TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ BELIEFS OF CLASSROOM INTERACTIONS IN NON-ENGLISH MAJOR LARGE CLASSES: A SURVEY STUDY

This survey study aims to investigate teachers and students’ beliefs of classroom interactions in non-English major large classes. The participants included 100 teachers of English and 100 non-English major students. Survey method, more specially, questionnaire was chosen as a data collection tool. Data were then processed using SPSS. The results show that both surveyed teachers and students believed that classroom interactions involved talks between teachers and students (M=4.8 and 4.83 for teachers and students respectively). Besides, teachers and students similarly considered that classroom interactions in non-English large classes are limited because students do not have a lot of opportunities for speaking (M=4.74 and M=4.70 for both groups). However, the surveyed teachers tended to think that students can learn from other peers through interactions (M=4.39) whereas the mean score for this statement achieved M=4.0 for students’ responses in the survey. Furthermore, teachers reported that interaction among students leads to development in cognition and language learning (M=3.76) but students provided a lower appreciation of this issue (M=3.0). Based on the findings, the study suggests implications for developing classroom interactions as well as future studies.