Iranian Journal of Language Teaching Research
Volume:8 Issue: 3, Oct 2020

Although decades of research have documented scaffolding in second language learning, providing scaffolding in content-based instruction (CBI) has remained under-explored. This qualitative study investigated teachers’ discursive scaffolding strategies and functions and L2 students’ reciprocity to teachers’ scaffolding in science CBI. Four teachers and 30 bilingual students were selected through convenience sampling from an international school. The audiotaped recordings of 24 hours of classroom instruction were transcribed and analyzed based on discursive scaffolding strategies (Walqui, 2006) and scaffolding functions (Wood, Bruner, & Ross, 1976). The deductive content analysis of data demonstrated that the most frequent scaffolding strategies were bridging and schema building while contextualizing and developing metacognition were barely observed. Furthermore, the findings revealed that scaffolding functions were mostly aimed at providing the idealized version, recruiting pursuit of a goal, and controlling frustration, whereas marking critical discrepancy was rarely employed. It can be concluded that scaffolding strategies and functions mostly pertain to enhancing students’ comprehension rather than developing metacognition. These findings have implications for the applicability of types of scaffolding strategies and functions in CBI classrooms.

A great deal of research undertaken in child language development, neurolinguistics and various branches of functional and cognitive linguistics has shown that a main source of language development is the spoken input to which learners are exposed. Despite the fact that for most adult L2 learners, the greatest exposure to the L2 is the input they experience in the classroom, we still know very little of the linguistic quality of L2 classroom input and its links to L2 development. The study reported in this paper is a partial response to this gap. Drawing on research from L1 classrooms linking the linguistic quality of teacher questions to the linguistic quality of student responses and grounded in the shared theoretical and methodological framework of conversation analysis and interactional linguistics, our study examines the linguistic designs of L2 teacher questions and the links between them and the L2 student responses they engender.

In classrooms, the act of saying hello - the ritual of shaking hands or hugging, and taking the time to exchange information – can enact relational values of “We”-ness, of belonging. In this paper we highlight how one second grade teacher’s personalized and consistent use of greetings, and apprenticeship of students into how to greet and be greeted, functions to build community and involvement. Data are part of a two-year case study of a second-grade classroom in a diverse urban US context. This study examines approximately 16 weeks of classroom greeting data collected from Morning Meetings (10 hours, 39 minutes) and then homes in on 5 minutes across one day for a close look at the apprenticeship into, and roles of, being a greeter. Analysis explicates how greetings are used in different ways across time and how they work together to build classroom community togetherness. We argue that classroom greetings are a partial marker of dialogic pedagogy.

Language teacher identity has received considerable attention in the past decade for its crucial roles in improving effective pedagogy and enhancing teacher learning. While a large number of studies have been conducted to investigate the multidimensional nature and complexities of in-service teacher identity, there is still insufficient knowledge regarding novice teachers who stayed in the profession for less than three years. In particular, although much research has argued the significant relationship between discourse and identity, few studies have investigated teacher identity through the lens of classroom discourse. This article addresses these gaps by drawing on applied conversation analysis to investigate the identity construction of seven teachers in the context of Chinese secondary English classes. Classroom recordings were made for detailed moment-by-moment analysis to explore the complexity of being a novice teacher in classroom practice. Findings revealed that identity construction - manifested through interactive work with students – is by and large about developing personal practical knowledge and engaging in language-related practices. The article discusses the implications of researching teacher identity for effective pedagogy and teacher education.

The use of L1 in L2 classes has long been debated in the field of TESOL. Although at least some use of the L1 is now widely advocated, questions remain about what might count as acceptable or effective use. While a number of studies have been carried out in secondary and tertiary settings to investigate these questions, research in primary school settings remains relatively rare. This article addresses the gap by investigating L1 use in primary classes in Turkey. Drawing on observational and interview data with five primary EFL teachers, we investigate how much, when, how, and why teachers use L1 in their English classrooms. The results showed that, despite some negative attitudes towards L1 use, the teachers used it to different degrees and for various purposes including giving instruction, providing feedback and asking questions. The teachers also identified a number of practical reasons for their decisions, namely, students’ proficiency level, achieving target-curriculum, saving time and teaching specific language points. We conclude that L1 is an inseparable part of the L2 classroom, and each teacher has their own unique way of using it.

Although the literature on collaborative writing has revealed the advantages of collaboration in improving the writing quality of learners, few studies have examined the development of the interaction qualities during collaboration. Thus, the present study tracked the development of scaffolding episodes (SEs) in the collaborative performance of two purposively selected pairs (from among eight pairs) of EFL learners within the frameworks of sociocultural theory (Vygotsky, 1978) and dynamic systems theory (Thelen & Smith, 1994). The pairs were asked to write on eight tasks during the semester. The microgenetic analysis of the pairs’ interactions in terms of SEs showed that suggesting was the most frequently used SE by Pair C and Pair D; instructing was the least frequently used SE by Pair C; translating was the least frequently used SE by Pair D. In addition, the analysis of the language related episodes (LREs) used during the scaffolding process indicated that although Pair C produced more turns than Pair D, the frequency of LREs per turn was more in the productions of Pair D. Moreover, among different types of LRE (i.e., form, lexis and mechanics), lexis was produced most frequently by both pairs.

The present study is a reflective nexus analysis of classroom discourse practices that emerged during the Covid-19 pandemic crisis induced online teaching and learning. Nexus analysis is an action focused approach to discourse analysis that incorporates aspects of ethnography to examine that actions that make up the discourse in complex social behavior. Through a series of case studies, we examine how teachers adapted to teaching and their reflections on the classroom discourse practices that emerged and their reflections on how students adapted to online learning. Using the initiation-response-evaluation sequence (IRE) as a means of comparison across the case studies we discuss how teachers developed novel practices in the online world where the IRE emerged in either flipped or blended practices. Both teachers and students had adapted to this new context in becoming online teachers and online learners navigating new subject positions that reflect Gee’s big ‘D’ Discourse. The study also illustrates how nexus analysis can be used as a reflective analysis through an examination of the discourses in place, interaction order, and historical body(ies) that were affected by the move to online teaching during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Acknowledging the importance of learner autonomy (LA) as one of the hottest concepts in EFL contexts, the author of Autonomy, Agency, and Identity in Teaching and Learning English as a Foreign Language has endeavored to explore critically these notions within the context of recent research findings. Throughout its eight chapters, the book aims at providing EFL teachers with frameworks connecting the three notions so that they can equip themselves with a deeper “understanding of the challenges in EFL teaching and learning” (p. x). While chapters 1-6 elaborate on the different theoretical aspects of Autonomy, Agency, and Identity, chapters 7 and 8 each includes a qualitative research paper on teachers’ and learners’ identity respectively.

Reflective Practice in ELT is the first book in a series entitled Reflective Practice in Language Education. As both the author of this introductory volume and the editor of the series, Farrell conceptualizes reflective practice and provides an overall image of the themes which the following books in the series are meant to discuss in-depth. The book is organized into seven chapters.

Prof. Kramsch taught German language and literature at M.I.T. and Applied Linguistics at Cornell University before moving to UC Berkeley in 1990. She is now retired from the German Department and holds an appointment as Professor of the Graduate School. Her major publications include: Discourse Analysis and Second Language Teaching (CAL 1981); Interaction et discours dans la classe de langue (Didier 1984); Reden, Mitreden, Dazwischenreden: Managing Conversations in German (Heinle 1985); Foreign Language Research in Cross-Cultural Perspective (Benjamins 1991); Text and Context: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives on Language Study (D.C.Heath 1992); Context and Culture in Language Teaching (OUP 1993); Language and Culture (OUP 1998); Language acquisition and language socialization – Ecological perspectives (Continuum 2002); The Multilingual Subject (OUP 2002); the Multilingual Challenge (de Gruyter 2015). Her majors awards include 1988 ACTFL Nelson Brooks Award for the teaching of culture; 1994 and 2009 MLA Kenneth Mildenberger Prizes for Outstanding Research in the study of foreign languages and literatures as well as the Distinguished Scholarship and Service Award from the AAAL. She holds honorary doctorates from the Middlebury School of Languages 1998, St. Michael’s College 2001, and the University of Waterloo 2010, as well as the Berkeley Citation or honorary doctorate from UC Berkeley 2015. What comes below is an interview with her (CK) by Karim Sadeghi (KS) on her contributions to AL.