Abstract

Abstract: This article reports an investigation of students’ perceptions of classroom interaction in English language classrooms in Indonesia. A survey distributed to 720 general and Islamic lower secondary school students revealed that: (a) students have limited interactions with their teacher in English, and even less interaction in English with their peers; (b) students see linguistic incompetence as a greater barrier to participation in classroom interaction than the boredom engendered by the traditional approach to teaching English; (c) students have positive attitudes towards classroom interactive activities that promote their oral communication and have high motivation to master oral English; and (d) students want teachers to provide scaffolding, speech modification, and corrective feedback. Suggestions for improving the teaching of English in Indonesian secondary schools are proposed.