classroom. London: Longman Group UK Limited.
2) Bailey. Leona G. (1975). An observational method in the foreign language classroom: A closer look at interaction analysis. Foreign Language Annals 3(4): 335-344.
3) Breen, Michael. (1985). The social context for language learning--A neglected situation? Studies in Second Language Acquisition. 7(2): 136-158.
4) Komorowska, H. (1984). Wybrane problemy programów nauczania języków obcych. 190-195. Warszawa: WSiP.
5) Malamah, Thomas B. (1987). Classroom Interaction. 22-25. Oxford: OUP.
6) Moskowitz, G. (1976), The Classroom Interaction of Outstanding Foreign Language Teachers. Foreign Language Annals, 9: 35–143.