Responsiveness to Students’ Mathematical Thinking in Middle-Grades Classrooms

Responsiveness to students’ mathematical thinking is a characteristic of classroom discourse that reflects the extent to which students’ mathematical ideas are present, attended to, and taken up as the basis for instruction. Using the Mathematically Responsive Interaction (MRI) Framework and data from 11 middle-grades classrooms, we illustrate varied enactments of responsiveness and describe fluctuations in and relationships among different components of responsiveness. We found positive associations between different components of responsiveness, but they were not entirely predictive of one another. Individual classrooms appeared more or less responsive depending on which component was foregrounded. Our findings offer a more comprehensive characterization of responsiveness that documents the intertwined nature of teacher moves and student contributions during all whole-class instruction.

Changes in the Classroom Discourse: Negative Politeness and Impoliteness

The paper focuses on changes identified in the classroom discourse in terms of the teacher–student relations. While traditional classroom relations relied on teacher’s authority and control in the classroom, the current situation indicates a shift in the power relations existing in the class. The paper aims to analyse some of these changes by studying politeness and ways of expressing negative politeness and impoliteness. It starts by defining politeness as conflict-free communication, and then moves to negative politeness and impoliteness, applying these two concepts in the interpretation of the classroom discourse. The data used for the analysis were collected during English and history classes in a high school in Romania. The paper draws on Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson’s (1987 [1978]) concept of negative politeness and on Derek Bousfield’s (2008) impoliteness theory. The data reveal that the most common negative politeness strategies in the classroom discourse use indirect speech acts, questions and hedges, minimizing the imposition and impersonalizing. I argue that while teachers use mainly politeness strategies, students use impoliteness strategies as a way of claiming power. Thus, they can be disruptive and show lack of interest; they interrupt or take the floor at a wrong time; they sometimes dismiss, contest, or refuse the teacher’s indications and often challenge the teacher’s authority; at times, they are also rude towards their own peers in trying to demonstrate their superiority.

Tellers, Makers, and Holders of Stories: A Micro-Analytic Understanding of Students’ Identity Work in Drama-based Adult ESL Classrooms

Despite a wide-spread pedagogical interest and scholarly conviction in the possibilities of educational drama for creating more contextually-situated, engaging, and multi-modal L2 learning experiences (Piazzoli, 2018; Stinson & Winston, 2011), there is scarce empirical evidence concerning what is actually taking place interactionally in L2 classrooms for adults. This article presents a bottom-up microanalysis of classroom interaction in an ESL class in Canada with over 16 adult learners designed to explore the potential and actual impact of educational drama on classroom discourse and students’ L2 learning experiences. Using a discourse analytic approach (Antaki & Widdicombe, 1998; Goffman, 1981), I analyze the dynamic identity work of the class participants. The article presents empirically-grounded research findings that illustrate instances of interaction in and through which drama-based ESL pedagogy contributes to the development of dialogic and democratic classroom discourse and fosters a transformative empowering interpersonal space (Cummins, 2011).

Turn-taking in EFL Classroom Discourse

In this essay, there will be a contrast and comparison between the teacherdominant turn-taking patterns and students-centered turn-taking patterns. This comparison can help us to find out which pattern can help develop an effective turn-taking in classroom discourse. In terms of the turn-taking pattern in EFL classroom, there also will be a study of turn-taking patterns. This study is concentrated on the EFL students who study in foreign language classroom. Different turn-taking patterns will be recorded to analyze students’ language performance and language anxiety during the turns change process. Brown (2008) proposes that senior foreign language learners tend to be influenced by the low sense of confidence, the feel of shame and inferiority. However, evidence shows that many students with higher level of language proficiency also are silent in the foreign language classroom. They seldom take turns to make a contribution to the speech in the classroom. This essay shows great interests in the relationship between EFL learners’ language anxiety and turn-taking patterns. Particularly, this essay will explore the several turn-taking patterns which can help to foster the flow of classroom talk. These turn-taking patterns will be analyzed in two directions: the teacher-fronted turns exchange and students-centered exchange. This can help EFL teachers to adjust the turn-taking patterns to the classroom teaching to help students get more involvements in the classroom conversation.

Interactions during teacher-fronted class time of English classes in a Chinese university

<p>This research employs an ethnographic approach to examine teacher-student interaction during teacher-fronted classroom time in classrooms for English majors in a Chinese university. It involves two teachers and their respective classes. The data was collected through classroom observing, audio- and video-taping, oral report, interviewing and stimulated reflection across a two and a half month period. The data is analyzed qualitatively, using Nvivo as the main research tool and grounded theory as the approach. Informed by Vygotsky's (1978) sociocultural theory which puts talk at the core of successful teaching and learning, the analysis presented explores the patterns of interaction established in the two classes and learning opportunities embedded in them through the way the teachers interacted with their students. Erickson's (1982) constructs: academic and social participation structures, were adopted as the main frames for analyzing the data since these allow the integration of pedagogical and interactional aspects of teacher-student interaction. Analysis of the academic participation structures in the two classes revealed a traditional textbook-directed, teacher-controlled transmission mode of teaching with the focus on rote learning, vocabulary, mechanical practice, recalling from memory and knowledge rather than on language skill, meaningful interaction, understanding and method. Students were afforded fewer opportunities to participate meaningfully in classroom interaction. The teachers controlled not only the topics of academic learning but the way to learn the content. Analysis of the social participation structures showed that the teacher-student interaction was dominated by the teacher-initiated monologic IRF sequence with the I move mainly used to initiate known-information questions and the F move used to both evaluate and carry on with more instruction. The data shows how the heavy reliance on the strict IRF constrained the students' opportunities to participate in classroom discourse and to develop cognitively and linguistically. At a more general level, reliance on the IRF also shaped and constrained the students' epistemologies and learning styles. However, the picture that emerged was not all bleak. Both teachers allowed for variations to the ways the students participated, allowing the students some choice over when and how to participate. In spite of a relaxed participatory control, student initiations still rarely occurred. Consistent with the holistic nature of qualitative research, the current research also investigated contextual issues which shaped the teacher-student interaction. A range of issues were identified which largely arose from the teachers' view of language and language learning and their lack of professional development. The students were also found responsible for the interactive environment: they shared a lot of their teachers' view of language and language learning, and their cultures of learning, limited language resources and anxiety also contributed to their passive speech role, thus allowing their teachers to play a dominant role in classroom discourse unchallenged. Based on the analysis, a range of pedagogical implications have been suggested addressing academic and social participation structures and professional development of the teachers and contextual issues. The thesis concludes by proposing directions for future research.</p>

Interactions during teacher-fronted class time of English classes in a Chinese university

<p>This research employs an ethnographic approach to examine teacher-student interaction during teacher-fronted classroom time in classrooms for English majors in a Chinese university. It involves two teachers and their respective classes. The data was collected through classroom observing, audio- and video-taping, oral report, interviewing and stimulated reflection across a two and a half month period. The data is analyzed qualitatively, using Nvivo as the main research tool and grounded theory as the approach. Informed by Vygotsky's (1978) sociocultural theory which puts talk at the core of successful teaching and learning, the analysis presented explores the patterns of interaction established in the two classes and learning opportunities embedded in them through the way the teachers interacted with their students. Erickson's (1982) constructs: academic and social participation structures, were adopted as the main frames for analyzing the data since these allow the integration of pedagogical and interactional aspects of teacher-student interaction. Analysis of the academic participation structures in the two classes revealed a traditional textbook-directed, teacher-controlled transmission mode of teaching with the focus on rote learning, vocabulary, mechanical practice, recalling from memory and knowledge rather than on language skill, meaningful interaction, understanding and method. Students were afforded fewer opportunities to participate meaningfully in classroom interaction. The teachers controlled not only the topics of academic learning but the way to learn the content. Analysis of the social participation structures showed that the teacher-student interaction was dominated by the teacher-initiated monologic IRF sequence with the I move mainly used to initiate known-information questions and the F move used to both evaluate and carry on with more instruction. The data shows how the heavy reliance on the strict IRF constrained the students' opportunities to participate in classroom discourse and to develop cognitively and linguistically. At a more general level, reliance on the IRF also shaped and constrained the students' epistemologies and learning styles. However, the picture that emerged was not all bleak. Both teachers allowed for variations to the ways the students participated, allowing the students some choice over when and how to participate. In spite of a relaxed participatory control, student initiations still rarely occurred. Consistent with the holistic nature of qualitative research, the current research also investigated contextual issues which shaped the teacher-student interaction. A range of issues were identified which largely arose from the teachers' view of language and language learning and their lack of professional development. The students were also found responsible for the interactive environment: they shared a lot of their teachers' view of language and language learning, and their cultures of learning, limited language resources and anxiety also contributed to their passive speech role, thus allowing their teachers to play a dominant role in classroom discourse unchallenged. Based on the analysis, a range of pedagogical implications have been suggested addressing academic and social participation structures and professional development of the teachers and contextual issues. The thesis concludes by proposing directions for future research.</p>

A Case Study on the Pattern of Classroom Discourse in Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language

Based on the IRF (initiation, response, and feedback) classroom discourse structure model proposed by Sinclair and Coulthard, this research analyzes and studies the actual corpus of Chinese classroom teaching in Thailand, focusing on the structural model of teacher-student communication discourse, mainly from two aspects of teachers’ feedback. On the one hand, it investigates whether IRF is fully applicable to Chinese classroom teaching and whether there are special situations to it. On the other hand, it attempts to summarize the discourse structure model of Chinese classroom teaching and explores the application of the research results in helping Chinese teachers improve their teaching quality in hope that constructive suggestions can be proposed for teaching Chinese as a foreign language.

Classroom Discourse and Teachers’ Experience: A Cognitive View

In this article, we intend to investigate the role of experience in EFL teachers’ discourse using a cognitive taxonomy. In this line, we are going to examine whether there any significant differences between novice and inexperienced groups of teacher in their discourse with regard to a cognitive taxonomy. The selected sample comprises twenty-seven English teachers engaged in EFL classes. Totally, six categories of cognitive processes were introduced. The categories are from the most concrete to the most abstract: (1) knowledge; (2) comprehension; (3) application; (4) analysis; (5) synthesis; and (6) evaluation. According to the results, it was revealed that experienced teachers used more action verbs in all the categories of this taxonomy (428 action verbs out of 805), whereas novice teachers (teachers which has less than 4 years of experience) used 377 action verbs. It can be concluded that experienced teachers teach in more fruitful and meaningful way. Novice teachers can learn and construct meaning from their experiences when they are actively engaged in authentic activity that will help them to learn to think and act in a community of practice.