Page 63 - Beyond Methods

Maximizing learning opportunities 51
tional data. Before we proceed, a note about the way the transcrip- tion of classroom data is presented in this book: First, the meaning of a conversational turn. I use the term turn throughout to refer to a single, unitary contribution to classroom talk by a teacher or a stu- dent or a group of students raising their voice in chorus, irrespective of the length of the linguistic unit (a conversational filler, a word, a clause, a sentence, etc.) and irrespective of the discoursal functions (question, statement, evaluation, etc.). For instance, Episode 1 given below has thirty turns (serially numbered).
Second, for the purpose of simplicity, I use the following broad transcription convention, which does not show features like into- nation, pause time, etc.:
T
S
S1, S2 . . . SS
SSS
x
xx
xxx
Uh, mmm . . .
Teacher
Student (unidentified)
Student (identified, by number) Unidentified subgroup of class
Whole class
Incomprehensible, probably one word Incomprehensible, probably one phrase Incomprehensible, more than a phrase Conversation fillers
Pause
Now to the interactional data. I mentioned earlier that teaching ac- tivity that has the potential to lead to the creation and utilization of learning opportunities depends largely on learner involvement and teacher questioning. Consider the following episode from an inter- mediate level ESL Speaking class. The teacher was trying to gather from students controversial topics, some of which she wanted to take up for further discussion. After collecting a couple of topics from students, she introduced one of her own: euthanasia, or mercy killing. Notice that when a student asked for the meaning of the word (turn 10), the teacher did not immediately give a definition. Instead, she asked other students to volunteer.