IRF SEQUENCES AND SPACE FOR PARTICIPATION IN EMI CLASSROOM INTERACTION: A CASE STUDY AT HANOI NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION

Abstract

Initiation-response-feedback, or IRF, is a pattern of information exchange between the teacher and the learner. The teacher initiates first, then the learner responds, and then the teacher gives feedback. IRF is widely known as one of the most common patterns of classroom interaction. The study seeks to examine teachers’ questions and their use of classroom discourse in IRF sequences and how teachers offer space for participation in English as Medium of Instruction (EMI) classroom interaction at Hanoi National University of Education (HNUE). Collected data include classroom observations, audio and video recordings of EMI lessons, and field notes for conversation and corpus analyses. The study findings suggest that the teachers’ use of classroom language and their interaction practices could facilitate the learners’ participation in EMI classroom interaction. Therefore he study discusses pedagogical implications for EMI teaching practices and EMI teacher education.