Student-Student Talk for Dialogic Teaching: Challenging and Changing the Interaction Order in Whole-Class Talk

• In Event: 14.045 - Roundtable Session 2
  In Roundtable Session: 14.045-12 - Supporting Student Talk in the Classroom

Abstract

The Initiation-Response-Feedback (IRF) talk structure massively constitutes classroom lessons but often provides limited talk options for students. This paper draws on practitioner action research in an elementary classroom where a teacher deliberately sought to challenge the predominance of the IRF structure and promote dialogic teaching during whole-class talk. Specifically, we examine whole-class talk where students build on the talk of each other. Conversation analysis delineates the ways teacher talk provided for student-student interaction, students produced consecutive turns, and the teacher resumed talk following student-student interactions. The study establishes possibilities for enabling whole-class talk where students extend their participation and challenges faced when changing the interaction order.

Authors

• Christina R. Davidson, Charles Sturt University

• Christine Edwards-Groves, Charles Sturt University