EDUC2029 Week 12 Analysing talk in classrooms. Anticipatory set: Whats going wrong here? T: OK. Now in front of you, you have the animal that youve chosen.

EDUC2029 Week 12

Analysing talk in classrooms

Anticipatory set: What’s going wrong here?

T: OK. Now in front of you , you have the animal that you’ve chosen to write about. And so what will be the heading on the top of your concept map? Natalie?

N: Lamb?T: Now the lambs are the babies, so your is about a sheep. OK. And you’d be

talking about the fact that the lambs are baby animals of the sheep. That’s right. What will be at the top of your concept map Julie?

J: (Lamb?)T: Pardon?J: A lamb?T: That’s, that’s a goat love. Goat. You’ve chosen a goat. I think you’d better get a

picture that’s a bit bigger as well. So that you can see the rest of the goat. What are you going to have at the top of your concept map?

S: Horse.

Aims

• To provide general feedback on Assignment 2• To outline and exemplify the types of

interactive trouble• To explore a contrasting model to IRE

Outline of lecture

• Anticipatory set• Aims and outline• Assignment 2• Interactive trouble• Reading to learn: Learning to Read – how to

avoid interactive trouble?• Conclusion

Assignment 2

General Feedback

Positives

• Stronger introductions• Reference to readings guided

interpretations• Explanations – best referred to wider, socio-

political context• Structure after Fairclough • Clear and precise• Good grasp of grammar

Areas for improvement

• Conceptualising, e.g. students are given more power democratic classrooms, student-centred learning; focus on what students will learn outcomes based education

• Specificity (e.g. providing examples) and precision (in use of terminology)

• Understanding of grammar• Clarity of sentences• Paragraphing

Interactive Trouble

Types of interactive trouble

• Epistemological trouble• Organisational trouble• Reasoning trouble• Pedagogical difference• Relational trouble• Stylistic trouble

Epistemological trouble

• Epistemology: the nature of knowledge, truth• Epistemological trouble: the answerer does

not know the answer, sometimes because the what the questioner wants is not clear from the question or the evaluative feedback

• The most obvious form of ‘trouble’Cautionary tale: The colour of grass.

Epistemological trouble

T: OK. Now in front of you , you have the animal that you’ve chosen to write about. And so what will be the heading on the top of your concept map? Natalie?

N: Lamb?T: Now the lambs are the babies, so your is about a sheep. OK. And you’d be

talking about the fact that the lambs are baby animals of the sheep. That’s right. What will be at the top of your concept map Julie?

J: (Lamb?)T: Pardon?J: A lamb?T: That’s, that’s a goat love. Goat. You’ve chosen a goat. I think you’d better

get a picture that’s a bit bigger as well. So that you can see the rest of the goat. What are you going to have at the top of your concept map?

S: Horse.

Question: How could this have been ‘fixed’?

T: OK. Now in front of you , you have the animal that you’ve chosen to write about. And so what will be the heading on the top of your concept map? Natalie?

N: Lamb?T: Now the lambs are the babies, so your is about a sheep. OK. And you’d be

talking about the fact that the lambs are baby animals of the sheep. That’s right. What will be at the top of your concept map Julie?

J: (Lamb?)T: Pardon?J: A lamb?T: That’s, that’s a goat love. Goat. You’ve chosen a goat. I think you’d better

get a picture that’s a bit bigger as well. So that you can see the rest of the goat. What are you going to have at the top of your concept map?

S: Horse.

Organisational trouble

• Uncertain understandings (hearings) are produced by features of the turn-taking cycle, e.g. uncertain selection of the next speakers, or in other logistic features of the lesson (e.g. the need to write certain words on a board in a certain order)

Organisational trouble

T: Let’s go back to this page. All right, these pages tell you lots about animals. What were these animals?

Ss: Goats.T: Do you know what goats are used for on farms?S: Milking.T: Those with their hands up. No calling out this time.S: Milking?T: Yes, you can (…). Ann?A: For their, to shear them and get wool to make them

into a jumper?T: That’s right…

Reasoning trouble

• The reasoning practices used in the development of questions and answers differ from site to site, particularly out-of-school v in-school

Reasoning trouble

Maths lesson about measuring – teacher has read a story about levels in a bath rising. In groups, students have discussed: what happened with all the people in the story. Why it went up? And why it went down? And why it overflowed.

T: would someone like to share, not what they said, what their partner said? Katy? Who was your partner?

K: Robert.T: OK. Tell us what Robert said.K: Um, that he liked the bit when, when it went up and down and they

jumped in and out, in and out.T: Hmmmm. OK? Thank you. Did you think about why it went up and

down? That’s what we wanted to talk about. Why? Megan?M: I thought um, when they, when, um, when the, the man? Etc etc

Reasoning trouble

Maths lesson about measuring – teacher has read a story about levels in a bath rising. In groups, students have discussed: what happened with all the people in the story. Why it went up? And why it went down? And why it overflowed.

T: OK. Tell us what Robert said.K: Um, that he liked the bit when, when it went up and down and they

jumped in and out, in and out. [Student’s reasoning: This is a story, so I need to respond in a way appropriate for a story. We usually need to say what we liked about the story, what’s our favourite part.]

T: Hmmmm. OK? Thank you. Did you think about why it went up and down? That’s what we wanted to talk about. Why? Megan? [Teacher’s reasoning: WTF? That kid’s an idiot – she’s not reasoning like a mathematician at all. I’d better try someone else a bit more on the ball.]

M: I thought um, when they, when, um, when the, the man? Etc etc

Reasoning trouble

Maths lesson about measuring – teacher has read a story about levels in a bath rising. In groups, students have discussed: what happened with all the people in the story. Why it went up? And why it went down? And why it overflowed. [Teacher’s words]

Pedagogical difference

• An answer or offering is unacceptable because it draws upon a non-preferred theory of reading/writing/learning, e.g. whole language v phonics answers about how to recognise a word

Pedagogical difference

T: What does ‘pig’ start with?Ss: ((unison)) ‘p’.T: What sound does it start with?Ss: [p] [p]T: [p] and what letter says [p]?Ss: ((unison)) ‘p’

Relational trouble

• The speakers do not reciprocate the preferred relationships, displaying instead ‘unharmonic’ pace, pitch, loudness, proximity, eye contact, humour and so on, or uncertainties in the knowledge status of the teacher and student with respect to the topic at hand

• Playing the ‘guessing game’ – what does the teacher want now? How does she want us to behave?

Relational trouble

T: Let’s go back to this page. All right, these pages tell you lots about animals. What were these animals?

Ss: Goats. (Answer acceptable even though it’s called out)T: Do you know what goats are used for on farms?S: Milking. (Following the same ‘rules’ – but answer not

allowed)T: Those with their hands up. No calling out this time.S: Milking?T: Yes, you can (…). Ann?A: For their, to shear them and get wool to make them into a

jumper?T: That’s right…

Relational trouble

T: My cloud’s going to be a ma/ … a person cloud.S: GodS: BlowingT: Blo:owing – so that’s the wind.S: That’s God hiding in the cloud.S: It’s God.T: No, it’s not God hiding in the cloud, because I

didn’t say it was. I said “This is a cloud blowing”.

Stylistic trouble

• The teacher prefers certain forms of expression, such as word choice, with no explanation for the choice

• These ‘styles’ tend to be middle class• Bourdieu (1974): education is a process in

which ‘cultural gifts come to be systematically read as academic and intellectual gifts’

Stylistic trouble

T Can anyone think of something else that is very black? Toenails as black as? Can anyone think of something else? Very dark?

S: A cat?T: As black? Well are all cats black?Ss: No:oo.S: Midnight cat.T: Well? A midnight cat perhaps.S: Charcoal?

Stylistic trouble

Ss: As black as (…)T: Um I’m just going to stop because once again

some people aren’t doing the (right thing).S: as black as coal.T: Now I just heard some very good ideas there,

but because you didn’t put your hands up, we…

Stylistic trouble

Eventually:T: Vorisio?S: As black as a red-bellied black snake?T: A red-bellied snake?S: Oh, I know.T: All right, we might leave it there.S: A red-bellied black snake.T: As black as tar. Right? So we get the idea?

Interactive trouble

• Hits some kids harder than others - ‘disadvantaged’ students

• Is it a case of ‘fixing’ the students or the teacher?

• BTW: Question-Answer-Evaluation cycle (p319) = IRE

Reading to Learn: Learning to Read

A ‘democratic’ alternative to IRE?

IRE (Culican, 2006)

• Accounts for possibly 70% of teacher-student interaction• Routines like IRE ‘function as part of the invisible forms of control in

‘liberal progressive’ educational philosophies and pedagogies’• These pedagogies ‘engage and enable different learners unequally’• Often begins with a question which appears inclusive and

democratic – but ‘questions privilege those students already equipped to participate successfully in (conversations) around texts, further disadvantaging those that lack the knowledge and social capital…’ (p7)

So, is there something better? A study in contrasts.

Reading to Learn (Culican, 2006)

Scaffolding interaction cycle: ‘designed to engage learners and equip them equally with the knowledge resources needed to participate successfully in the literate discourses of schooling’

• Prepare (giving position and meaning cues for students to recognise wording): The first/next part of the sentence tells us..

• Identify (affirming and highlighting): Can you see the words that tell us..? That’s right. Let’s highlight…

• Elaborate (defining, explaining, discussing): That means…What do you think…?

Avoiding interactive trouble (Culikan, 2006)

‘Interactive trouble typically occurs where the teacher poses a question which fails to elicit an acceptable or correct response. Such question and answer routines often fail because they throw students back on their existing knowledge resources, rather than extending these resources or developing new ones. The theory and practice of the Scaffolding Interaction Cycle is designed to ensure that all students are equipped with the knowledge resources required to participate successfully in classroom discourses that take place around texts.’ (p7)

Example of PIE

Preparation (P)T: There was a long line of trenches all the way from Belgium through

Germany. But it starts off Dreams of early success evaporated as both the central powers (which is Germany) and the allies (which is France and Britain) dug in a long line extending through Belgium to France and finishing in the south of Germany. So it starts off by saying ‘people dreamed they could succeed quickly’. Can you see the words that mean ‘people dreamed they could succeed quickly’? Have a look there.

All [look]Identification (I)T: What’s the words that say that?St: Dreams of early successes

Example of PIE

AffirmationT: Very good, that’s great, Dreams of early

successes. Let’s all do (highlight) that.All [mark wordings]ElaborationT: So that means they were all dreaming, it was

just a dream. It’s like they were dreaming and their dreams just evaporated into thin air.

PIE in action

• DVD

Conclusion

Conclusion

• Questions• Forms of interactive trouble in ‘Greedy Cat’• Writing about ‘Greedy Cat’

References

Culican, S.J. (2006). Learning to Read:Reading to Learn: A Middle Years Literacy Intervention Research Project, Final Report 2003-4. Catholic Education Office Melbourne http://www.cecv.melb.catholic.edu.au/ Research and Seminar Papers. Retrieved 17 October 2009 from http://www.readingtolearn.com.au/#/articles/.

Freebody, P., Ludwig, C. and Gunn, S. (1995). Everyday literacy practices in and out of school in low socio-economic urban communities. Canberra: A project funded by the Commonwealth Department of Employment, Education and Training, as part of the National Equity Program for Schools, National Priorities, Literacy and Learning Component and administered by the Curriculum Corporation, Commonwealth of Australia.