Social interactive entropy and interaction in the language teacher education classroom

Abstract

This paper has as core ideas the assumption that interaction is essential for knowledge construction and the claim that groups of individuals in learning contexts can be seen as complex adaptive systems (CAS). Some different, but congruous views on the classroom as a complex adaptive system are presented and the phenomenon which is constantly at work and affecting each and every CAS - the entropy - is brought to discussion. A specific type of entropy for social groups, defined as social interactive entropy, is also introduced as an attempt to promote reflection on how this phenomenon affects the behavior of a classroom under a complex perspective and how it influences such a social CAS by providing or restricting conditions for interaction and, hence, learning to emerge.

Keywords

• complex adaptive systems
• interaction
• language teacher education
• social interactive entropy
• language learning classroom