Using Interactive White Boards in Language Teaching : Back to Teacher Centeredness or a Step Forward?

Sammanfattning: This essay examines the use of interactive white boards (IWBs) in English language teaching. The aim of the essay is to find out whether IWBs encourage a teacher-centred, transmission-based form of teaching. The project was carried out as a quantitative study of classroom observations, with the aim of counting teacher-initiated interactions in the classroom as a measure of teacher-centredness. Sinclair and Couldhard’s (1975) model of discourse analysis was used as a reference tool for counting the interaction in the classroom with the structure of Initiation, Response, Feedback (IRF). If IWBs encourage a transmission form of teaching, the number of IRF exchanges should be higher. The results of the study showed only a slightly higher average number of IRF exchanges during lessons where the IWB was use. The results also show several activities for which the IWB is used which involve a reduction in the number of IRF exchanges, and therefore providing the basis for the rejection of the hypothesis that IWBs encourage a transmission form of teaching. The essay comes to the conclusion that IWBs is a tool that can be used in a way that is suitable for today’s approaches to pedagogy