Differences between a teacher educator’s and prospective classroom teacher’s talk-based strategies for fostering academically productive classroom talk

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ABSTRACT The current study presents complex comparative classroom discourse analyses for understanding teacher educators’ and candidate teachers’ talk-based strategies for potentially fostering academically productive classroom talk. Two participants’ in-class teaching videos regarding talk move and interactional pattern typologies, as well as communicative approach orientations, were analysed. A multifaceted, comparative analysis was conducted to portray how and to what extent teacher educators and their students as candidate teachers enact different in-class practices surrounded by talk-based strategies in promoting intellectual activity. A systematic observation approach followed, including theory-laden and data-driven coding and quantifying the three interrelated aspects of the classroom talk for presumably promoting intellectual productivity. The educator used the talk moves more effectively than the candidate teacher to create an argumentative classroom setting, encouraging the students to comment on and enrich each other’s claims, encouraging the students to present reasonable arguments, and engaging the students in the metacognitive activity. The educator was also able to sustain more open-ended chains of interactions in addition to the interactive-dialogical communicative approach orientation compared to the candidate teacher. The qualitative and quantitative differences are discussed, and educational implications are presented, especially in teacher noticing.