Page 139 - Beyond Methods

Facilitating negotiated interaction 127 Project 5.1: Talk Management
5.1.0 The objective of this exploratory project is to help you make a self-assessment of talk management in your class. One way of doing that is by collecting, transcribing, analyzing, and interpreting certain selected episodes from your own teaching. Although all of us have a rough idea of what we do in class in terms of talk management, a de- tailed analysis of classroom discourse may offer some surprises from which we can learn and benefit.
5.1.1 Arrange to videotape (if that is not possible, at least audiotape) a lesson in which you anticipate a good deal of input and interactional modifications, a lesson in which there is a scope for information ex- change. You might ask a colleague to observe and videotape your class, promising to return the favor later.
5.1.2 Watch the video (or listen to the tape) and select a few episodes or segments of classroom discourse to transcribe for analysis. You do not need to transcribe the whole tape. Again, you may wish to seek your colleague’s help.
5.1.3 Do a quick discourse analysis of the episodes you selected. You will find yourself going back to the tape (and/or the transcribed version) several times, looking to analyze different items each time. To begin with, focus on instances of input modifications where you simplified your teacher-talk to make it comprehensible to your stu- dents. What features of simplification did you find—in pronunciation, grammatical structure, word meaning? What actually prompted you to decide to simplify (e.g., learners’ clarification questions, their facial expressions, etc.)? Note also instances where you did not simplify, de- liberately or otherwise.
5.1.4 Focus on the IRF (initiation-response-feedback) sequences. How many such sequences were there in the episodes you transcribed?
5.1.5 Select an episode with two or three IRF sequences to do a de- tailed analysis. It is quite possible that, for the teaching item(s) you are focused on in this episode, IRF sequences are well suited. Is that the case? If not, consider ways (such as changing question types) in which you can convert a closed IRF sequence into a more open-ended inter- active exchange.
5.1.6 Turn now to learner talk. In the segments that you transcribed, how many students actually participated? What was the average length of their responses (one word, a phrase, a sentence, etc.)? How many times did the students respond to your questions and how many times did they initiate a turn on their own?