Negotiating knowledge bases in pedagogical discourse: relevance of identities to language classroom interactions

Author(s):  
Yo-An Lee

AbstractIdentities are about how people position themselves in their social surroundings individually and collectively. Research in applied linguistics shows how identities seem multifaceted, emergent, and constantly changing. The present study finds its analytic resources in conversation analysis (CA) and describes how access to particular knowledge can make different identities relevant in the contingent choices during real-time classroom interaction. Based on transcribed questioning sequences taken from English as a Second Language (ESL) classroom, the analysis demonstrates the intricate negotiation between classroom teachers and their non-native students in determining what knowledge is relevant among multiple possibilities. What underlies these sequences is the work of managing asymmetries in the knowledge base between teachers and their students as they come to terms with various competing knowledge bases, whether about content knowledge, target language, or personal experience. The findings suggest that participants deploy a far greater variety of identities than the pre-set categories of native/non-native speakers and that the presence of multiple identities is a central analytic resource as it shows the process by which the participants establish the relevant knowledge bases for the task at hand.

ELT Journal ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 136-145
Author(s):  
Shane Donald

Abstract This paper examines how a teacher responds to ‘learner initiatives’ during classroom instruction. Learner initiatives refer to students making ‘uninvited’ contributions in class when not selected as the next speaker. This paper focuses on learners initiating an interactional sequence through asking the teacher a question. Using conversation analysis, this research describes two practices adopted by a teacher when responding to such learner initiatives. These practices shape how learners participate within learner-initiated interactional sequences and hence the opportunities that occur for learning the target language. The teacher utilizes recipient design to either better understand learner queries or explicitly answer learner questions as part of dealing with learner initiatives. This paper contributes to understanding of how learner initiatives are managed by teachers and has a role to play in teacher education by raising practitioner awareness of how this aspect of classroom interaction can be managed to further learner participation.


2012 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 332-348 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glenn S. Levine

The social and cultural ‘turn’ in language education of recent years has helped move language teaching and curriculum design away from many of the more rigid dogmas of earlier generations, but the issue of the roles of the learners’ first language (L1) in language pedagogy and classroom interaction is far from settled. Some follow a strict ‘exclusive target language’ pedagogy, while others ‘resort to’ the use of the L1 for a variety of purposes (see ACTFL 2008). Underlying these competing views is the perspective of the L1 as an impediment to second language learning. Following sociocultural theory and ecological perspectives of language and learning and based on the findings of research on classroom code-switching and code choice, this paper lays out an approach to the language classroom as a multilingual social space in which learners and teacher study, negotiate, and co-construct code choice norms toward the dynamic, creative, and pedagogically effective use of both the target language and the learners’ L1(s). Learner use of the L1 for the purpose of grammatical or lexical learning is also considered, and some examples for instruction are offered.


2012 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 28
Author(s):  
Edgar Lucero Batavia

This research project focuses on identifying and describing the interactional patterns and the speech acts that emerge and are maintainedthrough teacher-student interactions in a university-level EFL Pre-intermediate class. This work also analyzes how these patterns potentiallyinfluence the participants’ interactional behavior. This study then answers two questions: what interactional patterns emerge and how they arestructured in interactions between the teacher and the students in the EFL class? And, how can the utterances that compose the interactionalpatterns potentially influence both interactants’ interactional behavior in the EFL class? The description and analysis of the problem followethnomethodological conversation analysis. The findings show that there are two main interactional patterns in the EFL class observed for thisstudy: asking about content, and adding content. Both patterns present characteristic developments and speech acts that potentially influencethe teacher and students’ interactional behavior in this class. These findings serve as a reference and evidence for the interactional patterns thatemerge in EFL classroom interaction and the influence they have on the way both interactants use the target language in classroom interaction.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 581-606
Author(s):  
Marco Octavio Cancino Avila

The language choices that teachers make in the language classroom have been found to influence the opportunities for learning given to learners (Seedhouse, 2004; Walsh, 2012; Waring, 2009, 2011). The present study expands on research addressing learner-initiated contributions (Garton, 2012; Jacknick, 2011; Waring, Reddington, & Tadic, 2016; Yataganbaba & Yıldırım, 2016) by demonstrating that opportunities for participation and learning can be promoted when teachers allow learners to expand and finish their overlapped turns. Audio recordings of lessons portraying language classroom interaction from three teachers in an adult foreign language classroom (EFL) setting were analyzed and discussed through conversation analysis (CA) methodology. Findings suggest that when teachers are able to navigate overlapping talk in such a way that provides interactional space for learners to complete their contributions, they demonstrate classroom interactional competence (Sert, 2015; Walsh, 2006). The present study contributes to the literature by addressing interactional features that increase interactional space, and an approach to teacher and learner talk that highlights CA’s methodological advantages in capturing the interactional nuances of classroom discourse.


Author(s):  
Ummu Hani ◽  
Leli Lismay

This research was conducted based on some problems found related to the learning style of milenial students in the classroom interaction. Most of the students did not follow the instructions given by the lecturer when working on assignment. So that, analysing milenial learning style is needed in order to found out some appropiate styles and strategies in teaching. This research was qualitative research. The instrument used in this research was observation and interview. The result showed that there were three categories of millenial learning styles namely; team learning, experiencing, and uses technologies in learning. Especially for students in the 2nd year at English Education Department of State Islamic Institute of Bukittinggi, Most of the students applied  team learning and uses technologies as learning styles during classroom interaction. They did not like the style of experiencing, while in the language classroom, experincing, should be the crucial factor to help the students mastering the target language. In coclusion, millenial learning styles at English Education Department of State Islamic Institute of Bukittinggi need to be improved in order to achieve the learning objectives.Keywords: Learning Style, Millenial, classroom interaction.


2006 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yona Gilead

<blockquote>The developments of new technologies over the last decades provide some answers to the limited exposure imposed on second/foreign language (L2) learners, who study a target language in an academic setting in countries where that language is not actively used. Not only are such learners restricted in their exposure to the L2 in the formal academic framework, due to the limited face to face learning time, but, more significantly, they lack the exposure to the language's 'real world' as it exists outside the language classroom. They are isolated from the target language's authentic discourse communities and its native speakers. Instead, learners mainly experience the language in its 'modified format' as manifested within the classroom itself.<p>This paper analyses the rationale for, and the process of, the development of the Modern Hebrew Beginners <em>WebCT</em>site at the University of Sydney as a means of increasing students' exposure to the language and especially enhancing their communication in Hebrew through the use of technologies.</p></blockquote><p> </p>


1997 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 105-116
Author(s):  
Marty van Rijen

In the second-language classroom the teacher determines to a high degree the input and feedback L2-learners receive. Feedback informs learners of the accuracy of their production, after which they may alter their hypotheses about the target language. The role of feedback has been investigated from different theoretical points of view and there has been some research on its effect. However, most of these studies concern adults; hardly any research has focused on young children. In this article, I will discuss some of the literature about which feedback strategies are suitable for the SLA by non-native children in kindergarten. I will also summarize the results of the analysis of 18 lessons in kindergarten groups in which more than 90% of the children are non-native speakers, to determine which strategies teachers actually use. I will compare twelve different teachers, two age groups, two different vocabulary methods and two kinds of lessons.


10.12737/3591 ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 98-108
Author(s):  
Галина Чудайкина ◽  
Galina Chudaykina

A vast majority of English language teachers in Russia are not native speakers with no or inadequately little personal experience of living in an English-speaking country. What are the specifics of teaching in view of such an authenticity-lacking professional background, and how does the personality of a teacher reveal itself and is transformed in the course of teaching? How does language teaching affect self-identification? What should a teacher focus on attaining or, by contrast, avoiding in view of the above-raised issues? A significant number of foreign language teachers who are not native speakers demonstrate a clear non-target-language-specific accent, thus, either inadvertently or purposefully, revealing and asserting their national identity. The author of the article aims at identifying the problems that the teacher’s explicit target-language-alien accent may cause to both learners and teachers, and the root causes of the accent resilience.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Javier Julian Enriquez

This article focuses on highlighting the application of discourse analysis in the Spanish Language Teaching as a Foreign Language. Especially, it does emphasize the importance of the conceptual fluency acquisition, as a strategic competence in particular, and as a communicative competence in general for non-native speakers of other languages enrolled in Spanish courses as a foreign language. That is, it does draw attention to Metaphorical Competence (MC), which can be defined as the ability to acquire, create, and interpret metaphors in the target language. For this purpose, we have chosen a Golden Age poet, Gongora, considered by most literary critics as the most influential and important poet in Spanish-language poetry, whose works represent the most admirable literary masterpieces  in the western classical literature and Baroque poetry. In the same way, we would like to bring to light his literary value, excellent, and didactic potential for teaching poetry in the second language classroom, underpinned by a Task-based Learning methodology.


2004 ◽  
Vol 1 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 127-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mateja Dagarin

The article focuses on the development of interaction in a foreign language classroom. Teachers can help students to develop their interaction skills and students themselves can apply various strategies to become effective communicators in a foreign language. Firstly, different teacher and student roles are presented. Secondly, different classroom organisation types for encouraging interaction among different participants in the classroom are described. Next, Flander’s Interaction Analysis Categories (FIAC) and Byrne’s model for classroom interaction are given as two models upon which to analyse classroom interaction and plan activities for developing it. In the final part some communication strategies are described and exemplified in detail. If all the techniques and strategies are put into practice, one can expect an improvement in classroom interaction and furthermore in everyday-life situations when students communicate with foreign speakers.


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