Abstract
This study investigates the conversation between a teacher and a group of students in a Mandarin lesson at a secondary school in London. The specific task for that lesson was to nominate a team leader for the presentation of a Chinese city. By applying conversation analysis, this study reveals the asymmetric power between the teacher and students and how the teacher managed the teacher-student rapport in the class. This study also presents the dynamics in the class and the linguistic features of the conversation; the teacher eventually exerted reward, coercive, expert and legitimate power during the lesson. The study focuses on how the teacher-student rapport was challenged concerning students’ identities, educational goals, sociality right and obligations. Furthermore, this study reveals that the teacher’s questions were more referential than initial and presents how an experienced teacher managed the class and achieved the educational goal.
Highlights
In conversation analysis, classroom talk is usually regarded as a type of institutional talk (Markee & Kasper, 2004), of which the theme is closely concerned with the educational goals and roles as well as the institutional rules and constraints with which people involved in must comply (Drew & Heritage, 1992; Sarangi & Robert, 1999)
To enrich the research on the asymmetric relationship between teachers and students, this study investigates a Mandarin class in a secondary school in London to demonstrate how a Mandarin teacher finds the balance between himself and the students whilst achieving the educational goal successfully
By applying conversation analysis, this study examines the dynamics in a teacher-student discussion to present how the teacher manages teacher-student rapport and how both the teacher and students achieve the goals for that lesson, which was to find a team leader for the group
Summary
Classroom talk is usually regarded as a type of institutional talk (Markee & Kasper, 2004), of which the theme is closely concerned with the educational goals and roles as well as the institutional rules and constraints with which people involved in must comply (Drew & Heritage, 1992; Sarangi & Robert, 1999) Due to these characteristics, conversations between teachers and students are usually asymmetrical as teachers often present some authority and exercise control over the class (Drew & Heritage, 1992; Gunnarsson et al, 1997) and this asymmetrical relationship has drawn a great deal of attention from researchers over the last few decades (Cazden, 1988; Edwards & Mercer, 1987; Lemke, 1990; McHoul, 1978; Mehan, 1979; Nystrand, 1997). Focusing on turn-taking, Waring (2013a; 2013b) examined how a teacher managed chaotic contributions from self-selected students while achieving educational goals. Lee (2007) examined interactions in teacher-student discourse and specified how the teacher responded and acted to contingencies while moving the interactions forward, contributing to the pedagogical work in the practical enactment of classroom teachers
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