Instructional Discourse Research Articles

Discourses of peer observation in higher education: Event or system?

ABSTRACTThis paper offers a new perspective on exploring peer observation (PO) as an event or system, and contributes to the discussion on what happens after the PO cycle in terms of opportunities for dissemination. Data were gathered from semi-structured interviews with members of academic staff in a UK higher education institution about their managerial roles in the PO scheme. An analysis of the interview transcripts revealed a dominant regulative discourse around PO as an event with corresponding instructional discourse focused on the procedures and administration of the scheme. We argue that middle managers are in a unique position to determine how PO can be shared in the learning and teaching community. This requires a considerable shift in the prevailing discourse around the purposes and potential of PO as part of a wider professional development system and we make suggestions for how this might be promoted.

Investigating the Relationship between Classroom Conversation and Argumentative Writing Using Writing Moves and Types of Talk

[full article in English]
 In this paper, I investigate the relationships between classroom talk and dialogic literary argumentative writing. My work is situated within a larger body of recent research on argumentative writing, taking up a social practice understanding of argumentative writing as being a set of social practices that are situated within a larger process of learning over time (Newell, Bloome & Hirvela 2015). This perspective aligns with the current understandings of writing that have been taken up over the past fifteen years (Nystrand, Green & Weimelt 1993; Klein & Boscolo 2016; Newell, Beach, Smith & VanDerHeide 2011).I adopt a Bakhtinian frame to investigate classroom argumentative writing and talk, which entails a negotiation between the meaning of events and utterances through interaction. Because of this, all interactions and utterances are inherently dialogic, as they are connected to histories and in anticipation of the future. This perspective frames the teaching and learning of argumentative writing as being negotiated locally over time, with unique practices and ways of knowing established through classroom interaction. This means that the teaching and learning of argumentative practices will always be unique to the contexts in which they are practiced. After establishing this frame, I employ instructional chains and discourse analysis in order to analyze two separate classroom discussions that occurred in two separate classrooms. By doing so, I aim to answer the following questions: what is the relationship between classroom talk and dialogic literary argumentative writing as a social practice? How is talk used to define and develop DLA both in regard to argumentative moves and the concepts and ideas derived from literature?

COACH-PLAYER COMMUNICATIONS: AN ANALYSIS OF TOP-LEVEL COACHING DISCOURSE AT A SHORT-TERM ICE HOCKEY CAMP


 Purpose: This study sought to analyze the instructional discourse of top-level coaches to identify the specific language content of coaching discourse in practice.
 Methodology: The study analyzed the recorded discourse of four coaches of the West Coast Hockey Prep Camp in Port Alberni, BC, Canada, between 2012 and 2016. Transcriptions of on-ice instructions were analyzed using Provalis QDA Miner v5.0.1 and Provalis WordStat v7.1.6 software to determine word-type and frequency. 
 Main findings: The processed corpus of 21,376 words produced 1,022 quantifiable words which were classified into one or more of the categories of single-category language (i.e. General (G), General Slang (GSl), Sports Specific (SS), and Sports General (SG)), or the eight additional multi-category sub-categories (i.e. G/GSl, G/SS, G/SG, SS/SG, GSl/SG, G/SS/SG, G/GSl/SG, and GSl/SS/SG). Analyses revealed that single-category vocabulary (i.e. G, GSl, SS, and SG) made up 75.2% of the categorized language, with SS (4.6%) and SG (11.1%) making up 15.7% of the total.
 Applications: An understanding of the linguistic framework of instructional language in short-term training camps allows athletes to invest greater focus in their athletic performance in camp. The results offer athletes contextual reference for preparatory language study and authentic linguistic insight for the counter of potential target language anxiety.
 Novelty/Originality: Results indicate that top-level coaches relied significantly less on sports-specific word-type to facilitate their instruction and suggest that a general comprehension of English can provide a strong foundation for understanding top-level coaching discourse. This provides significant insight for athletes harboring concerns for English proficiency and coach-player miscommunication.

Political Reasons for the Success and Failure of Absalom’s Rebellion (2 Sam 15-19)

Abstract This study reads the Absalom narrative as an instructive discourse on the modes of human behavior in the form of a historical narrative. Concretely it focuses on the intended change in leadership and analyzes the political processes during the initial success and final failure of the revolt. Absalom’s rebellion can best be described as an irregular dynastic succession. As such it has elements of both continuity and discontinuity to the preceding and competing kingship of David. Maintaining an aura of power and gaining personnel resources, i.e. both elites from the established hierarchy and a wide base within the population, are identified as the two main reasons for the initial success. But later, the inaccurate handling of these very same personnel resources result in Absalom’s failure and death. In the end, a final redactional layer transfers the causality for Absalom’s failure to the divine level.

A fragile autonomy in a performativity culture? Exploring positions in the recontextualising field in a Norwegian rural municipality

Internationally, the autonomy of schools and teachers is under pressure. In Norway, recent policies emphasise output control through national testing, combined with holding schools and teachers accountable for students’ results. Whereas recent research documents that the autonomy of schools and teachers is weakening in Oslo, there is little research on the rural parts of Norway. Recent political intentions aim to improve the results by establishing a better learning environment and classroom management. These intentions are related to the regulative discourse, ‘the rules of social order’, which is crucial to control as it dominates the instructional discourse. Two different projects were implemented in a rural municipality. Analysing their positions on three levels (author, actor and identity) this study finds considerable autonomy from the state in the pedagogic recontextualising field. However, this autonomy may be fragile as the teachers seem to have surrendered personal values. If teachers are disciplined, then the state may effectively reduce the potential discursive gap by reducing the autonomy of key agents in education. Investigating teachers’ rationalisations is imperative if we are to understand the relations between interests, ideology and class, and thereby the potential for autonomy in the recontextualising field in a performativity culture.

Instructional discourse and argumentative writing

Fifth-grade students from two urban school districts completed an integrated unit on wolves. Classes received either direct instruction (DI) or collaborative group work (CG). Analysis of reasoning in classroom talk indicated that CG students more often used connective and contrastive words and the performative verb phrases I think and I know than DI students. Analysis of written arguments about a controversial question raised by the unit indicated that, compared to DI students, CG students included more logical connectives, contrastives, and performative verbs, produced fewer unelaborated arguments, more frequently asked rhetorical questions, and more often considered both sides of the policy issue. The study provides fresh insight into how instructional frameworks can affect how students view themselves as writers in relation to a prospective audience.

Assessing the influence of the English language on the professional vocabulary of Croatian dental students by analysing their word choice for the translation of medical/dental terms

Abstract This study was performed to investigate the influence of the English language on the medical/dental terminology of Croatian dental students. It emerged from the terminological projects of the School of Dental Medicine, University of Zagreb that had been conducted as a part of the national programme the Development of Croatian Special Field Terminology. Students were asked to translate English sentences allegedly extracted from dental literature into Croatian. The results showed that most students translated the offered English terms using anglicisms rather than choosing Croatian terms. The finding that students distinctively prefer professional literature in Croatian suggests that their professional vocabulary is mostly modelled by the Croatian educational materials and by the discourse of instruction. These results suggest the need for further activities concerning the popularization of Croatian medical/dental terminology for the purpose of preservation and development of a native professional vocabulary and of improving communication with patients and patients’ understanding of medical information.

A Case Study of Classroom Discourse Analysis of Teacher’s Fronted Reading Comprehension Lessons for Vocabulary Learning Opportunities

This study examined classroom routine and interactional patterns of Grade 5 English Language reading comprehension lessons through delineating the speech act functions of instructional discourse that was based on Malcolm’s sociolinguistic model (Malcolm, 1979a; Malcolm, 1979b; Malcolm, 1982; Malcolm, 1986). It also evaluated the classroom interaction patterns with reference to four proposed levels of vocabulary learning opportunities that could be afforded through the discourse. Using a qualitative single case study methodology, four video-recorded and transcribed lessons, together with a semi-structured interview with the teacher, classroom observations, and lesson plans formed the data for the present study. The classroom routine showed teacher’s informing, teacher’s elicitation, children’s bidding, teacher’s nomination, children’s replying, teacher’s acknowledgement, teacher’s informing and teacher’s directing and a predominant Initiation-Response-Follow-up pattern. The teacher’s discourse had focussed the learners’ attention on target vocabulary and was effective in eliciting the meanings of those words from the learners. However, most of the successful elicitations took few and short turns. A closer examination further revealed that the most prevalent teacher’s elicitation acts were checking elicitation and multiple elicitation; and that the most prevalent teacher’s acknowledgement acts were unqualified accepting or relaying, and evaluating. The types of teacher’s elicitations and acknowledgements resulted in an interaction that was devoid of dynamic negotiation of the meanings between the learners, teacher, and text.

Student Participation in Engineering Practices and Discourse: An Exploratory Case Study

AbstractBackgroundThe integration of science and engineering practices in K‐12 science education provides a platform for students to engage in productive classroom discourse supporting deep student understanding and reasoning in a real‐world context. However, the engineering design discourse in K‐12 science classrooms has not yet been fully examined.PurposeThis article aims to explore the decision‐making processes and verbal interactions of eighth grade students as they engage in a 12‐day engineering design‐based science unit. The following research questions guided the study: (a) How do student discourse patterns and interactions affect design decisions? (b) How do the instructor's discursive interactions in design groups influence student design?MethodIn this exploratory case study, discursive patterns and interaction patterns between four student groups and their instructor were captured through audio and video recordings.ResultsThe design discourse structure and patterns differed among groups, affecting their design decisions. There was also a difference in both the number of new ideas generated and, most notably, the level of student engagement in those groups. In addition, the complexity of design decisions varied, with most groups focusing on financial feasibility rather than scientific reasoning. Finally, it was observed that the instructor discourse influenced student engagement in design discourse and the use of scientific reasoning and justifications in small group discussions.ConclusionsThis discourse study offers insight into students’ scientific reasoning in an effort to help educators more effectively structure instruction discourse and practices in engineering design in K‐12 science education.

Using concept mapping for faculty development in the context of pedagogic frailty

The quality of teaching does not depend exclusively on the knowledge and experience of teachers, but also on the contextual variables that go along with the teaching (attitude, objectives, students, resources, etc.) or dimensions of pedagogic frailty (regulative and instructional discourse, pedagogy and discipline, research teaching nexus and locus of control. Identifying these variables may help to enhance teaching. A procedure for the capture, representation and transfer of knowledge between peers regarding active didactic methodologies supported by Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) was applied in a case study research. The data were represented by concept maps. The aim was to identify variables that affect Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK), the use of technology in teaching and pedagogic frailty, through the analysis of the interrelations among the concept maps.The analysis of the maps shows the implementation of many innovations with ICT (project-based learning, service-learning, collaborative learning), their positive aspects and the difficulties in carrying them out. The teachers involved pointed out some factors that contribute to the development of pedagogic frailty, including the number of students in each class, the organization of teaching, the motivation, among others, and as conditions for a greater progress in innovative educational experiments using ICT.

Control ideológico en los programas secundarios transitorios en Historia y Ciencias Sociales (1974-1981)

Resumen El golpe militar chileno y la subsecuente dictadura instalada supusieron la implementación de políticas disciplinarias de control sobre el sistema educativo chileno. A nivel curricular, en el transcurso de 1974 se produjeron adecuaciones a los programas secundarios existentes, los que perduraron hasta su recambio general ocurrido en 1981. El objetivo del presente artículo es ofrecer una comprensión crítica del fundamento regulativo y del contenido instruccional presente en los programas de secundaria de Ciencias Sociales e Históricas de la época. La profunda transformación en el fundamento regulativo del discurso pedagógico tuvo clara expresión en la asignatura, cuyas modificaciones resultaron en tal cantidad y de tanta profundidad que terminaron por transformar en su globalidad al antiguo currículum y generar en los hechos otro diferente. En su dimensión política y axiológica de base el currículum se volcó a dar un énfasis unilateral y exclusivo a la necesidad de reforzar la transmisión de un sentimiento nacionalista, mientras que en el nivel instruccional tendieron a legitimar la acción política de la dictadura y ejercer un control sobre la transmisión del conocimiento oficial que se tradujo en la eliminación de visiones historiográficas asociadas al marxismo, de realidades como la historia latinoamericana y de procedimientos como la crítica y discusión. La metodología recurre a los aportes derivados del análisis del discurso pedagógico y curricular, particularmente a las nociones de discurso regulativo y de discurso instruccional.

Captions and the Cooking Show

While the television cooking genre has evolved in numerous ways to withstand competition and become a constant feature in television programming (Collins and College), it has been argued that audience demand for televisual cooking has always been high because of the daily importance of cooking (Hamada, “Multimedia Integration”). Early cooking shows were characterised by an instructional discourse, before quickly embracing an entertainment focus; modern cooking shows take on a more competitive, out of the kitchen focus (Collins and College). The genre has continued to evolve, with celebrity chefs and ordinary people embracing transmedia affordances to return to the instructional focus of the early cooking shows. While the television cooking show is recognised for its broad cultural impacts related to gender (Ouellette and Hay), cultural capital (Ibrahim; Oren), television formatting (Oren), and even communication itself (Matwick and Matwick), its role in the widespread adoption of television captions is significantly underexplored. Even the fact that a cooking show was the first ever program captioned on American television is almost completely unremarked within cooking show histories and literature.

Supporting emergent bilinguals’ argumentation: Evaluating evidence in informational science texts

Much of the research on teaching argumentation has focused on the genre, its features, and ways to support students in orally constructing or writing an argument, but far less is known about what students need to do as readers in preparation for writing an argument. The case study presented here explores how close attention to language features commonly found in informational science texts can support fourth-grade emergent bilinguals in identifying and evaluating evidence. It illustrates how, with functional grammar metalanguage of usuality and likelihood, a teacher can facilitate discussions about words in science texts that indicate authors’ degrees of uncertainty and in turn support students’ evaluations of evidence. Analysis of the instructional discourse also reveals potential pitfalls in this approach, as degrees of uncertainty expressed by an author do not make evidence inherently strong or weak. The strength of evidence must be determined through considering its relationship to the claim.

Naqli-Aqli Socio-Cultural Instructional Discourse: Characteristics Analysis

The purpose of this study was to analyze the characteristics of an instructional discourse within the realm of the socio-cultural theory with the integration of naqli perspectives. A pre-school teacher and a group of pre-school children participated in the study. Real time non-participant observation, field notes and postobservation of the videotaped of the selected conversation were the methods of data collection for the study. The data were analyzed qualitatively using the coding derived the literature review. The data were categorized in three characteristic themes: the interdependence between social and individual processes, co-construction of knowledge and the use of meaningful and purposeful language. The findings show that the selected instructional conversation reflects the characteristics of discourse within the realm of the socio-cultural theory. The implications of the study are discussed within the context of second language teaching.

Framed autoethnography as an approach for uncovering pedagogic frailty

AbstractPedagogic frailty has been proposed as a concept that can be helpful in bringing a number of key ideas into simultaneous focus, with the aim of helping to integrate elements of teaching quality enhancement within a university (Kinchin, 2015; 2016). These elements include the relationship between personal values and the instructional discourse; the relationship between the discipline and its pedagogy; the nature of the research-teaching nexus; the proximity of the locus of control to the teaching environment. Key to the application of pedagogic frailty is the personal appreciation (at the level of the individual academic) of the ways in which the elements of this concept are connected. This must acknowledge the emotional aspects of teaching and learning and also the rich, subjective nature of personal professional identities within this context (Clegg, 2008). We have therefore investigated the potential of autoethnography (e.g. Anderson, 2006; Chang, 2008; Denshire, 2014) as an approach to uncovering the rich complexity of pedagogic frailty perceived at the level of the individual. We have combined this with a concept mapping approach (Novak, 2010) to frame the autoethnographic narrative and to help the autoethnographer to focus on connections between elements as these connections will determine how the framework functions in practice. This combined approach helps overcome the difficulties associated with writing about academia from the insider’s perspective (Archer, 2008). This paper offers reflections upon this process as a method for professional development of university teachers and institutional quality enhancement. Keywords: Autoethnography; concept mapping; faculty development; quality enhancement

The (in)visibility of gender knowledge in the Physical Activity and Sport Science degree in Spain

ABSTRACTThis paper draws on research that aimed to explore the construction of gender relations in sport and physical education (PE) through a national study of Spanish university degree curricula. Spain is a useful case study through which to explore gender knowledge within sport and PE degrees, because, unlike many other countries, it has a common, national curriculum framework for its Physical Activity and Sport Science (PASS) degrees. In addition, it has recently passed a new law concerning the introduction of gender knowledge in higher education (HE). Drawing on Bernstein’s (1990) framework of the pedagogic device, this paper examines how this HE gender policy becomes recontextualised as universities and lecturers interpret and translate this into the pedagogical texts that make up the PASS curricula. Purposive sampling was used to select 16 of the 37 universities offering PASS degrees in 2012/2013. The research analysed 16 PASS documents at the degree level and 763 individual subject handbooks. Using discourse analysis, the results showed where and how gender knowledge was incorporated and the extent to which the topic was presented coherently throughout the documents. The analysis revealed five categories of the (in)visibility of gender knowledge within the universities’ instructional discourse. Gender knowledge is largely ignored in PASS curricular documentation, appearing, at best, in highly superficial ways. Despite a national policy requirement on universities to incorporate gender knowledge, this study shows how recontextualisation processes within specific universities’ pedagogic devices operate to marginalise such perspectives within PASS curricula. The research also revealed the significance of individual agents committed to gender equity being situated, and having influence, throughout the pedagogic device. The paper concludes that without a much wider, critical engagement in knowledge about gender equity, PASS degrees will continue to reproduce rather than disrupt the gender relations that have traditionally characterised the field.

El lenguaje en el recetario de la cocina tradicional mexicana

Mexican cuisine is generally understood as the result of a gastronomic meeting between the Hispanic culture and the Spanish. Therefore, it shows their eating habits, amalgamated from the indigenous period to the present. Through the recipes, it is possible to know the elements used in the composition and preparation of a cooking dish and how it is prepared. The focus in this paper is to analyze the recipes of Mexican cuisine and publicize the peculiarities of the language used. To do this, the corpus has been taken as a cookbook called La tradicional cocina mexicana y sus mejores recetas of Adela Fernández. In this article we have done an analysis on the most important elements involved in both the use of the code and how it is arranged. We have observed several words from indigenous languages and also the characteristics of instructional discourse of the cookbook. Moreover, we have tried to suggest the most appropriate form of the accompanying elements in the titles of the dishes according to their mode of preparation. This aims to standardize the names of the dishes in front of its diversity.

Re-engaging ‘youth at risk’ of disengaging from schooling through rugby league club partnership: unpacking the pedagogic practices of the Titans Learning Centre

ABSTRACTThe youth learning re-engagement program known as the Titans Learning Centre (or TLC) is an approved alternative schooling program, developed in partnership with state education and a local National Rugby League (NRL) club, the ‘Titans’. Students typically in Grade Three or Four complete a 10 week program, interacting with professional A grade NRL players on a weekly basis during classroom learning time and lunch time ‘handball’ sessions. The project sought to understand the pedagogic practices of the TLC, using Bernstein’s social construction of pedagogic discourse, with its underlying instructional and regulative discourses, particularly the contribution by the players to what and how the students were learning. The ethical consent of recruiting children to the study was achieved via acceptance of a position in the program for classroom observations, with further consent sought for accessing students’ school performance data, student and parent surveys and interviews. Using case study methodology, Productive Pedagogies classroom audits (n = 26) were adapted for classroom observation. Interviews with relevant program stakeholders were conducted, including players (n = 12), NRL game development staff (n = 1) and teachers and teacher aides (n = 4). The findings revealed the pedagogic approaches of teachers and NRL players emphasised making regulative discourses visible to these young learners, developing supportive classroom environments and building students’ sense of connectedness to learning. The players articulated a genuine sense of contribution to the lives of the young learners and saw themselves as role models. The use of high profile athletes in youth re-engagement programs has been questioned in recent times, particularly their effectiveness in terms of student learning outcomes over time. However, we conclude that the depth of involvement in pedagogic action connected to student learning indeed enabled the NRL players to be considered role models for youth re-engagement in learning.

Inculcating character education through EFL teaching in Indonesian state schools

ABSTRACTThis paper describes how English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers in Indonesia have implemented the recent character education policy within an era of school-based curriculum reform. The character education policy required all teachers, EFL teachers included, to instil certain values in every lesson whilst the school-based curriculum reform permitted teachers to develop locally responsive curriculum content. The design behind the reform seeks to sharpen education’s role as a site of moral inculcation in the face of growing social diversity that threatens social cohesion and the prolonged social problem of massive corruption. Drawing on Durkheim’s distinction between secular and religious morality, this paper considers how the Indonesian curriculum promoted rational or secular moral education and how the EFL teachers enacted religious moral education given religiosity is salient in both the community and schools of Indonesia. Bernstein’s concepts of pedagogic discourse, instructional and regulative discourses were adopted to analyse how EFL teachers have recontextualized both curricular reforms in their micro pedagogic settings. The conclusion suggests that teachers’ implementation of moral education in their classes was dominated by their school communities’ and the teachers’ own preferred value of religiosity. Such values played out in their classes through both the regulative discourse and the instructional discourse.

Ordering within moral orders to manage classroom trouble

ABSTRACTThis paper demonstrates how classroom trouble warranting teacher intervention can stem from transgressions in different layers of the complex moral order regulating classroom interactions. The paper builds from Durkheim’s treatment of schooling as the institution responsible for the inculcation of a shared moral order, Bernstein’s distinction between the instructional and regulative discourses in any pedagogic setting and the concept of verticality in the instructional discourse to illuminate how curricular knowledge might apply across different contexts. This paper proposes a similar vertical dimension of moral gravity in the regulative discourse, such that some moral expectations apply across any context, while others are highly contextualized. This paper then applies this frame to data from classroom observations conducted in prevocational pathways for 16 years olds created under Australia’s “earning or learning till 17” policy. This paper describes the variety of moral premises teachers invoked in different teacher/class combinations, according to their level of moral gravity to display the dominant use of highly contextualized moral premises seeking institutional compliance, and minimal use of broader moral frames for these students on the brink of entry to the adult world.