Taking on a researcher's identity: Teacher learning in and through research participation

Linguistics and Education 16 (2005) 425–454

Taking on a researcher’s identity: Teacher learning inand through research participation

Elena Jurasaite-Harbison a,∗, Lesley A. Rex b,1

a University of Michigan, 1228 School of Education, University of Michigan,619 E. University Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1259, United States

b University of Michigan, 2014 School of Education, University of Michigan,619 E. University, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1259, United States

Abstract

In the wake of new educational initiatives for professional development, interest in how, when, and whatteachers learn is growing. Traditionally, most research into teacher learning has been located in pre-serviceand in-service interventions and in studies of classroom practice. Few studies investigate how teachers learnin informal settings, particularly as research participants. Through discourse analysis, this study presents ananalysis of one teacher’s informal dialogues with a researcher. It describes how, by drawing from differentsystems of knowing, she positions and identifies herself during retrospective reflection about her currentpractice and goals for the future. The study demonstrates that in this particular mode of interaction theteacher learned by taking on the identity of a researcher of her own practice. The findings reinforce theimportance of an ever-present question for research conducted with teachers: How do research relationshipsshape the identities teachers construct for themselves.© 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Teacher education; Teacher learning; Professional development; Informal learning; Discourse analysis; Pro-fessional identity

“Any researcher coming fresh into an environment has the potential for upsetting the localecology”.

Grant, Elbow, Ewens, Gamson, Kohli, Neumann, Olsen, and Reisman (1979, p. 465)

Interest in how, when and what teachers learn remains strong for researchers and teacher edu-cators. Research on the acquisition of professional knowledge ranges from delineating the contentof knowledge (see, for example, Shulman, 1987; Schwab, 1978; Tamir, 1988) to identifying the

∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 517 546 3613.E-mail addresses: [email protected] (E. Jurasaite-Harbison), [email protected] (L.A. Rex).

1 Tel.: +1 734 647 1988.

0898-5898/$ – see front matter © 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.linged.2006.05.004

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mechanisms and conditions of learning (see Carter, 1990; Leinhardt, 2001), to analyzing the waysin which knowledge is held and assessed (see, for example, Fenstermacher, 1994), to illuminatingthe processes of how professional knowledge develops in practice and informs it (see, Lieberman& McLaughlin, 1992; Pennell & Firestone, 1996; Rosebery & Warren, 1998; Thomas, Wineburg,Grossman, Myhre, & Woolworth, 1998). For the most part, these investigations of teacher learningfocus on or occur within pre-service and in-service events and everyday classroom practice.

However, little attention has been paid to informal teacher learning, especially within researchprojects in which teachers are the subjects of scholarly investigation. There are few cases inwhich teachers have a voice in expressing their learning from participation in inquiry (e.g., Rex,Murnen, & McEachen, 2002). Such research could tell other investigators, policy makers, teachereducators and teachers about teacher learning in ways otherwise not accessible.

Therefore, with this study, we focused attention on teacher learning in the process of dialoguingwith a researcher to understand whether teachers learn during research interactions, and if so, howthey are learning. We chose a teacher’s semi-structured interviews with a researcher as the unit ofanalysis. Our goal was to explore the teacher’s learning by investigating the relationship betweenher learning process and her sense of herself as a teaching professional. We assumed that newprofessional identities emerge discursively in different social situations because language is aconstitutive element in identity construction. Drawing on the work of Gee (2001) and Davies(n.d.), we used a specific kind of discourse analysis that allowed us to gain insights into theidentification processes involved in the interaction between the teacher and researcher. We wereconcerned about the effects on teachers of their participation in research, especially in ours. Weassume our concerns mirror those of other researchers who want to understand what occurs afterthey insert themselves into the professional lives of teachers. These and similar questions needattention because, while interaction between a researcher and a teacher can create new learningopportunities for both, traditionally researchers report on their experiences and findings, whileteachers usually remain silent.

From this study, we have been able to illuminate a teacher’s learning trajectory as she dis-cursively projects her professional identity, in the process of interacting with Elena. This viewencourages reconceptualizing the process of “doing” research with teachers as a context for teach-ers’ learning, and raises many more questions than it answers about the complexity of empiricaland ethical issues in the who-positions-whom dilemma of research interaction.

1. Theoretical framework and related research

1.1. Teachers as learners

Research relating to teachers as knowers and learners ranges from investigations of mainstreamlearning by ‘delivery models’ to defining teachers as lifelong learners (Connelly & Clandinin,1999; Conway, 2001; Duckworth, 1986; Fenstermacher, 1994; Fernandez, 2002, 1994; Korthagen,1988, 2001; Lampert, 1985, 2001; Leinhardt, 1988; Richardson & Fallona, 2001; Schon, 1987;Shulman, 1987; Stigler & Hiebert, 1999; Zeichner, 1998). Recent research on teacher learning ismoving distinctively toward conceptualizing teacher learning as growth (Clarke & Hollingsworth,2002; Day, 1999; Evans, 2002; Knight, 2002). Efforts to encourage this growth include “redesign-ing initial teacher preparation, rethinking professional development, and involving teachers inresearch, collaborative inquiry, and standard-setting in the profession” (Darling-Hammond, 1996,p. 6). Current policy efforts follow this trend. Policies aimed at transforming teaching are rootedin understanding that “regulations cannot transform schools; only teachers, in collaboration with

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parents and administrators, can do that” (Darling-Hammond, 1996, p. 6). Following this tendency,our study conceptualizes teacher learning as continuous development.

Most of the definitions of teacher development fall into two categories. Scholars either refer toteacher learning as a product of specific professional development forms and initiatives (Feiman-Nemser, 1983). Or, they consider teacher development as a process of professional growth (Clarke& Hollingsworth, 2002). The latter definition is more consistent with this study. Professionalgrowth involves teachers’ investigation of their practice and construction of their own theoriesof teaching “rather than others getting teachers to change” (Bell & Gilbert, 1994, p. 493). Thisapproach positions teachers as agents of learning who exercises freedom over what, how, andwhen to learn. This perspective calls for a closer look at the concept of development through thelens of a theory of learning that would conceptualize agency and choice and address how teacherscan be agents of their own learning.

Post-modern theories of learning, with their focus on contextuality and the situatedness oflearning (e.g., Lave & Wenger, 1991) and with their emphasis on the need to develop an under-standing of the complex ways in which individual learning occurs are useful for this perspective.They recognize the important role that idiosyncratic learning in everyday informal practice playsin continuous professional growth (Fullan & Stiegelbauer, 1991; Johnson, 1996). Professionalgrowth is viewed as ‘an orchestration’ of different kinds of knowledge that develops in and throughinteraction (Leont’ev, 1981/1974). If growth is orchestrated in a variety of informal contexts thatentail unique genres of interaction (Devitt, 2004), then the ways in which learning occurs differdepending on the kinds of interaction involved. Recent research into workgroups, often called‘communities of practice’ (Wenger, 1998), has illuminated social aspects of learning in the form ofskills, information, rules, expectations and dispositions that have an emergent property entailingboth explicit and implicit characteristics that are consistent with that workgroup.

Of more specific relevance to this study is Knight’s (2002) exploration of theories that empha-size situated informal qualities of learning as continuing professional development. His concep-tualization of learning—that it develops from multiple sources and in multiple contexts—pointsout the importance of both formal and informal learning. Seeing the need to find out how thesetwo types of learning interrelate, and filling in the void of theoretical perspectives on informallearning, he pays special attention to the relationship between a person’s tacit and explicit knowingthat develops within an individual (intuitive, conscious) and in a group (collective, cultural, objec-tified). Together with Leont’ev, he argues that “the ways in which learning occurs vary with thelevel of interaction involved” (p. 231). By adopting this alternative perspective on teacher learning,Knight illuminates the significance of informal learning through interaction within communitiesof practice. Knight’s construct allows us to formulate our hypothesis—that by engaging in thepractices of the research community, while interacting with a researcher involved in a researchproject, the teacher in this study learned another way to observe herself and her teaching. Recentwriting by Becher (1999) on this topic provides an additional rationale for the focus of this studyon the informal learning that a teacher experiences:

“Types of informal learning activity . . . are not generally recognized as acceptable modelsof professional development . . . in reality they play a significant part in the enhancement ofprofessional capacity [so that] to fail to acknowledge their significance is to considerablyunderrate the extent to which practitioners maintain the quality of their work” (Becher,1999, p. 205).

Together, Knight’s and Becher’s constructs of spontaneous informal teacher learning analyzea dimension of professional growth not usually accounted for. They do this by recognizing the

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importance of informal learning in general (Becher, 1999; Eraut, 2000) and teacher learning inparticular (Day, 1999; Helsby & Knight, 1997).

For this study, it is also important to differentiate between adult and juvenile learners. We defineinformal teacher learning in terms of andragogy (the art and science of teaching adults), in whichself-image, experiences, and readiness to learn differentiate it from pedagogy (the instructionof children) (Knowles, 1980, 1989; Terehoff, 2002; Wain, 1993). Adults tend to see themselvesless as full-time learners and more as “producers or doers” (Knowles, 1980, p. 45). For teachers’self-image as learners, that would mean exercising personal freedom to learn, choosing theirlearning, and interrelating learning and experience. Teachers as adult learners feel readiness tolearn or experience a teachable moment depending on their needs and interests at a particulardevelopmental stage. They are self-directed, autonomous, experience-based professionals whorealize their educational needs through challenging themselves with new ideas in a social setting.They become learners to improve their ability to solve professional and personal problems thatthey face at that moment.

In summary, for this study we are conceptualizing informal teacher learning as professionalgrowth, which is a spontaneous, contextual process that positions teachers as independent self-directed learners. It occurs in diverse environments, which are not traditionally recognized asspecific occasions of professional development. Consequently, among the considerable studiesof various aspects of teacher learning, only a few address how teachers learn in informal settingsin general (Connelly & Clandinin, 1999; Lampert, 2001; Olson & Craig, 2001), and in researchprojects in particular (Florio-Ruane, Raphael, Glazier, McVee, & Wallace, 1997; Glazier et al.,2000; Richardson & Ratzlaff, 2001).

We explore a teacher’s professional growth in an informal learning context from the perspectivethat teachers’ natural professional growth is “an inevitable and continuing process of learning”(Clarke & Hollingsworth, 2002, p. 948). Teachers are seen as active learners who shape thegrowth of their professional identity through critical reflective participation in practice (Schon,1983) and social interaction (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992; Vygotsky, 1978). It is possible to graspthis development through reflection, which, in turn, is enhanced through dialogue (Richardson &Placier, 2001). Therefore, close analysis of a teacher’s dialogues (i.e., interviews) with a researchercould provide insights into how the teacher positions or identifies herself during retrospectivereflection on her current practice and of her future goals.

1.2. Identity formation in a social context

This study views a teacher’s professional identity as being shaped by social and structuralrelations that exist both within and beyond the social context of researcher–teacher relationship.We borrow this perspective for studying identity formation from Habermas (1993) who refers to itas “communicative action”. According to Habermas, we can only know ourselves and recognizeothers when we have come to terms with, and reflected upon, our structural “embeddedness”in formal and informal structures. Consequentially, the ‘embedded “subject is one who commu-nicates, negotiates and acts upon difference in relation to and in response to meaningful socialinteractions with others. The social position of the “embedded subject” is situated “intersubjec-tively” in social and dialectical relation to others. Therefore, in this study, we explore how theimmediate context (a research project), as well as other contexts that the teacher and the researcheremploy, interact in shaping the teacher’s identity.

In addition, of importance here is an “intersubjective” theory of identity formation that origi-nated in the Frankfurt School, which assumes that individuals always have multiple and competing

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identities that are grounded in social circumstances and are reflected upon through social media-tion. Thus, the meaning once ascribed to one’s identity formation is never fixed or pre-determined.It arises out of the relation between those who interpret and ascribe meaning to action, languageand everyday practices in varied social contexts and circumstances. For example, the teacher inthis study tells autobiographical stories to illustrate her experience of becoming a teacher andher professional growth. She shapes these stories so that they show how her multiple identitiescontribute to the process of becoming a better teacher.

Identity theorists argue that we experience constant pressure “to examine and re-examineour identities against the flux of unstable representations around us” (Howarth, 2002, p. 145).Consequently, definitions of identity are inherently unstable, and different aspects of identityintertwine and redefine each other. Since social environments constantly change, a dialec-tical approach to researching identity in a social context is necessary to take into consid-eration how environments shape identity and how identity embodies certain environments.This on-going process of negotiation with self and environment brings instability and fluidityinto the process of identity-construction. Hence, we follow Dillabough (1999) who observesthat the concept of identity embraces both the post-modern notion of the authentic, discur-sive, embedded, collective self, and the critical modernist conception of the self as reflectiveagent. Any overarching theory of identity formation must consider the relationship betweenthe two (Ibid.).

Davies’ (n.d.) approach to the investigation of practice in relation to the development of sub-jectivity is key to this study. Invoking category maintenance as a construct and analytic tool,Davies illuminates the border work people engage in through face-to-face interaction in socialsituations. She demonstrates the fluidity of the subject positions assumed within such border workand she shows how moving from one categorical subject position to another can be disruptivewhile also allowing for new attitudes, emotions, forms of embodiment and understandings tocome to the fore. Davies theorizes the relationships among culture/structure, language/discourse,and subject/embodiment. This allowed us to consider the forces at work in our study as the teacherassumed researcher subjectivity. Davies hypothesizes that the subject positions an individual takesup interactively are always circumscribed and potentially liberated by discourses invoked in thesocial situation. She also illuminates subjectification as the processes through which a self isformed. As she puts it, “The subject is both dominated and shaped and, at the same time, andthrough the same practices, actively takes up the possibilities of the self that are available inrecognized/recognizable discourses and practices” (Davies, n.d., p. 10).

Professional identity has been a focus of research on the relationship between subjectivity andcertain institutional contexts of practice (Ashore & Jussim, 1997; Britzman, 1992; Deaux, 1993;Foucault, 1988; Gleason, 1983; Stryker, 1987). In this study, professional identity is defined, in thefollowing terms, as “the result of an interaction between the personal experiences of teachers andthe social, cultural, and institutional environment in which they function on a daily basis” (Van denBerg, 2002). However, we chose not to consider the complexity of this relationship (for a widerperspective see, e.g., Connelly & Clandinin, 1999; Dillabough, 1999; Franzak, 2002; Nelson,2002; Van den Berg, 2002). We narrowed our investigation to how a process of professionalidentity formation reveals itself in teacher–researcher dialogue.

1.3. Examination of situated language use

We ground this study in a perspective on language as a social practice that we draw from Bakhtin(1981). The form of each speaker’s discourse, or language-in-use, in a dialogue is unique. Each

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utterance articulates a specific point of view on the world based on personal vision, meaningsand values. At the same time, a reciprocal relationship exists between a user and a context:the social context constrains the language user and, simultaneously, the language user createsand influences the context. Therefore, language-in-use reveals how participants in an interactionposition themselves in a situation. In this study, our focus is on the ways in which language-in-usereflects how the teacher and the researcher construct their identities.

The process of identification within a social situation has an intentional character (Bakhtin,1981). We posit that the teacher in this study intentionally pursued particular purposes by iden-tifying herself in one way or another in our interaction. Intentionality, according to Bakhtin, is“realized in specific directions, filled with specific content, . . . permeated with concrete valuejudgments” (p. 289); it connects with specific objects, points of view and belief systems. Bakhtin(1981) points out that “the word in language is half someone else’s. It becomes “one’s own” onlywhen the speaker populates it with his own intention” (p. 293). In this study, the analysis of thelanguage used in the dialogic interaction explicates not only the learning process through theteachers’ positioning in the inquiry. It also illuminates the teacher’s tacit intentions.

We chose Gee’s (2001) approach to examin how language-in-use both shapes and reflectsinterlocutors’ identity because it was well-suited to the discursive analysis of the identity con-struction processes in the teacher–researcher interaction. We applied Gee’s (2001) heuristic forexamining six areas of inquiry in which individuals discursively build socially situated identities(semiotic building, world building, activity building, socioculturally situated identity and rela-tionship building, political building, and connection building). Each of the six analyses yieldeda dimension of the teacher–researcher interaction within the situation. Situation and situationnetworks are fundamental to Gee’s approach. The teacher–researcher interaction in this studywas embedded in a situation network in which language served particular interrelated functions.The interview constituted a situation in which both the teacher and researcher were able to speakpurposefully, building their relationship and, at the same time, constructing different identities.These functions were related to other situations in which the teacher and researcher were invested.Following Gee (2001), we hold, that “all of the elements in the situation network are like con-nected threads; if you pull on one you get all the others” (p. 84). For that reason, we approachedthe data analysis by focusing on one of the heuristics—socioculturally situated identity and rela-tionship building, allowing the other categories to unfold in axial relationship to that centralfocus.

In conclusion, by focusing on teacher learning in informal (research) contexts, this studyembraces the idea of professional learning as growth in which the learner’s agency articulated inthe language of interaction is a critical factor. Rather than comparing how the teacher’s experienceas a research participant differed from her professional training and her prior altering experiences(which could be a theme for another study), we chose to focus on how the teacher shaped her iden-tity (and brought in prior experiences) in the specific research environment. The fluid complexityof the teacher’s identity-construction during the interview, involving multiple subjectivities, con-texts, and relationships with self and others, reflects and was propelled by her intention to developprofessionally.

Though it is difficult to separate multiple identities, created in and by different contexts,for analytical purposes, this study focuses only on one aspect of identity—on how specificteacher–researcher interactions revealed the teacher’s assumption of researcher subjectivities asshe formed her understanding of the transformation of her “core” teacher identity (Gee uses theterm “core identity” to refer to “whatever continuous and relatively ‘fixed’ sense of self underliesour contextually shifting multiple identities”, 2001, p. 39).

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2. Methods

We bracketed out the teacher’s past experiences, significant others, salient discourses, groupmemberships and other factors that may have influenced her self-positioning. Instead, we tightenedour analytical focus to the ways the teacher, through her own discourse, constituted her identitywith the researcher during the informal interviews. Our objective was to examine how, in movingfrom one categorical subject position to another, the teacher assumed new attitudes, emotions, andunderstandings (Davies, n.d.). We wanted to understand how, as she talked to the researcher, theteacher appropriated a researcher identity and discourse as she reflected on her teaching practicewith the researcher.

3. The context of the study

The original research project from which this data is taken was a pilot project to lay thegroundwork for an ethnographic study, including videotaping and interviewing, and to considerthe relationship between reflection and a teacher’s practice. However, the study took an unexpectedturn when, in the process of data analysis, the authors came across a comment by the teacher thatinstigated a set of different research questions. Toward the end of data collection, the teacherconcluded that her participation had been a profound professional development experience. Inher last interview (afternoon, May 24), the teacher, Dalia (all the names used here are pseudonyms),reflected as follows:

. . . when I used to do that, I did not contemplate that I was doing it. Now your coming justshowed me that difference: here is the beginning, and here is the end. At the beginning, Ithought that way, at the end this way. Maybe, I had been doing that, but I never thought thatit was some reflection process, a contemplation of the day. I was just thinking, just planning.Now, that it is verbalized . . .

Thus, Dalia’s reflection raised the question for us of why and how these unintentional contem-plative outcomes of the research project had been possible.

The study was conducted in the elementary department of a school in Lithuania in 2002–2003.Dalia was an elementary teacher with 21 years of experience who had just begun a new 4-year“loop” with her first grade students, meaning she would accompany them through fourth grade,as was the standard procedure in Lithuania. Elena had developed a friendly working relationshipwith Dalia beginning in 1996 (that year Dalia had started to participate in an International ChildDevelopment Project which Elena was coordinating in Lithuania until August, 1999). ThoughDalia and Elena had not seen each other for 3 years and had no professional relationship of any kindat that time, Elena asked Dalia to take part in this study because she (Elena) anticipated that sincethey knew each other, this would allow them to save time and develop trust. Over 3 weeks, Elenaconducted eight semi-structured morning interviews (before class) and eight afternoon interviews(after class) with Dalia. Interviews were guided by a set of questions that Elena introduced to Daliabefore the interview process (see Appendix A). Each interview lasted approximately 30 minutes.At the beginning of each interview, the researcher and the teacher would discuss the questionsthat would guide their conversation. In addition, on the days of the interviews, Dalia’s classeswere video-recorded and she was asked to write an essay the following year (May 2003) in whichfor seven pages she reflected on her experience in the research project.

To explore how Dalia learned by assuming particular subject positions during the interviews, weanalyzed five of the eight interviews. We selected a morning and an afternoon interview conducted

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at the beginning of the study as well as a morning, and two afternoon interviews conducted duringthe last days of the study to trace possible patterns of identification. In addition, we analyzedDalia’s essay.

4. Interview analysis

The interview analysis had four dimensions. First, we determined how active, and possiblyinfluential, Elena had been as an interactant during her interviews with Dalia. We determined thatan examination of an interactant’s identity representation should take into account the role anddiscursive actions of the other interactant (Briggs, 1986; Freebody, 2003). Second, we analyzedthe five interviews chronologically to observe patterns and evolve descriptive themes. Elena, fluentin Lithuanian and English, had first transcribed the interviews verbatim into Lithuanian. Third, toperform a lexical and prosodic analysis of selected pieces in Lithuanian, Elena applied Gumperzand Berenz’ (1993) notation system (see Appendix B). Sound landscape analysis provided a meansof testing the lexical analysis of core identity by illuminating how the co-locutors’ intonation andvoice pitch delineated ideas that were important for them. After that, Elena translated the excerptsinto English, maintaining the original syntactical structure when possible, and transferred notationcorrespondingly.

We mediated possible translation effects during analysis by referring to both Lithuanian andEnglish excerpts simultaneously. Thus, in both Lithuanian and English texts, we examined theteacher’s word choice and syntactical structures as well as rhythm, intonation, phrase—internalsigns (loudness, syllable lengthening), and nonverbal phenomena (pauses, overlaps and overlaysof the lexical stretch). Fourth, we looked for lexical patterns, which revealed a certain core identitythat the teacher was taking on. We looked across all of the interviews for vocabulary that the teacherused in developing certain themes that resonated with Gee’s (2001) six heuristics: We focused onthe ways in which Dalia did the following:

• narrated her values and beliefs,• assumed an inquiry stance in approaching teaching problems,• connected situation networks,• presented herself as an experimental person, open to exploration of new ways of teaching,• used research-based inquiry processes to examine practice,• positioned herself as a researcher,• performed border work,• came to a new understanding and identity.

Finally, our microanalysis of selected excerpts, using a CA approach, revealed some of theways in which the teacher used language to express these themes. The excerpts included theteacher’s critical reflections on her teaching biography and practice; experimentations with ideasand discussions with colleagues and the researcher; observations of her students and questionsabout them and their learning; and development and testing of hypotheses. From analyses of theseselected segments, a pattern consistent with the themes generated from analyzing all the interviewdata emerged. In the following section, after identifying the ways in which the teacher became thedominant participant in the interviews, we present the themes emerging in her research-relateddiscourse, we consider aspects of her reflective thinking, and we trace the construction of herdifferent subjectivities.

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5. Results

5.1. Establishing the roles of interviewer and interviewee

To understand how Elena positioned herself as a researcher with Dalia, we analyzed turn tak-ing to determine her involvement and Dalia’s responses. We observed a particular pattern in theratio of verbal turns (such as questions and statements) to back channeling turns (such as emm,aha). A continued reduction and steady increase in back channeling occurred in Elena’s verbalparticipation (see Appendix B, Charts 1–3). Toward the end of the study, Dalia started initiatingtheir conversations. The nature of her turns evolved from simply answering the researcher’s ques-tions during beginning interviews to making complex connections in later ones. She increasinglyreferred to events in the far and near past (connections in time). She told autobiographical stories,drew on the events from her classroom teaching, and shared psychological sketches of her students(connections between themes). She also illustrated her points with specific examples, made gener-alizations, raised questions, identified problems in her teaching, and connected them to problemsthat she used to discuss with her colleagues (connections between and within themes). Thus,Elena’s role gradually turned into that of active listener who provided the teacher with feedbackthrough back channeling, while Dalia assumed responsibility for directing the course and contentof the conversation. This finding is consistent with Elena’s assumptions about interviewing. Shebelieved that she should gradually withdraw from an active lexical interchange, and create a com-fortable and adequate space for the teacher to express herself. The change in amount and type ofDalia’s and Elena’s utterances led us to assume that the topics introduced in the teacher’s accountwere less likely to be determined by the topics introduced by the interviewer, and more likely tobe a reflection of Dalia’s intentions and of the subjectivities that she assumed in the interaction.

5.2. The teacher reshaped her identity

In this section, we demonstrate how Dalia reassessed her relationship to her teaching and, indoing so, exposed another identity—researcher of her practice. We illustrate how Dalia displayed“genre knowledge” (Berkenkotter & Huckin, 1995) specific to research discourse as she relatedhow much she had learned from participating in the study. She used research-based inquiry pro-cesses, which involved reflexive metaprocessing of her own practice, and she assumed an inquirystance in approaching her teaching problems, which we also describe below. These processes andstance included conceptualizing the problem and collecting data for making decisions; evolvinghypotheses for solving her teaching problems; viewing problems in a wider social context; andshaping and validating her newly developed understanding with more knowledgeable others. Theteacher presented herself as open to inquiry into and exploration of new ways of teaching.

5.3. Dalia narrated her values and beliefs

The teacher expressed her view of the world (Gee, 2001) through narratives. In the five inter-views, Dalia told stories about her personal life trajectory (entering higher education, getting ajob at the school, organizing her daughter’s wedding party) and about her professional life (anincident in the gym, “Three boys during the break”, and her encounter with her daughter’s teacherwhen she was leading a workshop). Two stories about her professional life are discussed below.Each of these stories illuminated her values, beliefs, and dispositions and served as a basis forprofessional decisions she made in particular situations. Her reflexivity as well as her values areobservable in an excerpt from her story about three boys misbehaving during the break. Reflecting

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on her reaction when the boys did not keep their word, she said:

I think that it [not keeping their word] comes from the family. If that had been my parents’understanding, I would have been brought up this way, and that [value] would have beentransmitted to me. Later also, I found myself in another family, my husband’s family, wherethe same worldview [as my original home] was valued. It seems, that I cannot think or actdifferently. So of course, it is very upsetting to me, when somebody does not keep his orher word.

As this excerpt illustrates, Dalia threaded reflections on her reaction to the classroom situationwith family values (both the students’ and her own), addressing her system of values as the sourcefor her decision-making in the classroom.

Another example demonstrates Dalia’s sensitivity to her own and others’ values as well asher social relationships and the responsibilities and respect she believed they required. Daliarelated her encounter with her daughter’s teacher, when Dalia herself was teaching a workshopfor elementary teachers. She discovered that her daughter’s teacher, who had been her “icon-teacher”, and from whom she had learned a great deal at the beginning of her career (“Yes, Idrew a lot from her”), was her student in the workshop. Dalia indicated what specifically shehad learned from her daughter’s teacher. She pointed out that this teacher had a unique means ofcommunication with her students and their parents (“She didn’t need to discipline them. That wasnot important for her. For her, it was important to communicate with children”). As if summarizinga moral lesson, later Dalia said, “Teaching is all about communication”.

Within one episode, Dalia assumed different subject positions. She spoke as teacher, mother,student, and teacher trainer, and as she told her story, she moved back and forth across the borderof each identity, as she gave voice to her values and beliefs. She also conveyed her valuing ofhonesty, integrity, and communication in her work as a teacher. Her personal narratives framedher values and beliefs and described new understandings that had developed through particularevents or conversations. These stories communicated important revelations, to herself and to theresearcher (cf., Rex et al., 2002). In other stories, which she told about her teaching practice, Daliaalso assumed a variety of positions and values and provided evidence of the identity categoriesshe drew on during border work.

5.4. Taking on an inquiry stance in approaching teaching problems

Dalia took on an inquiry stance in that she often formulated a problem through the languageof research, and positioned the problem within a wider social context.

Excerpt 1 illustrates how Dalia approached a problem related to her teaching by researchingit. In this excerpt from an interview, she thought aloud about ways of finding out which parentswere not responding to their children’s letters.

As we see, Dalia was considering the fact that some parents were not making their contributionto supporting their children’s learning: they were not writing weekly responses in their children’snotebooks (“Letter writing brought up these thoughts”, line 1); she posed a question (what **hap-pened//*why do they not respond to their children//”, line 2): she came up with several hypothesesin an attempt to account for this problem (“they think that it’s not *necessary, or children do not*give them”, line 3); she foresaw possible consequences of not solving this problem (lines 4–6);finally, she found a way to get a better understanding of the patterns that she had noticed by doingresearch (lines 12–13). Without any direct teaching of research process, Dalia verbalized the logicof her inquiry approach to that problem.

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Excerpt 1. May 24, afternoon: researching her teaching.

5.5. Connecting situation networks

Excerpt 2 illustrates how Dalia placed these daily problems within larger social contexts. Shegrounded her perception of her students and her teaching problems within the changes that hadtaken place in Lithuanian society over the previous decade (line 14).

Dalia noticed a difference in her students, as compared to the class in the previous loop ofher teaching, in the way they expressed their opinion (lines 18–16). Reflecting on this differencebetween the cohorts, she admitted that parents were also different (lines 22–23). Looking forthe factors behind this change, she referred to the last 4 years of political and social changein Lithuania (line 14). Aware that the researcher was familiar with the dramatic shift from atotalitarian system to the emergence of democratic values and structures, she pondered how thechanges in the society related to changes in the students. Dalia appropriated and altered Elena’sinterrogative phrasing, “a lot of new questions came up” (line 6) to energetically emphasize herresponse with the phrase: “a lot!” She also reconstructed the meaning by linking “questions”to “methods”—a researcher’s move. From the questions arising from new social circumstances,she derived methods for teaching, which she tested and evaluated, learning that only half of themworked. Now children and parents acted differently. They talked and expressed their own opinions,which called for different methods for engaging and interacting as well as for instruction.

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Throughout the interviews, Dalia made many explicit connections with situation networks, andwith the wider social and political changes, as well as parents, colleagues, and students. Theseconnections were integral to the inquiry process she followed in order to address problems in herteaching.

Excerpt 2. May 9, morning: looking at the social context.

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Excerpt 2. (Continued ).

5.6. Dalia presented herself as an experimental person, open to exploration of new ways ofteaching

Thinking like a researcher and using researchers’ terminology on another occasion, Daliaaligned herself with Elena and concluded that in these conversations both she and Elena “gavebirth to a great many different theories” (Excerpt 3, lines 1–2).

Having engaged in thinking “theoretically”, Dalia was not put off by the lack of “realanswers” for teaching dilemmas. She continued to be open, curious about how the world worked(line 2 and 6), taking on a researcher’s identity to look for answers and pose new questions.Dalia’s experimental disposition was manifested again and again throughout the interviews, asshe explored her teaching and learning, and developed a better understanding of herself as ateacher. In Excerpt 4, she reflected on the crucial change that had happened in her pedagogicalcareer when she decided to join the International Child Development Project, which requiredlearning to teach in a different (child-centered) way. Dalia reflected on the way she had made thedecision. Having observed two of her colleagues who had gone through the training and imple-mentation of the new methodology (lines 2–3), she understood how hard it was for them to workin a different way (line 4) and yet chose to join them.

Even though she found more points against than in favor of joining the International Project(lines 5–7), the key factor in her decision to take part had been the novelty (lines 20–22). Sherepeated “that was new” several times with a different intonation (lines 20 and 22). She did notexpress interest in learning. At first, she talked rather loudly in an accelerating manner, as if re-constructing her feeling of confidence. In the phrase, “and that’s it” (line 21), she modeled aloudthe way she thought when making a decision. When she said the phrase the second time (line 22),Dalia’s tone was much softer. She said it as if she assigned a special value to the fact that it wasnew. Further on, she admitted, that new was not scary for her any more (line 26), though it was“pretty scary” (line 31) to consciously enter the process of change.

When answering Elena’s question about when she started feeling confident about teachingin a new way, Dalia’s reflection at that moment elicited a new understanding. Only by teaching

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Excerpt 3. May 23, afternoon: more questions.

what she had learned to other teachers had she become aware of what she had learned and howmuch she had changed her pedagogical orientation. At that point, she began to feel confident asan enactor of the new methodology.

The researcher’s timely question (“When did that happen?” line 43) prompted a continuationof Dalia’s narrative. Through her extended narration, Dalia relived the subject positions of fearof change and of confidence from success. During her movement from the first emotional state tothe second, she explicitly uttered a view of change as not frightening. This reconstruction creditsthe role of Dalia’s International Project experience in building her willingness to participate inthe research study. Moreover, the confidence generated through this positive experience may haveinfluenced her attitude toward the interactions with the researcher, and therefore toward taking upa researcher’s perspective.

5.7. Dalia used research-based inquiry processes to examine practice

Reflexivity, a subjective state well known to the social researcher, was one Dalia readilyassumed during the interview as she pondered about her teaching. She extensively thought aloudabout her recent practice, to give voice to her latest understandings while also critiquing and editingthem. In the next excerpt (Excerpt 5) from one of the last afternoon interviews, Dalia contemplatedone of the paradoxes of the teaching profession: why teachers (and people in general) know whatis the right thing to do, but do not do that. Dalia’s halting speech illustrates her experimentationwith talking about reflection as well as “trying it on” to gain better understanding of this newsubjective state. Dalia had been telling Elena about the problem of teaching classroom rules toher first graders. Some students learned to follow the rules quickly; others seemed to intentionallyignore them.

Dalia’s hesitant utterances reflect the challenging complexity of the concept she is workingto articulate. The conversation moves unevenly, slower in some parts: with shorter (lines 1, 6,14 and 23) and longer pauses (lines 23 and 26), lengthened words (line 24), speeding up inothers (lines 1, 4, 25). Her prominent accent of key words such as “thesis”, “life”, “occupation”,and “paradox” emphasizes their important role in the concept she is forming. Elena opens thediscussion cautiously (6), and Dalia latches on to the subject right away (lines 6 and 8). Atthe beginning of her turn, she underlines the significance of the problem, saying that one could

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write a thesis about it, a word rarely heard in Dalia’s elementary school. In one of the fewinstances throughout the interviews, Dalia directly appropriated one of Elena’s words, “paradox”,and fit it into her researcher’s vocabulary. Her reflective vocabulary throughout this and otherinterviews is conceptual and abstract as Dalia thinks aloud about ideas that she has not yetfully formed.

Excerpt 4. May 10, afternoon: new is not scary.

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Excerpt 4. (Continued).

Also visible in the interaction is the teacher and researcher’s invocation of a discourse wellknown to educators and laypersons worldwide. Together they reinforce the meaning of what Gee(2001) would label a big “D” Discourse to signify it as a cultural narrative. The two concur thatin education as in life, it is one thing to know in theory what one should do, and quite another toenact it effectively.

5.8. Dalia positioned herself as a researcher

In Dalia’s informal conversations about her practice with Elena, she told stories using dis-courses of research that appropriated a core identity—that of a researcher—with the dispositions,values, beliefs, and practices associated with research. These narratives reflected different identi-ties and interlaced Discourses and object lessons. Starting with the first morning interview, Daliapositioned herself as an investigator while she co-authored the work she was undertaking withthe researcher, as is visible in Excerpt 6:

Before emphatically (with high pitch and accelerated speech) declaring that teaching wasresearch (lines 23 and 24), Dalia described what she meant, drawing from her own practice andpositioning herself as a researcher. She assumed a researcher’s dispositions: framing her own

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problem about which to inquire (lines 17–19); realizing it as an intellectual problem (line 20) aswell as an issue of methods (line 9); considering how to progress procedurally (lines 20–21); and,collaborating with colleagues by sharing her findings (lines 28–30).

The emotional aspects of this subject position are evident. She showed that she was unafraidof the unknown in teaching and enjoyed being in a profession full of uncertainty (line 2) withits “interesting” features. She enjoyed the “unlimited” freedom of choosing methods to dealwith teaching problems. Referring to the freedom she experienced as “unlimited”, suggests astrong positive sense of agency to act intentionally in her professional role. The confidence andpower she felt is visible in her belief that she could share her understanding of this inquirydisposition and research process with her colleagues, so they could improve their teaching (lines28–29).

Willingness to share knowledge with colleagues and successful outcomes appear to be metricson Dalia’s confidence barometer. Dalia’s enthusiasm for sharing her research into her practicewith her colleagues is reminiscent of her confidence after the International Project when she begansharing that methodology with them.

Excerpt 5. May 23, afternoon: researchers’ language.

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Excerpt 5. (Continued).

5.9. Dalia performed border work

How that confidence evolved in this situation became visible in her identity border work. InExcerpt 7, at a later point in the same interview as she was giving an account of her pedagog-ical biography, Dalia drew attention to moments in learning to teach that she had remembered.

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She depicted herself as a learner, whose major learning experiences had occurred during herteaching.

Dalia emphasized that she was learning on her own (line 2) and from herself (line 6). Elenaattempted to highlight another possible source of her learning—from colleagues—by cautiouslyextending what she said (line 8). Dalia confidently and stridently repeated the researcher’s wordswithout any hesitation (lines 8–10), appropriating the idea of learning from colleagues. In herlearning, the teacher relied on her intuition (“I worked, as it seemed *right for me”, line 16). Sincethe researcher had not directly queried Dalia about this subject, Dalia’s assumption of this topicand her manner of addressing it is telling. Dalia had become interested in the sources of her ownlearning and in connecting her experiences of learning to teach in her current circumstances.

In assuming this subjectivity, Dalia was doing border work, working within and across theboundaries of her various professional identities—for example, a participant of the InternationalProject, a graduate of a colleague, a teacher in the new Lithuanian state, and a research subject.She was doing so discursively through an intellectual exchange with the researcher and she hadappropriated the discursive practices used by the researcher. Her willingness to do so derivedfrom their common experience with the International Project, from Dalia’s enthusiastic embraceof the Project’s methodology, from the increase in confidence she had experienced, and from herapparent solidarity with Elena.

5.10. A new understanding and identity

Later in the same interview, Dalia realized that going through the process of verbalizing andreflecting on her experience enabled her to construct a new understanding of her practice. In thislast excerpt, she summed up the personal journey that the research project had initiated (Excerpt8).

Excerpt 6. May 10, morning: a researcher’s identity.

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Excerpt 6. (Continued).

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Excerpt 7. May 23, afternoon: the teacher as a learner.

Dalia described the revelation she experienced: she had never before reflected on her wayof becoming a teacher or on its implications. She drew a distinction between her previous stateof mind in which she lacked reflexivity (lines 1–2), and her current experience (lines 6–7). Inthe emotional intensity of the moment, she struggled to come up with a comparison for therevelation (line 11). In this excerpt, Dalia used vocabulary to describe the reflective process shehad undergone (“thought, contemplated”, line 12), pronouncing them with special emphasis. Thismoment of realization was at once a powerful reflective breakthrough and, at the same time, asource of understanding about the power of reflection. Through the meta-cognitive process inwhich Dalia had engaged with Elena, she had come to an understanding of her own identity asa teacher. She had done so by assuming the role of researcher of her own practice, And, at thismoment she had a new understanding of what she had accomplished in becoming a teacher andas a researcher of her teaching during this reflective process.

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5.11. Follow-up

An essay written a year later is testimony that a brief encounter in a research project can havelasting effects. In the essay, Dalia summarized her reflections on the learning experience in thisproject and on learning to teach in general. In describing learning to teach, she used the metaphorof a route, a way (“kelias”, in Lithuanian, close to the meaning of Dao). She saw her careeras a continuous way of becoming, drawing a parallel with life (She said, “Teaching should becomprehended like we comprehend the route of life”). Since joining the International Project,she said, she not only grew as a professional but also developed as a person. Her “professionalactivity took several routes: a teacher, a lecturer, a researcher, an aid, a consultant, and a student”(Dalia’s essay, p. 4). Each of them was an invaluable opportunity for learning. Being a teacher shelearned from her colleagues; helping them, she discovered something that she had not realizedbefore; as a lecturer she learned from her audience and tested whether her own route was correct;as a consultant she observed and evaluated other teachers and shared with her colleagues storiesof outstanding practices. Concluding the essay, she repeated, “A teacher is a researcher. Every

Excerpt 8. May 23, afternoon: new understanding.

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day brings new experiences, which require contemplation, investigation and decision-making”(Dalia’s essay, p. 7).

6. Summary and conclusions

Within this series of interactions with a researcher this teacher put into language her ways ofthinking about her practice, she created a view of her work that positioned it in relation to herpractice as well as to the interlocutor. This exploration confirms the value of examining the way,in which teachers talk about change in their practice. It also confirms our assumption that eachinteractional position was also a form of subjectivity, an expression of personhood, a way of beingfrom which the participant viewed herself as a teacher and reexamined her practice. In addition, thecontext of the interaction, in this case interviews with the researcher, also shaped the subjectivitiesthe teacher produced. The features of the roles and relationships between the two interactantsinfluenced the teacher’s descriptions of her practice and the subjective sites she occupied asshe related them. Repetitions of the same subject position eventually created for the speaker asense of new selfhood or identity. We conclude that this process of interaction intensified theteacher’s self-awareness and that, in turn, this self-awareness of her role and conduct as a teachercomplemented, and became one of the ways she involved herself in professional development.During such informal occasions of professional development, the teacher’s self-awareness becamesubjective sites within which her professional practice could improve.

These results encourage us to take up a particular perspective from the study’s original con-ceptual frame. This framework is productive for analyzing the development of teacher–researcherrelationships, for investigating teacher learning through identity construction, and for understand-ing how language-in-use shapes and expresses these processes. It links three key constructs: (1)Teacher learning in informal settings as an orchestration of different understandings developed inand through interaction; (2) Identity as a socially mediated construction; and (3) (Self) position-ing as discursively accomplished and contextually situated. This conceptual triad—knowledgeorchestration, social mediation of identity, and contextualized self positioning—provides a spe-cific means for gathering evidence of intentionality, investigating informal learning, rethinkingvalidity issues in qualitative research, ethical complications for research participants, and consid-ering research as a means of professional development.

6.1. Considering intentionality

The relationship of trust developed between the interlocutors, the teacher’s successful historyin the International Project, and the research design of the semi-structured interviews served asa powerful situation network for the teacher to exhibit her intentionality. Through microanalysisof the teacher’s self-reporting language-in-use, we were able to observe her value judgments, thespecific direction of her thinking, and its content. Because, in Bakhtin’s words, one’s languageis half someone else’s, it was possible for Dalia to use the language of research to reflect onher practice. Also, Dalia’s declaration that she now realized the difference between her currentpractice and what she had been doing as resulting from reflection on her practice and her richexpression of what that meant provides further evidence of her intentionality. She intentionallypositioned herself as a researcher because she realized that through the framework of research shecould reflect on her practice as never before. In her later essay, we observe the longevity of thatintentionality when she wrote, “A teacher is a researcher”. As Bakhtin states, the word becomesone’s own only when the speaker populates it with his own intention.

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6.2. Implications for informal learning

Through the triadic perspective we adopted on the teacher–researcher discourse, we coulddemonstrate how Dalia used research-based inquiry processes to examine her professional routeand practice. We were also able to illustrate that she took on an inquiry stance in approaching herteaching problems, and that she presented herself as an experimental person, open to explorationof new ways of teaching. This approach was fruitful as a means of illustrating that the teacher’sprofessional growth was a spontaneous, contextual process in which she positioned herself asan independent self-directed learner. It also demonstrated how she employed retrospective andprospective reflection (Conway, 2001) to help her contemplate the quality and sources of herprofessional learning. The results of this study illustrate the kinds of learning that can occur forteachers in informal settings, those not specifically intended for professional development.

In his study of contextualization and social identities among undergraduate engineering stu-dents, O’Connor (2001) observed the drawbacks to our understanding of learning when analysts’attention is limited to “official” participation and does not include “unofficial” spaces. He ana-lyzed a situated learning context with prescriptive aims by critically examining processes oflinguistic contextualization, and called for a shift of focus from activity to identity to analyzelearning contexts. His study demonstrates the value of observing learning as a process throughwhich individuals enter into identity projects as situated social constructions. O’Connor arguedthat “understanding practice in terms of improved participation privileges a perspective on activitythat is imposed by researchers and designers” (p. 305). Of more use is a focus on how partici-pants learn, build, and make use of social relations and identities that are crucial to their chosenprofession. Our study of a teacher’s identity negotiation within an informal space for which noprescriptive structures were planned or executed confirms O’Connor’s claims. This study of Daliaaffirms the benefits to be gained from taking account of the participants’ perspective.

6.3. Implications for research

While this study demonstrates and confirms the usefulness of the triadic framework we proposefor analyzing intentionality, positioning, and professional learning within situated interactionalcontexts, it raises a number of questions. Not the least of these questions is the issue of howinteractions between research participants and researchers opportunely shape or constrain theparticipants’ identities and understandings. In this case, Dalia intentionally made use of the inter-actions to re-examine her practice. She brought forward the language of research from her situationnetworks to assume researcher subjectivities. We are not aware of other studies that formallyinclude an analysis and report of the influence of the discourse of research on participants. Thereare, however, studies of the effects of the researcher–researched relationship and research pro-cesses. Lather and Smithie’s (1997) work with women with HIV and AIDS is a powerful exampleof such effects (for more examples of such work using discourse analysis, see also Cameron,Frazer, Harvey, Rampton, & Richardson, 1992; Haviland, 2004). Lather and Smithies describenot only the influence of their research on their participants, but also how the relationship with thewomen influenced them and shaped the research. Such keen awareness of the interactively influen-tial nature of the researcher–participant relationship, especially in circumstances such as existed inour study, with its complicated history of multiple roles and relationships, raises validity issues.To not be aware of the potential influence of the one’s research methodology on participant’sevolving views of themselves can lead to invisible, yet powerful breaches in the trustworthinessof the results.

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6.4. Implications for participants

Our study confirms our hypothesis at the beginning of this research—that teachers who engagein a committed manner, in qualitative research that asks them to construct reflective narratives, arechanged by it. The theoretical orientation, language, and methods through which the research iscommunicated positions teachers to view their practice in particular ways. The teacher narrativesthat emerge from these viewings in dialogue with the researcher reflect positive and negative valu-ations (cf., Briggs, 1986). How the dialogue proceeds shapes teachers’ narratives and subsequentrepresentations of their practice and acknowledgement by researchers. This is clearly an ethicalissue.

These shapings of identity and understandings have serious implications for teachers. Whatidentity is co-constructed during these engagements? What understandings of their own practice?What ways of viewing and judging their professional competence and effectiveness? Though, inthis situation, the interviewer gradually withdrew and allowed the teacher to assume a dominantposition in the interaction and thus to provide a fuller narrative account of her learning, whatmight happen in cases in which the interviewer’s language is continuously present in framing thediscourse?

6.5. Research as informal professional development

The conundrum of understanding and reporting interactional effects during data collection isnot easily resolved. To report researcher and participant profiles and how they may influencethe research is already an expectation held by many reviewers of qualitative projects. How-ever, as this study illustrates, influences occur during informal interactions between researchersand researched. Reviewers of research need to go further in understanding those influences. Inaddition, this study suggests that the shaping of participant professional identities and relatedpractices by research is an opportunity for professional development. We suggest that it wouldbe helpful to take a lesson from this experience with regard to all qualitative research as adefault form of professional development. As researchers designing our studies, we could con-sider how, through research-based interactions with practitioners, we shape their learning andprofessional knowledge and identity, and how, in turn, we affect the practices in sites we areinvestigating.

Appendix A. Interview protocol

A.1. Introductory questions

What events throughout your career have inspired your professional change? What life eventshave inspired your professional change?

How did you become a teacher? (Prompts: How could you describe your beliefs about theprofession while studying teaching? What has changed since then? In what way and why?)

How do you get ready for your workday? (What kind of thoughts and feelings you experience?How do you do lesson planning? What is the most important for you in that process? Why?)

Teachers do not finish working after they close the classroom door and go home. Do you agreewith this statement? (Why do you think that this statement is correct? What happens when youare not with your students? Do you continue thinking and talking about your work? If yes, withwhom do you talk? Do your colleagues share with you their professional experiences? Why do

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you think they do that? How do you learn from experience? When do you begin reflecting on yourexperiences? Do you keep a journal? How do you think such reflection effects your teaching?Can you when did you start engaging in reflection?)

Teachers’ work is very complex and hard. What supports you in doing it? (What role doesexperience play in your professional life? What role models and examples do you follow if any?What subject (unit, topic) does you like teaching the most? Why? What is the most important foryou in your teaching? How often do you encounter uncomfortable situations at work? What areyour solutions based upon? Do you think you are ready to resolve such situations any time? Ifyes, why do you think so?)

Why did you agree to participate in this study? (What do you expect to learn? What outcomesof the study do you expect?)

A.2. Questions before classes

How did you spend the rest of the day yesterday? (What made an impression for you yesterday:talking with your family, a movie, a melody, an event, etc.? Why?)

What are your plans for today? (What are you main goals, expectations? What do you thinkyour students are going to learn today?)

What thought did you have after your workday yesterday? (Was there anything that youexpected to happen but never did?)

A.3. Questions after classes

Could you tell me about your day today?What did you teach and what have you learned yourself?What was the most important experience of the day?How do you feel at the end of the day? Why?What went as planned? Where there any unexpected events or experiences?What were you thinking at those moments when you had to make a change in your plans in

lesson flow or teaching methods?What did you mean when you said ..?What were the main resources you used today? Why?

Appendix B

Transcription symbols [from Gumperz & Berenz, 1993]

/ Slight final fall indicating temporary closure (e.g., more can be said on the topic)// Final fall? Final rise, Slight rise as in listening intonation- Truncation (e.g., what ti- what time is it/).. Pauses of less than .5 s. . . Pauses greater than .5 s (unless precisely timed)<2> Precise units of time (=2 s pause)= Stacked equal signs show overlapping of speech:: Lengthened segments (e.g., wha::t)∼ Fluctuating intonation over one word

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* Accent; normal prominence** Extra prominence{[]} Nonlexical phenomena, both vocal and nonvocal, that overlay the lexical stretch( ) Unintelligible speechdi(d) A good guess at an unclear segment[ac] Acceleration in speed of speech[dc] Deceleration in speed of speech[lo] Low intonation[hi] High intonation[f] Loudly spoken[ff] Much louder[p] Softly spoken[PP] Very softly

Appendix C

The trajectory of the researcher’s verbal and back channeling turns.See Figs. C.1–C.3.

Fig. C.1. Ratio of the researcher’s and the teacher’s verbal turn vs. back channeling across all interviews.

Fig. C.2. Ratio of verbal and back channeling turns in morning interviews.

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Fig. C.3. Ratio of verbal and back channeling turns in afternoon interviews.

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