Abstract

A classroom that implements Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) or Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) emphasizes the importance of student-centred learning that provides opportunities for students to learn from each other (Rahmatillah, 2019; Thorne, 2000; Chinyamurindi, 2018; Bruner, 1986). To explore student interaction in TBLT, this study investigates the opportunities students receive in an English as a second language (ESL) classroom to communicate about their personal experiences that are not directly related to the classroom topic. Transcripts from the House of Friendship, a Montreal community-based organization staffed by volunteer teachers and preservice teachers from Concordia’s BEd program in TESL, were analyzed for both teacher-to-student communication and student-to-student communication. The coding identified how many opportunities students had to discuss their own ideas, feelings and experiences as compared to information about the teachers’ planned topic. The findings indicated that students spend more time discussing the lesson topic than talking about unrelated personal experiences. The implications are discussed in terms of the distribution of student communication across different activity types and strategies for increasing opportunities to talk about personal experiences in ESL classrooms.