The purpose of this study was to investigate similarities and differences in the classroom discourse of male and female ESL teachers in the academic stream of one Western Australian tertiary institutions ELICOS program. Language and gender research generally suggests that males and females have different and quite distinctive communicative styles. This study attempts to examine if this finding is also manifested in male and female teachers discourse in adult ESL classrooms in the three main aspects of classroom interaction; giving explicit instructions, asking questions and providing verbal feedback, using Sinclair & Coulthards (1975) IRF framework. A sample of six teachers, three males and three females were observed through a process of non-participant observation and their lessons video-recorded in the naturalistic situation of the classroom in order to make a comparative analysis of their discourse.Teacher discourse in the three aspects of classroom interaction, namely, instructions, questioning and feedback, was examined with the purpose of exploring gender differences and similarities so that the reasons and implications for the manifestation of such similarities and differences can be further investigated. Conclusions were then made about the influence of traditional masculine and feminine speech styles on the discourse choices of the teachers.The discourse analysis found that more similarities than differences existed in the teachers classroom discourse supporting the notion that the choice of discourse features is dependent firstly on the context and secondly on the role of the interactants vis-à-vis each other in the community of practice. Although some differences emerged, the teachers in this study generally adopted a facilitative, cooperative speech style in their classroom discourse.

This study investigated pedagogy for Taiwanese students in mainstream Australian secondary school classes. The aim was to explore the construction of pedagogy for these students within the communicative contingencies of both the classroom and the community of talk around the classroom. Accordingly, the study documented and explicated the ways in which teachers adapted geography lessons for Taiwanese students, and further, the fit of teachers' descriptions and explanations of those adaptations within broader school community debate over provision for ethnic minority students. The significance of the study resides in its contribution to educational research, policy and practice in conditions of cultural diversity and formal cultural inclusion. The study's contributions arise from its attention to the forms of teacher-student interaction that are often considered to be a major point of difference between pedagogy in Australia (and other Western nations) and in Chinese (and other Asian) contexts. The focus is on the degree of teacher-directedness or student-centredness, as demonstrated by such factors as rote learning and participation in whole class spoken activities. Review of the current literature indicated that such dispositions may not only be brought to Australian pedagogic contexts by Chinese students, but may also be constructed within these contexts themselves. Analysis of theoretical perspectives on culture and pedagogy that were of high profile in Australia during the 1990s indicated that the investigation of this possibility requires an approach that makes it possible to attend to the structuring of such contexts. Accordingly, this study was conducted from a perspective that made it possible to document and explicate the construction of socialising conditions within the communicative particularities of lessons for Taiwanese students as pedagogic practice enacted in classrooms, and of debate amongst those interested in the education of the students as pedagogic talk within a school community. The theoretical framework of the study drew primarily on Basil Bernstein's sociology of educational knowledge. This perspective provided the fundamental concepts for describing the categorisation of Taiwanese students in the teacher-student interaction of the classroom and in school community talk about such. Analytic concepts developed by researchers concerned with classroom talk were specified in Bernsteinian terms to facilitate the translation between these theoretical objects and the sets of lesson and interview data examined in the study. These concepts made it possible to describe the pedagogic activities of teachers and students, and their constituent social actions, as enacted in the lessons, and as constructed in the interview talk of school community members. The two data sets were produced and analysed by methods derived from the Bernsteinian perspective. The aim was to: i) test the generic and formal Bernsteinian sociology of educational knowledge; and ii) produce findings generalisable to culturally diverse Australian school settings. One of the main findings of the study was that the adaptation of geography lessons for Taiwanese, Chinese, Asian and other ESL students produced a more constrained and teacher-directed form of pedagogy than that which was provided for other students. The other main finding was that the geography teachers described and explained these adaptations by categorising the students as 'reluctant' in whole class spoken activities and 'dependent' in written seatwork activities. Other school community members interested in the education of Taiwanese students evinced substantial agreement in this regard. However, these interviewees constructed the 'reluctant' speech and 'dependent' seatwork of the students from complex collaborative and competitive positions available in professional-academic talk. This pointed to struggles amongst those who would inform the provision of pedagogy for Taiwanese and other Chinese, Asian and ESL students. The study's theoretical significance resides, in part, in its capacity to describe the moment-by-moment classroom interaction of Taiwanese students without pre-empting the empirical salience of categories of cultural identity. Rather, attention is focused on the ways that students are categorised according to their capacity to undertake particular communicative interactions, categorisations in which cultural identity is not necessarily made overtly salient. In this way the study refined and tested the Bernsteinian model of classroom practice, while also locating analytic tools for describing classroom talk within broader relations of social power and control. Methodologically, the study's significance arises from its capacity to generate descriptions of the particularity of classroom practice, and talk about such, as pedagogic practice and talk. For policymakers the study points to the professional-academic discourses that need to be made available to teachers if they are to engage in the conversations about pedagogy that are central to emergent, second-wave conceptions of cultural equity in the state of Queensland where the study was conducted. For practitioners questions arise from the possibility that the dispositions of Taiwanese and other Chinese, Asian and ESL students to teacher-directed forms of pedagogy may be constructed in Australian contexts. These pertain to the desirability of the outcomes of adaptations undertaken in the name of cultural equity, in addition to the implications of teachers' own professional-academic socialisation for debates over 'who' should get 'what' pedagogic provision. The thesis concludes with a discussion of the utility of the study's perspective and findings given current developments in the racial and cultural politics of Australian educational institutions.

Abstract: This dissertation is a case study of one teacher who participated in a project that investigated the effects of the Texas Instruments NavigatorTM, a wireless communication system on student algebra achievement and related pedagogy. The larger study, Classroom Connectivity in Promoting Mathematics and Science Achievement (CCMS) based at The Ohio State University (OSU), funded by the U. S. Department of Education, involved approximately 120 self-selected participants across the United States. A partial requirement for participation was agreement to attend professional development provided by the CCMS project. The professional development included a week-long summer institute at OSU prior to implementation of the TI-NavigatorTM, attendance at annual International T3 meetings, participation in the cohort listserve, and semi-annual telephone interviews. During data collection of the CCMS project, many of the participants exhibited an enthusiasm for implementation of the tool and the pedagogy supported by the CCMS project. The subject of this case study, Mrs. G, was among those perceived as high implementers. This longitudinal study attempts to verify alignment of her instruction with the pedagogy promoted in the professional development sessions provided by the project. Transcripts from professional development sessions were compared with Mrs. G’s comments about her perception of her implementation of the project. Transcribed classroom observations were then analyzed using NVivo software to quantify evidence of implementation of the pedagogy with respect to the three constructs of classroom discourse, levels of questioning and formative assessment. The results of the analyses indicated that Mrs. G implemented the pedagogy advocated by the professional development sessions of the CCMS project. According to the literature key elements were in place for successful professional development. The teacher was allowed autonomy and choice in her professional development In Mrs. G’s words, “Professional development must be relevant to my profession and support my goals… student understanding.” Implications are that pre-service programs should instill in prospective teachers the importance of life-long learning and equip them with strategies to seek out professional development opportunities that are relevant to them. In-service teachers should in turn be given autonomy and choice in determining which professional development opportunities will complement their programs.

The dissertation investigates oral communication from a language development perspective. The overall aim is to study the oral communication that is part of the learning process for Swedish as a subject and for vocational courses in the upper secondary schools. The focus is specifically on learning that incorporates reasoning and prepared speech. The method used is derived from ethnography and Conversation Analysis. The material consists of fieldnotes, video and audio recordings of lessons from two different classes. The dissertation is theoretically linked to “New Literacy Studies”; the oral prac¬tices and oral cultures involved in the instruction of Swedish are described and viewed as part of school literacy. The concept ‘elaborated topic’ is used to analyse the extent to which students and teachers develop reasoning. The results show that instruction in vocational training programmes can provide students with different conditions for oral language development. Students in the nursing programme took part in more varied communication than students in the technically/practically-oriented programme. The different oral cultures in the two classes could be described in terms of patterns for reasoning and prepared speech, knowledge ideology and power relations. The oral cultures of the classes investigated are reflected in the way they performed in the national test. The students’ ability to develop a sufficiently extensive line of reasoning for the test’s prepared speech did not correspond to how well they developed each topic of discus¬sion. The dissertation emphasises the importance of dialogically organised instruction with students in every upper secondary programme being encour¬aged in their reasoning and prepared speech. It highlights language and communication in and of itself as important content in the instruction of Swedish. Finally, it argues that each subject is responsible for contributing to the language development of students.

The purpose of this dissertation is to study the vocational and career education in upper secondary school and to answer the question if and how this education contributes to the socialization of the younger generation to the various sectors and positions of working life. The ambition was also to acquire more general knowledge of the mechanisms generating different classroom discourses. The main problem thus deals with how and why an objective reality, in this case the working world, is transformed into various teaching situations and how and why it grows into different classroom discourses. In accordance with the theoretical frame of reference, career education is regarded as a transmission of ideologies and as part of the social reproduction process. By analogy with this approach the training effects have been studied in terms of transmitted opinions and notions in various aspects of education and working life. For a period of one year we observed the instruction in social studies and vocational teaching in four different course programmes of upper secondary school. The empirical studies also include interviews with teachers and students in nursing and metalwork course programmes, in economics, in social sciences and in natural sciences as well as employees in the metalwork and health-care sector. The main aim was to study the notions of education and working life of various interested parties in relation to the notions transmitted in the course programmes. The results show that there are great differences in vocational teaching in the different course programmes, in spite of the fact that the content of this teaching is supposed to be almost identical according to the curriculum. In an attempt to explain the formation of education we have formulated a "content-related steering group theory". In simplified terms this means that the content of education is characterized by certain predominant structures of thought characteristic of both the social field (sector) and the social stratum (level) towards which the education is primarily directed. The predominant structures of thought are brought into the classrooms through the students' individual and historical relations with the world of work. These structures then function as a generating and controlling mechanism for the classroom discourse. The teacher will, more or less unconsciously, adjust the content of his or her teaching to the predominant structures of thought of the selection of students forming his or her class. Our analysis ends in the assumption that the differences in structures of thought between students in various course programmes are reinforced during the time spent in upper secondary school - not so much as a result of the education itself, but more as a result of the different social environments of different student categories to which the education is adapted. / digitalisering@umu

The purpose of this study was to analyze and interpret specific aspects and characteristics of classroom discourse of an elementary mathematics classroom. To examine the classroom discourse, a fifth grade mathematics classroom was observed during sixteen weeks, and twenty lessons in total. The analysis was based on two main categories: (1) Student Learning and (2) Teacher Moves. Student Learning further divided into two sub-categories as content and learning. Additionally, Teacher Moves also divided into content knowledge and pedagogy and creating learning environment sub-categories. Results of this study showed that despite the many efforts in mathematics education in Turkey and the accepted importance of student-centered classrooms / still in some elementary classrooms teacher-centered instruction continue to be dominating. Moreover, the teacher questions generally seemed to have short answer and low-level characteristics that require students to recall mathematical rules and procedures rather than high-level questions that require students to recall mathematics rules and procedures rather than high-level questions that require students think deeper and draw inferences on mathematical content. Although, the results did not meet the assumptions of discursive classroom at all / based on the results, it could be said that in classroom practices, mathematics teachers try to make connections between mathematical content and other disciplines where they tried to give examples from real-world situations and also encourage students in that way / as pointed out in new mathematics curriculum.

This qualitative case study drew on Positioning Theory (e.g., Davies & Harré, 1990) to explore the ways in which the negotiation of power and positioning affected language learning. Participants were nine students and their female teacher in a university-level English for Academic Purposes (EAP) Oral Skills (Listening and Speaking) class. Methods of data collection included the video- and audio-taping of classroom activities for 3.5 months, interviews with students and their teacher, field notes of classroom observations, diaries, and relevant teacher and learning artifacts. As a participant observer, I explored positioning, which refers to locating oneself and others with certain rights and obligations to allow or limit certain actions, in classroom talk and investigated its interaction with second language learning and use. After spending a certain amount of time in the field, I chose two male students as my focal participants, as their positioning and participation differed in terms of quantity and quality of their talk. Through a recursive micro-analysis of classroom interaction and qualitative analysis of other data sources, the findings indicated that the two focal participants constantly dominated classroom conversations and positioned themselves in ways beneficial to them, while other students in the same classroom experienced difficulties in negotiating symbolic power and gaining access to learning opportunities. Additionally the findings showed how interactive and reflexive positioning of learners, which were impacted by a large number of factors, including age, socio-cultural backgrounds, and beliefs, assigned students certain identities and social status over the course of the semester. If second language acquisition is fostered in the classroom by communicative interactions, teachers should attempt to minimize students’ differential access to second language learning opportunities as much as possible. / text

Transactive Discourse During Assessment Conversations on Science Learning by Homer A. Russell III It has been argued that development of science knowledge is the result of social interaction and adoption of shared understandings between teachers and students. A part of understanding that process is determining how student reasoning develops in groups. Transactive discussion is a form of negotiation between group members as they interpret the meaning of their logical statements about a topic. More importantly, it is a form of discourse that often leads to cognitive change as a result of the interaction between group participants as they wrestle with their different perspectives in order to achieve a common understanding. The research reported here was a correlational study designed to investigate the relationship between the various forms of transactive discussion and learning outcome performance seen in an investigation involving 24 students in a middle-SES high school located in southwest Atlanta, Georgia. Pretest and posttest measures of genetics reasoning, as well as curriculum content test data, were used in this study. Group discussion was captured on videotape and analyzed to determine whether transactional discussion was present and whether or not it had an effect on learning outcome measures. Results of this study showed that participant use of transactive discussion played a role in development of reasoning abilities in the area of genetics. It is suggested that teachers should monitor classroom discourse for the presence of transactive discussion as such discourse plays a role in fostering performance outcomes.

abstract: This thesis study describes English Language Learner (ELL) participation practices in a summer English language development (ELD) middle school classroom in a public school district in Arizona. The purpose of the study was to document Mexican immigrant and Mexican American English learners' language experiences in a prescriptive ELD program in relation to the social, historical and cultural context. The study utilizes a sociocultural framework and critical language awareness concepts as well as qualitative interpretive inquiry to answer the following research questions: What is the nature of ELL participation during language lessons? That is, what are the common participation practices in the classroom? What social or cultural values or norms are evident in the classroom talk during language lessons? That is, in what ways do participants use language for social purposes? And, what is the cultural model of ELD evident in the classroom language practices? Data collection and analyses consisted of close examination of ELL participation within official language lessons as well as the social uses of language in the classroom. Analysis of classroom discourse practices revealed that ELL participation was heavily controlled within the common Initiation-Response-Evaluation pattern and that the students were limited to repetition and recitation responses. Further, analysis of discourse content demonstrated that classroom participants used language for social purposes in the classroom, most often using regulatory, decontextualized and resistance language. The findings revealed a cultural model of constrained ELD language practices that can be considered a pedagogy of subtractive assimilation. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Social and Philosophical Foundations of Education 2010

The present study observed the use of educational code-switching to the L1 (Arabic) among six Arabic EFL teachers at Majmaah University, in Saudi Arabia. It used an a priori set of purposes based on Creswell (2003) and derived categories to examine the linguistic, social, and class management purposes behind code-switching. The instrument consisted of two parts: a demographic questionnaire and an audio recorder used in conjunction with a classroom observation sheet. Although some studies have suggested that educational code-switching to the L1 in EFL classrooms is an unconscious act (e.g., Moghadam, Abdul Samad, & Shahraki, 2012), the present study's results concluded the reverse: that the use of educational code-switching could be interpreted as an intentional practice among teachers in EFL classrooms. The results provided a more in-depth understanding of the use of educational code-switching to the L1 (Arabic). They agreed with previous studies that have found such code-switching to be very common among EFL teachers. Although participants displayed different linguistic, social, and class management purposes, analysis of the data revealed that certain purposes were more common than others, with linguistic purposes being far more common than social, class management, or other purposes. The most common linguistic purpose was to explain new words, and for class management was to clarify activities/exercises. Only two purposes, to engage in small talk with students and to connect between sentences, could not be categorized into one of the three main types.