Alternatives to questions: language use in UNIPREP classroom discussion

Abstract

Student talk is linguistic output with potential for developing communicative competence (Bachman, 1990; Canale, 1983; Canale & Swain, 1980). In language classrooms turns of talk facilitate the meaning making process as students and teachers collaboratively come to understand the discourse of knowledge that they are co-constructing (Vygotsky, 1978; Wells, 1999) in their interactions together, teacher to student and student to student. Questions shape the essential teaching exchange IRE/F as a teacher initiates (I) the first move, a student responds (R) and the teacher again takes up a turn and evaluates (E) in the follow-up (F) move. As common and useful as this exchange is for managing classroom behaviour, during the pivotal third turn in the essential teaching exchange (Young, 1992) there is potential for teachers to facilitate student talk when the teacher provides alternatives to a follow-up question (Dillon,1988). This case study of young adult English as a Second Language (ESL) users in face-to-face interaction in a university preparatory study skills course (UNIPREP) indicates a limiting influence of teacher questioning on student talk in discussions. Rather than talk being generated by a teacher’s questioning, alternatives to questions lead to the increased length of turns in students’ collaborative talk. This study brings a discourse analysis focus to whole class discussion between teacher and international UNIPREP students in the higher education sector and provides a context for second language acquisition researchers, teachers and Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) trainers.