Willing, Silent or Forced Participation? Insights from English for Academic Purposes Classrooms

This study explores students’ participation in English for Academic Purposes classrooms from both teachers’ and students’ perspectives. Data were collected from videotaping of 11 English for academic purposes classes, semi-structured interviews with 12 teachers and stimulated-recall interviews with 33 students. The results indicate that three types of participation were identified, including willing, silent and forced participation. The results also show that a range of contextual and individual factors affect students’ participation in class activities and discussions. The contextual factors include class atmosphere, teacher support, peer participation, task, topic and interactional pattern. The individual factors include students’ confidence, personality and their perceived and actual communicative competence. Pedagogical implications and directions for future research are also discussed.

Pragmatic information in constructions

Despite recent advances in Construction Pragmatics, a systematic way for delimiting coded pragmatic information has yet to be offered. This squib provides a step in establishing such an account by assessing what kind of pragmatic information speakers generalize from various usage-events. Drawing on findings from Conversation Analysis, I propose a distinction between pragmatic functions as speakers’ actions, and interactional patterns as discourse-information sequences. A synchronic examination of the Hebrew multifunctional discourse marker ′at/a yode′a/′at (′you know.prs.sg.m/f′) demonstrates the consistent use of the construction in an interactional pattern across numerous usage-events. A qualitative diachronic analysis of ′at/a yode′a/′at suggests that speakers may associate forms with interactional patterns rather than with functions. This preliminary evidence provides support for the generalization of interactional patterns.

The Analysis of the Features of Interaction in Instructed SLA

This study investigates the interaction in university instructed setting in China. It reveals the interactional patterns, the strategies used in the negotiation of meaning and language forms being negotiated in classroom. The results show that the most frequently used interactional pattern and strategy of negotiation of meaning is IRF and comprehension check. But data shows that more complicated interactional patterns such as IRF(I)RF, IR [I1 R1 (I2 R2)] F and IR1F1 / R2F2 are being used. They are beneficial in promoting students’ language production. And we also found that there is focus on form in the negotiation of meaning, which can help to raise learner’s awareness of language forms in meaningful communication.

Writing-Mediated Interaction Face-to-Face: Sinitic Brushtalk (漢文筆談) as an Age-Old Lingua-Cultural Practice in Premodern East Asian Cross-Border Communication

In Western societies, speaking is construed as an interactive social activity while writing is widely perceived as a solo or private endeavor. Such a functional dichotomy did not apply to the “Sinographic Cosmopolis” in premodern East Asia, however. Based on selected documented examples of writing-mediated cross-border communication spanning over a thousand years from the Sui dynasty to the late Ming dynasty, this paper demonstrates that Hanzi 漢字, a morphographic, non-phonographic script, was commonly used by literati of classical Chinese or Literary Sinitic to engage in “silent conversation” as a substitute for speech. Except for a “drifting” record co-constructed by Korean maritime officials and Chinese “boat people,” all the other examples featured Chinese–Japanese interaction. While synchronous cross-border communication in written Chinese has been reported in scholarly works in East Asian studies (published more commonly in East Asian languages than in English or other Western languages), to our knowledge no attempt has been made to examine such writing-mediated interaction from a linguistic or discourse-pragmatic point of view. Writing-mediated interaction enacted through Sinitic brushtalk (漢文筆談) is compatible with transactional and interactional language functions as in speech. In premodern and early modern East Asia, it was most commonly conducted using brush, ink, and paper, but it could also take place using a pointed object and a flat surface covered with a fluid substance like sand, finger-drawing using water or tea on a table, and so forth. Such an interactional pattern appears to be unparalleled in other regional lingua francas written with a phonographic script such as Latin and Arabic. To facilitate research into the extent to which this interactional pattern is script-specific to morphographic sinograms, a “morphographic hypothesis” is proposed. The theoretical significance of writing-mediated interaction as a third or even fourth known modality of synchronous communication—after speech and (tactile) sign language—will be briefly discussed.

Competencies and their Role in Teaching Human Sciences: "The Didactics of History in Tunisia as a model": الكفايات ودورها في تدريس العلوم الإنسانيّة: تعلّميّة التّاريخ في البلاد التّونسيّة أنموذجا

The present study seeks to investigate a research topic that has long been contentious for curriculum designers and experts in education and didactics. It presents a concise depiction of the main reasons that lay behind the failure of traditional teaching paradigms. Accordingly, this study highlights the necessary resort to modernization following new international standards that may expunge the drawbacks of former teaching pedagogies. The methodological framework of the present paper is based on rigorous scientific methods: • A historical research method: It seeks the clarification of historical perspectives in relation to education in general and to pedagogy in Tunisia in particular. As such, it depicts a comparison that aims to justify the abandonment of current teaching styles and the adoption of contemporary teaching reforms. • A descriptive approach: It is meant to meet the specificities of the methodological design in order to define the profile of Tunisian educational reality. In this way, the clear chronological pattern opted for in this study helps readers to account for the modifications that have occurred in educational systems. As a result, this study highlights the following major findings: • Competency-based approach has a pivotal role in creating a dynamic atmosphere in teaching and learning, where learners are at the core of the learning process. • The transformation of the interactional classroom pattern from the teacher to the learners, to a more collaborative interactional pattern becomes a necessity. Therefore, this research argues for the necessity to definitively cease rote learning, and above all to accentuate on the profound restructuring of education mainly the establishment of sound foundation for the proper implementation and success of competency – based instruction in the short and long run.

Teaching and Learning Interactional Patterns in Speaking Subject at Several Higher Educational Institutions

This study seeks to find the models applied in interactional pattern of teaching and learning activities on speaking subject in both religious and non-religious universities. In this qualitative study, a realistic ethnographic approach was used. The researchers played a key role as the research instrument. The data are lecturers and students' speech fragments in learning and teaching speaking skills. The instruments were technically obtained through observation using video recording. The data sources are the lecturers and students’ spoken transcripts. The result of this study proved that teaching and learning interactional patterns on speaking subject at the religious based universities revealed that they are under the lecturers’ control. In religious universities, the lecturers speak more than students (TTT), whereas in non-religious universities students are given more speaking opportunities (STT). Interaction occurs when students construct their experience and knowledge with the received information. Lecturers at both universities were not able to facilitate students developing and expressing their ideas. Both religious and non-religious universities’ learning and teaching interactional patterns at the speaking subjects implemented towards constructivism. Through generative learning strategy, some elements reflect each step of the strategies, although at an early stage. It is necessary to develop varied learning models which engage students’ active participation. In addition, there should be an understanding towards the concept of classroom interactional competence.

AN ANALYSIS OF INTERACTIONAL PATTERN BETWEEN TEACHER AND STUDENT IN SMAN 1 CURUP KOTA

This study investigates the interaction pattern in SMAN 1 Curup Kota, based on Coulthard theory (2002). This study analyzed the interaction pattern and type of act used by teacher and students to see the ideal pattern in the classroom. The data analysis shows that (a) the dominant pattern used in the classroom is complete pattern (IRF) and there are also semi-complete pattern (IR) and incomplete pattern (IF); (b) In the type of acts section, the elicitation is the highest followed by informative and starter in the initiation move, reply as the highest act in the response move, and in the follow up accept as the highest followed by comment. It can be concluded that interaction pattern in the classroom is dominantly occured is ideal pattern but it’s not good interaction pattern because delimit student opportunity in the classroom.

AN ANALYSIS OF INTERACTIONAL PATTERN BETWEEN TEACHER AND STUDENT IN SMAN 1 CURUP KOTA

This study investigates the interaction pattern in SMAN 1 Curup Kota, based on Coulthard theory (2002). This study analyzed the interaction pattern and type of act used by teacher and students to see the ideal pattern in the classroom. The data analysis shows that (a) the dominant pattern used in the classroom is complete pattern (IRF) and there are also semi-complete pattern (IR) and incomplete pattern (IF); (b) In the type of acts section, the elicitation is the highest followed by informative and starter in the initiation move, reply as the highest act in the response move, and in the follow up accept as the highest followed by comment. It can be concluded that interaction pattern in the classroom is dominantly occured is ideal pattern but it’s not good interaction pattern because delimit student opportunity in the classroom