374 class 9 Classroom discourse Zoom 1

EDPROFST 374: Class 9

Language across the curriculum:Classroom discourse

A review of session 8 on the Grammar Gap: True/False

1. Task-based language teaching demands a focus on grammar.

2. The strong form of TBLT focuses on the task itself as being central

3. Explicit correction is the most effective form of error correction.

4. All tasks need to have both comprehensible input and modified output.

5. Accuracy in TBLT is best addressed before the task.

Today’s focus of learning

This session will build on your understanding of:

• discourse analysis

• key findings in classroom discourse

• useful classroom situations for a focus on discourse analysis

What is discourse analysis?

The analysis of language in particular contexts. The discourse can be spoken or written contexts (or perhaps visual).

South Africa stun New Zealand(Nigel Botherway writing in The Times )

"South Africa did world rugby a massive favour here in Wellington, proving that New Zealand can be beaten: that the previously invincible men in black are mere mortals after all.“

"The All Blacks are still a truly amazing team. At first they tore the Springboks apart, but then they fell apart, gifting their visitors two tries that were the equivalent of own goals.“

Discourse analysis in a written context

Paula: Well, I guess we’ll need a record of themeeting.Fay: Yeah, that would be really useful.Paula: It’s really important everything is in writingaround the issue.Fay: Mm.Paula: Since I’ll be chairing…Fay: Would you like me to do it this time?Paula: Well, if it isn’t too much...I mean if youcould.Fay: OK.Paula: That would be great.

Discourse analysis in a spoken context

Analyse the conversation

1. What was Paula’s request?2. How did she phrase her request? Did she use please?3. What phrases do Paula and Fay use to agree and acknowledge each other’s comments?5. How polite was Paula?6. How direct was Paula?7. How effective was Paula in making herrequest? Did she get what she wanted?

Conversation and questions adapted from Riddiford, N., & Newton, J. (2010).

In what situations is it useful to analyse classroom discourse?

Who is talking…who is not talking?What level of talk is occurring?What kinds of questions are students asking?Is the talk happening that you want to happen?What languages are being spoken?

Courtney Cazden (in conjunction with Marie Clay) published discourse analysis research in junior school classrooms in NZ. They found that teachers offered significantly more invitations to talk to Pakeha children than Maori children.

Cazden, C. B. (1988). Interactions between Maori children and pakeha teachers: Observations of an American visitor. Auckland, New Zealand: Auckland Reading Association.

Some of the key findings in classroom discourse over the last 40 years1. Teacher Talk

Many studies of classroom discourse over the last thirty years have found that generally teachers dominate the airtime available.

• Teachers seem to speak for at least 70% of the time. One of the first and most famous studies of classroom discourse was Coulthard and Sinclair’s (1975) study which showed that the 2/3 of teacher talk was instructional (e.g. ‘Get out your pen, sit quietly’ etc).

• The cognitive level of discussion is often low.

Some of the key findings in classroom discourse over the last 40 years2. The three-part sequence

Researchers have noted that the classroom pattern of talk seems to follow a three-part sequence with interruptions for long teacher monologues in between.

• IRE is the basic three-part sequence is teacher question, student response, teacher comment (Initiation/response/evaluation): often called the ‘lockstep’ method (Sinclair and Coulthard,1975).

• IRF (initiation/response/follow-up) can extend rather than close downdiscourse (Cazden).

Classroom discourse; the language of teaching and learning (Cazden)Ch 3: Traditional and non-traditional lessons

Traditional lessons use IRE or IRF – the default for most teachers The nature of teacher questions. The most pervasive criticism of the IRE/lRF lesson structure is that the teacher asks only "display" questions to which she/he already knows the answer. The questions are, in short, "inauthentic..Non-traditional lessons: Teachers still ask questions but student responses and subsequent teacher turns do not fit the old structure. It involves:• Accepting alternative student answers and asking for comparisons with supporting reasons.• The ratio of teacher talk to student talk is the reverse of most traditional lessons. There, typically

teachers talk about two-thirds of the time; here, Ts' turns are short and student answers are expanded.

• There is a dilemma of reconciling the goal of respecting children's thinking with the goal of helping them acquire "conventional'' knowledge and procedures

Conclusion: Teachers need to have a repertoire of lesson structures and teaching styles, and the understanding of when one or another will be most appropriate for an increasingly complex set of educational objectives.

Being the Teacher’: Identity and Classroom Conversation (Keith Richards)

• The IRF (Initiation/Response/Feedback) pattern is powerful as an instrument of pedagogic purpose and teacher control.

• Teacher decisions in the Follow-up move have the most significant impact on the subsequent development of talk.

• Sequences can develop into more equal dialogue if, in the follow-up move, the teacher avoids evaluation and instead requests justifications, connections or counterarguments and allows students to self-select in making their contributions.

• Transcripts of classroom talk are used to show an approach to classroom interaction that highlights the very important relationship between discourse features and aspects of personal and institutional identity.

Some of the key findings in classroom discourse over the last 40 years:3. Student participation

Delpit (1988) argues that those with the least amount of power are most aware of it and those with the most power are the least of it. So students who do the most talking are least aware of their power, and those who do the least, are possibly most aware of it.

Teacher led whole class discussions can lead to passivity in the class where the dominant third of the class interact with the teacher and the other two thirds are content to become invisible.

One teacher taped herself doing a whole class discussion using a 3 level guide and discovered when listening to the tape that a very quiet Asian student sitting close to the tape recorder was giving all the answers, but she had not noticed at all! Taping a teacher-fronted discussion can be very revealing.

What are some practical strategies for making whole class discussions involve more children – i.e. how can they be more manageable and engaging?

Some of the key findings in classroom discourse over the last 40 years:4. Wait time

How much time do teachers allow before expecting students to respond to questions?

What about wait time after a student has finished an utterance? (encouraging students to expand rather than produce one or two word answers)

Students need to be trained to give peers sufficient wait time

Wait time:

• gives students a chance to process what they have heard • formulate answers in their mind.

Wait time is particularly important for ELLS, who not only have to internalize what they’ve learned, they often have to process and produce new language to show their understanding as well- these students will need closer to 20-30 seconds, depending on their English proficiency level.

https://www.middleweb.com/37403/wait-time-can-make-or-break-your-lesson/

http://esolodyssey.learningwithlaurahj.org/2018/05/wait-time-for-ells-practical-strategies.html

Using wait time to support ELLS

In oral interactions teachers often:

• ask low-level, closed questions

• do not check understanding of the question

• use words and phrases that are difficult for ELLs to understand

• require immediate responses and give little thinking time

• do not encourage students exploratory talk

• manipulate discussion so that it follows a prepared line of thought – often guess what’s in the teacher’s mind

Jamboard activity: Using interactive tasks for extended output

Which interactive tasks do you find provide the most opportunities for students to have long stretches of talking?

https://jamboard.google.com/d/17z_RfuwP0sgDgw6mE68CvGFtnbv2ahcuzEZy-h_6rMg/edit?usp=sharing

‘Ask and Answer’ taskClass is in two groups A & B

• Group A are the experts. They are given a text to read and understand. They become the person being focused on or the expert in the topic.

• Group B are the interviewers. They are given a list of statements to form good questions.• Pairs are formed (A & B) and interviews take place.Follow up activities

• Interviews take place for the whole class (fluency)• Information from the interview is organised into a different form e.g. a pamphlet, poster or diagram

(information transfer)• A Kahoot quiz

The benefits of ask and answer:• Gives extended opportunities for interaction

• Places the students as experts• Gives valuable practice in forming good questions.• After the task, students can use the information in a follow-up writing activity.

Tasks that focus on oral

skills

• Listening round• Reading in four voices• 3,2,1 or doughnut• Say It• Ask and answer• Four corners• Role play cards• Barrier activities• Running/shouting/shared dictation• Information gap• Talking sticks

Oral language conditionsWhat are the key word in this definition?Producing positive oral language outcomes involves

more than simply pairing ELLs with native English speakers.

Careful consideration must be given to the design of the tasks that students engage in, the training of native speakers who interact with ELLs, and the language proficiency of the ELLs themselves.

If careful attention is not paid to these factors, “mixing” activities tend not to yield language learning opportunities at all.

Genesee, Lindholm-Leary, Saunders & Christian (2005)

Creating opportunities for a focus on discourse analysis in the classroom

How can we become more aware of our own discourse patterns as teachers?

How can we effectively monitor student discourse?

Reading summaries Increasing Academic Oral Language Development using English Language Learner Shadowing in Classrooms (Ivannia Soto-Hinman)• ELLs spend less than 2% of their school day in oral language development and much of

that is relegated to shallow one or two word responses.• In order for ELLs to become proficient in the basics of English, it is imperative that they

be given repeated and more complex opportunities to speak.• It is helpful to connect speaking to writing and listening to reading, as each of these two

pairs involve similar processes.• At all levels, the most basic yet powerful technique for academic oral language

development is a method called Think-Pair-Share.• One way to systemically create awareness around the importance of academic oral

language development, is to train teachers in ELL shadowing. Teachers monitor the academic language and listening opportunities of ELLs at five-minute intervals over a two-hour period of time (see observation form, p.22)

Researching classroom discourse (Steve Walsh)• The importance of teachers, as active reflective practitioners, becoming

researchers of their classroom practices• Interaction lies at the heart of all effective classroom practice and that

teachers should therefore focus at least some of their attention on an understanding of interactional processes.

• Teachers have a responsibility to accurately describe their classroom practices in order to ensure that their pedagogic goals are achieved.

• The author addresses the issues involved in recording and transcribing classroom data, including ethical considerations.

• Interaction analysis entails the use of observation instruments, or coding systems, to record what an observer sees or thinks is happening at any given moment.

Thinking spotIt is important to understand our own style of teaching. Tape yourself for ten minutes or invite someone in to observe.

• Look at your questioning: what sort of questioning do you use?

• Do you model where you are going to next?

• Do you explain things so that your students understand?

• Do you call on the same students all the time?

• How do you give feedback?

• How do you give attention to content/feedback on form?

Transcript example 1

What could be your interactional focus for this transcript?

Transcript example 2

What could be your interactional focus for this transcript?

Questions for discussion

• What aspects of your classroom talk are you interested in having feedback about?

• What aspects of your students’ talk are you most interested in monitoring?

Transcript conventions

T: – teacherL: – learner (not identified)L1: L2: etc. – identified learnerLL: – several learners at once or the whole class/ok/ok/ok/ – overlapping or simultaneous utterances by more than one learner

[do you understand?] – overlap between teacher and learner[I see]

= – turn continues, or one turn follows another without any pause (.) – pause of one second or less(4) – silence; length given in seconds((4)) – a stretch of unintelligible speech with the length given in seconds

(would) - When a word appears in parentheses, it indicates that the transcriber has guessed as to what was said, because it was indecipherable on the tape.If the transcriber was unable to guess as to what was said, nothingappears within the parentheses

Teacher talk Student talkReformulation: the repetition and expansion of children’s statements in various forms

Turn taking in small group discussions

Elicitation: questions and other statements that request dialogue, such as “Tell me more”

Peer scaffolding during pair/group work

Explicit language instruction: explicitly drawing student attention to language features (e.g.vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation)

Asking for an giving opinions (in student-student or student-teacher interactions)

Wait time: pausing after asking questions Peer reformulation

Questioning strategies: different techniques and strategies used to pose questions

Asking and answering questions (in student-student or student-teacher interactions)

Clarity of explanation and instructions Use of specific language functions (based on the focus of your activity)

Scaffolding strategies L1 use

Length, level and speech of teacher talk (how long you talk for at a stretch; the level of language you use; and how fast you talk)

Language errors (you could focus on erroneous language used by students/how they self-correct themselves/how others react to their errors)

Student use of new language features

Describe the interactional aspect you have chosen to focus on and the rational for this focus.

Explain what you were expecting to find (i.e what the literature says about this aspect).

Assignment 2: Feedback on task

Learning outcomes

Task Language functions Language structures Vocabulary

Content outcome

Languageoutcomes

Name of task:

Task description

Steps and conditions

What language functions are being practised?

What language structures are needed?

What are the key lexical and grammatical items?

A B C

1.

You see your friend picking up a bottle labelled sulfuric acid and about to drink the liquid. What would you say to your friend?

You tell your friend not all substances that contain acids are dangerous to eat or drink. Which foods containing acids would you tell your friend to eat or drink?

You want to explain to the person sitting next to you the difference between a concentrated acid and a dilute acid. What would you say to them?

2.

Your friend wants to clean their oven in the kitchen. They use toothpaste, but it does not remove the grease.What would you tell them about what they should use to clean their oven?

Your friend wants to clean the windows in their house. What type of cleaner would you recommend for them to use and why would you recommend this type of cleaner?

A student in the class wanted to test for the presence of an acid. He used Red Litmus paper. The litmus paper did not change colour.Explain why this was the wrong indicator paper to use.

3.

Your friend asks you why an oven cleaner they have just used feels soapy on their fingers.What would you say

You want to tell your friend about the advantages of using Universal indicator.Whatwould you say to her?

Your friend asks you why water is said to be a neutral solution.Whatwould you say?

Say It! (based on a science topic – Acids and Bases)

Task: Say It (acids and bases)

1. Modelling instructions - T models how task works (‘Say it’ is on screen)

2. Language awareness – T reads one out. Which part is the question?What words can you see repeated in most of the questions? What are theycalled? How can you use part of the question to begin the answer?

3. Production practice – Ss practise in pairs or small groups

4. Fluency practice – Whole class activity

5. Follow up – Group writing activity

Breakout rooms: Feedback on task for Assignment 2

Does the task provide the following:

Input: Are the steps of the task described well? Do they follow a logical sequence?

Conditions: Are there different interactional dimensions used?

Interaction: Are there opportunities for extended interaction

Language focus: Are there opportunities for a language focus e.g. consciousness raising/production practice activity

Outcomes: Is there a clear end product?

Homework for next week

• What is the interactional aspect you want to focus on? Why?

• What research links to your focus?

• Which transcript could you use?

Reading groups next week

A choice of texts:

Aitken, Villers & Gaffney (2018). Guided reading: Being mindful of the reading processing of new entrants in Aotearoa New Zealand primary schools.

Luxton, Fry & Coxhead (2017). Exploring the knowledge and development of academic English vocabulary of students in New Zealand secondary schools.

Reference ListCazden, C. (2001). Classroom discourse: The language of teaching and learning. Portsmouth: Heineman.

Cazden, C. B. (1990). Differential treatment in New Zealand: Reflections on research in minority education. Teaching & Teacher Education, 6(4), pp. 291-303.

Cazden, C. B. (1988). Interactions between Maori children and pakeha teachers: Observations of an American visitor. Auckland, New Zealand: Auckland Reading Association.

Edwards-Groves, C. (2014). Talk moves: A repertoire of practices for productive classroom dialogue (PETAA

Paper 195). Newtown, N.S.W.: Primary English Teaching Association Australia. PETAA.

Edwards-Groves, C., Anstey, N., & Bull, G. (2013). Classroom talk: Understanding dialogue, pedagogy and practice. Newtown, N.S.W.: Primary English Teaching Association Australia. PETAA.

Fairclough, N. (2010). Critical discourse analysis: The critical study of language. Harlow, England: Pearson Education.

Gee, J. P. (2012). Social linguistics and literacies: Ideology in discourses (4th ed.). Abingdon, New York, NY: Routledge.

Gee, J. P. (2011). How to do discourse analysis: A toolkit. Abingdon, New York, NY: Routledge.

Genesee , F., Lindholm-Leary , K., Saunders , W., & Christian, D. (2005) English language learners in U.S. schools: An overview of research findings. Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk,10(4), 363–385

Gibbons, P. (2015). Scaffolding language scaffolding learning: Teaching English language learners in mainstream classrooms. Porstmouth, England: Heinemann.

Mitchell. R. (2015). Speak easy: Engaging spoken-language activities for new learners of English. Christchurch, New Zealand: User Friendly Resources. MoE, (n. d.). Oral language resources.

http://esolonline.tki.org.nz/ESOL-Online/Planning-for-my-students-needs/Resources-for-planning/Classroom-resources-and-readings/Oral-language

Richards, K. (2003). Qualitative inquiry in TESOL. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

Richards, K. (2006). Being the teacher: Identity and classroom conversation. Applied Linguistics, 27(1), 51-77.

Walsh, S. (2013). Classroom discourse and teacher development. Edinburgh, Scotland: Edinburgh University Press.

Wells, G., & Mejia Arauz, R. (2006). Dialogue in the classroom. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 15(3), 379 –428.