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Volume 34
Professional Teaching Articles
November 2009
Article 2
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Title
Nature of Discussions in a Foreign Language Literature Class
Author
Dogan Yuksel
Kocaeli University, Turkey
Bio
Dr. Dogan Yuksel, currently an Assistant Professor at Kocaeli University's Department of Foreign Languages, teaches courses on ELT Research and Methodology in the English Education program. He received his PhD from Florida State University's Multilingual Multicultural Education program in 2007. His research interests include classroom discourse, literary discussions, and Vygotskyan Sociocultural Theory. His email address is doganyuksel@yahoo.com
Abstract
Use of literature in foreign language teaching has been viewed as one of the traditional ways of teaching for centuries. However, the research about the use of literature is quite limited compared to the popularity of its use. In this study, I analyzed the discursive structure of classroom talk both academically and socially to identify the nature of literary discussions. A foreign language literature class in Turkey was observed for one semester and qualitative analyses were conducted following a discourse analysis method. The findings of the study revealed mixed results. Possible reasons of the findings were explained with educational implications.
Key Words: Use of literature, classroom discourse, teacher questions, EFL
Introduction
Use of literature in foreign and second language teaching is taken for granted for many teachers and researchers. However, how literature is studied and nature of classroom discourse in second/foreign language literature classrooms have not been examined thoroughly (Donato & Brooks, 2004; Kim, 2004; Mantero, 2001). Studies that have investigated what is happening in literature classes are very few in number. As it is often articulated, previous research on the use of literature in second and foreign language teaching has focused mostly on the reading comprehension of cultural texts (Donato & Brooks, 2004), and very few studies have examined the verbal interactions of second/foreign language learners in literature discussions (Kim, 2004). A review of previous studies and books that are devoted to the relationship between literature and language learning demonstrate that the study of literature seems to entail mostly receptive skills: for the most part reading and literacy development, and only sometimes writing or speaking (Akyel & Yalcin, 1990; Carter & Long, 1991; Chen, 2006; Cho & Krashen 1994; Ghosn, 2002; Lao & Krashen, 2000; Lazar, 1993, 1994; Liaw, 2001; McKay, 1982; Parkinson & Thomas, 2000; Shanahan; 1997; Widdowson, 1984).
Use of Literature in Foreign Language Teaching
Most of the studies that examined the relationship between literature and language teaching have articulated four benefits of literature: (1) literature helps developing linguistic knowledge both on usage and use level (Lazar, 1994; McKay, 1982; Parkinson & Thomas, 2000; Widdowson, 1984), (2) literature may enhance students’ motivation (Akyel & Yalcin, 1990; Ghosn, 2002; Lazar, 1993; McKay, 1982; Parkinson & Thomas, 2000), (3) literature has the potential to increase learners’ understanding of the target culture (Akyel & Yalcin, 1990; Ghosn, 2002; Lazar, 1993, 1994; McKay, 1982; Parkinson & Thomas 2000; Shanahan; 1997), (4) literature may help develop skills of cognitive and critical thinking (Ghosn, 2002, Lazar, 1993; Parkinson & Thomas, 2000). Most of these benefits are based on the experiences of teachers and researchers who had substantial background in the teaching of literature; however, none of them is supported by research that is coming from real classroom settings.
Motivated from the lack of research on the nature of discussions in literature classrooms, this study examined the nature of literary discussions in an advanced level English literature class in a Turkish EFL (English as a Foreign Language) setting. The study focused on the discursive features of a foreign language literature course offered at a Turkish university. The discursive structure of classroom talk was analyzed both academically and socially to identify the nature of the literary discussions. Students’ perceptions of the class and on-going discourse, and their views about their roles were investigated as well. In other words, both academic and social aspects of the classroom discourse were addressed to increase the understanding of ‘what-is-going-on’ in an advanced level foreign language literature class.
By conducting this study, the researcher aimed to contribute to the literature by providing naturalistic, uncontrolled data about the nature of literary discussions in an advanced level English literature class at a Turkish university. In other words, by analyzing the nature of whole group discussions in a college level foreign language literature class, this study provided empirical data regarding the nature of discussions in a literature class, which in turn might offer some insights about the validity of the claim that the study of literature in the collegiate curriculum is useful in developing foreign language proficiency.
The discursive structure of the classroom talk, i.e., how the discussion evolves, may help us see the major significant points in a discussion, namely how the discussion is constructed, who starts it, who finalizes it and who contributes to it. Characteristics of discussions may further shed some light on the perception of knowledge and schooling by the teachers and students. Many previous studies demonstrate that most of the schooling in many settings have been built on the traditional IRE (Initiation- Response- Evaluation) routine, which may indicate that, among other things, the teacher have the ultimate control in the classroom (Gutierrez, 1994; Lemke, 1990; Nystrand, 1997). On the other hand, open-ended discussions are less prescribed, including less teacher control, and may be a sign of teachers’ interest in students’ ideas and comments (Nystrand, 1997). The significance of the nature of discussions has been acknowledged by many researchers who deal with classroom discourse in different fields of education (Cazden, 2001; Gutierrez, 1994; Lemke, 1990; Nystrand, 1997; Walsh, 2006; Wells, 1999b).
The following research questions guided this study:
1- What is the nature of literary discussions in an advanced level literature course in a Turkish EFL setting based on the analyses of the discursive structure of the classroom talk?
2- What do students think about this specific literature class and their roles in this class?
Methodological Framework
The research questions influenced the choice of the methodological framework, the social interactionist perspective (Green, 1983; Green & Wallat, 1981; Mehan, 1979, 1998) that provided a comprehensive outlook about the classroom discourse. A social interactionist perspective to teaching focuses on the discourse and interaction in the classroom, and uses a discourse analysis framework to analyze the classroom interaction. In his seminal book Learning Lessons, published in 1979, Mehan pointed out the significance of studying interaction in the classroom context by stating “because educational facts are constituted in interaction, we need to study interaction in educational contexts… in order to understand the nature of schooling” (p. 6). After more than 25 years, as Wells (2005) states, many people who study classroom learning and teaching today agree that “the nature of the interaction that takes place in class is one of the most significant influences on the quality of student learning” (p. 1).
From this perspective, a second or foreign language classroom is not only an academic environment, but also it is a social context (Cazden, 2001). Classroom language is analyzed as it pertains to two different functions in classroom life: (a) the communication of propositional information, which is also called as referential, cognitive or ideational function, and (b) the establishment and maintenance of social relationship and identity that refers to the social and affective features of language (Cazden, 2001).
Data Collection Procedures
Following Harklau (2005), the present study can be defined as ethnographic research that involves a case study, which is quite common in qualitative research (Ellis & Barkhuizen, 2005). Natural and systematic audio and video recordings of the classroom sessions for nine weeks (a whole semester), field notes taken as a non-participant observer during this time, and semi-structured interviews with the instructor, students, and the administrators of the program constituted the primary data sources. Discourse analysis was used as a major research tool to examine the nature of literary discussions. The main aim of using multiple data collection techniques was to get various perspectives of the same classroom phenomenon to increase the credibility of the study. Another concern of the study was to get the insider’s perspective and understanding of the classroom interaction.
Data Analysis
Discourse analysis technique was used while analyzing the data. The following steps were followed prior to data analysis: (i) transcription of the audio and video recordings, (ii) data indexing, (iii) data reduction, and (iv) data coding. Data transcription process involved the transcription of the video and audio-recordings in their entirety. Data indexing was performed by describing the context in which data occurred, in other words, where and when the activity took place in the study. Each teacher-fronted whole group discussion was indexed by providing the context of when and where it took place. The description of the topic, pseudonyms for each participant, and major activities of the lesson in each episode were included in this session as well. After indexing the relevant parts, data was reduced into smaller and manageable chunks of information (episodes) according to the research questions. Finally, the data was coded using a top-down, deductive coding procedure where the analyst pinpointed a set of codes before engagement with data began. The four constructs were already identified by utilizing the findings of the previous literature and theoretical framework.
Interrater Reliability
After I identified 69 episodes of teacher-fronted text-based discussion, and coded them according to the research constructs, two external reviewers were asked to re-code some parts of the data to increase the reliability of the findings. External raters were familiar with classroom discourse research and each coded 10% of the data, which was randomly selected. For the part of the study that was discussed in this paper, external raters coded the level of learner utterances. I prepared a training manual that included the definitions of each level of learner utterances together with at least two examples. After the final codings, there was 98% interrater reliability between the researcher and the first rater, and 97% interrater reliability between the researcher and the second rater.
Context of the Research
The research was conducted in the Drama Analysis and Teaching class offered at the sixth semester of English Education program at a major Turkish University, during the spring semester of 2006, which started on February 27th and ended on June 16th. The class met regularly on Tuesdays between 8:30 A.M. and 11:30 A.M. It had three hours of class with two breaks for ten minutes after each hour. The participants of this study were advanced level English Education majors attending a Turkish public university. I was particularly interested in advanced level learners, because they had adequate English proficiency and the necessary background in literature to carry out the classroom discussions in the target language. The instructor of the course, Dr. Anne, held a PhD in English Literature and had been teaching the same course for more than 10 years. The background survey indicated that the participants ranged in age from 20 to 22, and they had been studying English for 5 to 12 years. Pseudonyms were used to protect the identities of the participants of the study.
During videorecordings, I positioned the camcorder I used to the right corner of the classroom, and kept it at the same place during the whole semester. I sat next to the camcorder, and remained silent as much as I could. My main concern was being as invisible as possible, and I did it as best as I could, even though I needed to talk in the classroom from time to time.
Figure 1. Layout of the classroom.
Findings
Discursive Structure of Classroom Talk
During nine weeks of recordings, I identified 69 whole group teacher fronted text-based discussions. The teacher fronted text-based discussions, i.e., the episodes, ranged between one minute and ten seconds and twenty-six minutes and twelve in duration. In each of these episodes, the focus was the text that had been read, and the teacher asked at least two questions. After each text-based discussion was identified, they were coded based on (a) initiation move of each episode, (b) major patterns of the moves (e.g., initiation, response, evaluation), (c) level of the learner utterances (i.e., word, phrase, sentence, or discourse), and (d) finalization move of each episode.
The average number of episodes per week was 7.6. The first week of the recordings had fourteen episodes, and eighth week had only four. Time spent on discussions in each week varied between 47 and 104 minutes. The average time spent on discussion was 77 minutes. Week 3 had the shortest time with 47 minutes, on the other hand in Week 5, 104 minutes of class time was spent on discussions. The distribution of the episodes in each week is provided in Table 1.
Table 1
The Number of Episodes in Each Week
Weeks
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Total
1st Hour
5
3
1
2
2
2
3
1
1
20
2nd Hour
5
3
6
2
2
2
3
2
2
27
3rd Hour
4
2
1
2
5
2
3
1
2
22
Total
14
8
8
6
9
6
9
4
5
69
Initiation. While examining the initiation move of each episode, I focused on two main points: (a) Who initiated the discourse, and (b) how it was initiated. Out of 69 episodes, 67 were initiated by the teacher, and only two were initiated by the students (episode 1.2.3 and 2.2.1). Throughout the initiation move the dominance and control of the teacher was strongly felt: 97% of all episodes were initiated by the teacher. It was observed that 59 of 67 teacher initiation moves included questions (88 %), and only eight of them were statements (12%). When the questions in the initiation move were further analyzed, it was found that 34% (n=24) of these questions were test questions, and 48% (n=34) of them were authentic questions. Five episodes involved the use of both types of questions (please check Note 1 for more information about teacher questions).
Major patterns of discussion. Traditional IRE, extended IRE and open-ended discussions constituted three major patterns of moves. Out of these three, traditional IRE sequences dominated the discussions. The main features of the traditional IRE pattern in the Drama Analysis and Teaching class were as follows: a) initiation was a teacher move, b) the teacher mostly used questions in the initiation move, c) the teacher usually evaluated every student response, d) the students’ responses tended to be short, and e) the teacher’s questioning strategy was well balanced.
As I mentioned, Dr. Anne initiated the discussions with a question most of the times. In fact, she employed questions quite frequently during the whole nine weeks. Following comments of Dr. Anne might help us better understand her thoughts about questioning sequences in the classroom and what students think about Dr. Anne’s questioning practices.
“You see- questions are everywhere in the exam, in the afterlife, we are busy with questions.” - Dr. Anne (5.3.4)
“ Why? I am asking ‘why’ [questions] (++) teachers always ask ‘why question’ because I want to be sure whether you know or not … We should ask ‘why [questions]’ to obtain (++) more knowledge. Why are we asking ‘why’?”
- Dr. Anne (8.2.2)
“ I really like Dr. Anne’s questions. They are very good. Also Dr. Anne wants us to ask questions during the discussions but we cannot ask as good questions as she does” Esra, Second Interview
“Dr. Anne’s questions are challenging and lets us to think more on the plays we read. Most of the times, they are open for different interpretations and they allow us to present different perspectives on the topic.” - Fatih, Second Interview.
The main difference between a traditional IRE sequence and an extended IRE sequence was in the response move of the students that lasted 3-4 turns and included teacher comments. In other words, during extensive IRE sequences, the teacher evaluated the student comments immediately, however she did not finish the conversation at that point. Instead she gave some more time to students, which helped them elaborate their ideas. I have provided an example of an Extended IRE sequence (please check Note 2 for the transcription conventions used in this study).
Excerpt 1 An Example of an Extended IRE Sequence (6.3.1)
198
T
Yes, flower he even knows he remembers the (++) Hakan (++) yes! Bill and Tom similarities differences the relations? (++++) both are (++) lonely. [INITIATION- TEACHER QUESTION]
199
Ha
Both are deprived of[ [RESPONSE]
200
T
]Very good [EVALUATION]
201
Ha
Male dominant features [RESPONSE]
202
T
Both are deprives of fathers, good fathers [COMMENT]
203
Ha
No, male features I said [RESPONSE- ELABORATION]
204
T
Hmm (++) yes, but Bill at least pretends [EVALUATION- COMMENT]
205
Ha
He was like Tom in his seventeen’s. [RESPONSE- ELABORATION]
206
T
Very good! Wonderful! Thank you! Yes please Feride [EVALUATION- INITATITON]
During open-ended discussions, the teacher asked fewer questions and more importantly, she did not immediately evaluate each student response. Among all discussion patterns, this was the closest to the dialogical discussions as discussed by Nystrand (1997), Gutierrez (1994) and Skidmore (2000). Students acted freely during this time, and made comments one after the other without waiting for the teacher’s assignment. I summarized the basic features of each type of discourse in Table 2.
Table 2
Overview of the Basic Features of Each Type of Discourse
Number of Teacher Questions
Student Involvement
Initiation/
Finalization
Teacher
Evaluation
Teacher Control
Traditional
IRE
Many
Low
Teacher
Frequent
Tight
Extended IRE
Balanced
Mediocre
Teacher
Occasional
Mediocre
Open-ended
Few
High
Teacher
Little
Loose
Level of student talk. Analysis of level of student talk revealed that students found chances to speak in all levels during the discussions in the Drama Analysis and Teaching class (see Table 3 for details). The majority of the student utterances were sentence level utterances (42%). The scarcity of discourse level student talk was obvious throughout the semester in almost every week.
Table 3
Number and Percentages of Level of Learner Utterances for Each Week
Week
Word Level
Phrase Level
Sentence Level
Discourse Level
Total
No.
Ratio
No.
Ratio
No.
Ratio
No.
Ratio
1
183
37 %
164
34 %
137
28 %
4
1 %
488
2
157
33 %
146
31 %
164
34 %
8
2 %
475
3
39
23 %
56
33 %
70
41 %
5
3 %
170
4
102
24 %
105
24 %
220
51 %
4
1 %
431
5
100
25 %
110
28 %
177
45 %
7
2 %
394
6
129
28 %
124
27 %
194
43 %
7
2 %
454
7
63
18 %
96
28 %
178
52 %
8
2 %
345
8
52
20 %
52
20 %
143
57 %
4
2 %
251
9
108
34 %
95
29 %
117
36 %
4
1 %
324
TOTAL
933
28 %
948
28 %
1400
42 %
51
2 %
3332
Sentence level talk was higher than the others in all weeks but Week One. The uneasiness in students’ talk was quite evident when the classroom discourse in the first week was analyzed. As it can be seen in Excerpt 2, which is taken from the second episode of second hour in the first week, students spoke only one or two words, and did not seem eager to elaborate their ideas. Therefore, the teacher needed to talk more and assumed the roles of both teacher and students during the discussions. For the first week, in the field notes, I wrote that the students did not seem natural and were highly affected by the presence of the camera and the researcher.
Excerpt 2
An Example of Dominance of Word Level Talk from the First Week
21
T
Wonderful she hides herself very good. What kind of people hide themselves? Do you do it in the classroom? For example in the classroom Selma does it, you do it, Sevide.
22
Sev
Introvert
23
T
Very good, introvert people generally
24
Sev
Shy
25
T
Because they are so fragile that they are scared of being hurt (+) being err (++) hurt
26
Sev
Harmed
27
T
Being offended
28
Oz
Maybe
29
T
Yes that’s right. They don’t want the others fault with them that’s why they keep away.
30
S3
Silence
31
T
They keep themselves away they are quiet so they don’t give the other the opportunity to criticize them, very good.
32
S4
She is afraid of taking risks.
33
T
Wonderful and introvert people, people like Dorothy are afraid of taking risk but you should take risk Sevide [Everybody laughs] wonderful. Thank you and go on.
Finalization. In the Drama Analysis and Teaching class,98% of all episodes were finalized by the teacher. The final turns of the episodes included one or more of these moves: Repetition (26%), evaluation (72%), question (16%), paraphrase (44%), comment (35%). Some of the teacher utterances in the final turn of the episode were quite decisive and signaled the end of the episode definitely. These utterances did not leave any room for further elaboration to the students. These utterances revealed the ultimate teacher control over the classroom discourse. Some examples of decisive teacher statement in the final turn of the episodes are provided in Table 4.
Table 4
Some of the Decisive Teacher Statements in the Final Turn
We finish this one and then the other one, page thirteen please.
Ok, the other page.
Ok this is the end of the poem.
Thank you and then the day is over.
We’ll see each other in the next hour.
So, we finished. Yes.
Students’ Perceptions about the Course
The analysis of the classroom talk during literary discussions revealed some important features of the class I observed. To gain a deeper understanding and to triangulate the findings, I used the data obtained from teacher and student interviews. Most of the students argued that reading was the main aspect of the Drama Analysis and Teaching class even though more than 60% of the class time was devoted to the literary discussions. This was an interesting finding, which can be related with the general perceptions of language learners and teachers about the place of literature in foreign and second language learning. Especially following comments of the students about how they perceived the literature class reflected the understanding of literature classes in many parts of the world by many teachers and researchers.
“Literature courses are important because they make us read, and also we learn the culture of other countries while reading the works of literature”
- Buket, Second Interview
“My English improved overall during [in this course] this semester, however I benefited a lot for my reading skills, and vocabulary learning” - Fatih, Second Interview
“I believe Drama course is all about understanding and interpreting what you
read.” - Kadir, Second Interview
Perceptions of Student Roles
Most of the roles/duties the teacher and students discussed during the interviews were traditional student roles. Answering teacher questions, learning what Dr. Anne was trying to teach, coming to class prepared and passing the exam seemed like they made students passive receivers of the information.
“Main student duties are answering teacher questions and participating in classroom discussions” - Dr. Anne, Final Interview
“Our main role is learning some content information from this course as we are supposed to learn. Sometimes, Dr. Anne asks us ‘What did you learn from this week?’ and then we discuss what we assume we learned. Then she corrects some points, and makes us focus on information that we need.” - Buket, Second Interview
“Hmm, what are student roles? They should study, they should come to class prepared.” - Fatih, Second Interview
“One of the things that is important is passing this course. I see some of the students jotting down notes all the time, because they think about the exam, they don’t participate in discussion, but they listen everything carefully”
- Kadir, Second Interview
Another important duty/role of the students was attending the classes. In many university settings in Turkey, attendance is voluntary and many professors do not take the roll. However, in Dr. Anne’s class it was compulsory, and not attending the classes would affect students’ final grade. Attending the class was also important for the exams. The discussion of the student roles in the interviews emphasized the traditional roles in the classroom. However, when I analyzed the discourse in the classroom, there were some instances where students moved beyond their traditional roles and initiated new topics, asked questions, changed the flow of the conversation and challenged teacher’s authority.
Discussion of the Findings
The analysis of each construct yielded some mixed implications. I observed that most of the findings were not parallel. In other words, there were instances where students used language in meaningful situations and engaged in co-construction of information and meaning (Wells, 1999a) and some others where most of the talk was teacher-dominated and students mostly parroted information from the book, and did not find many chances to elaborate upon their ideas. In a similar vein, sometimes Dr. Anne held tight classroom control, and on some other occasions, she allowed the students to take control and diverge from the flow of prescribed conversation. In my opinion, the gist of the discussion in Excerpt 3 might portray the findings of this study succinctly.
Excerpt 3
Classifying People
11
T
… err (++) unfortunately people like Dorothy always classify people according to extreme points. For example in the classroom, are you tall or are you short? Look at yourself. Ok. I’m tall, Mehmet is tall but alright Gokhan is tall.
12
Oz
Hakan is tall
13
T
Aah! Alright Hakan is tall but there are 35 people only four of us are tall. If you classify people as tall or short what happens?
14
Fe
Neither tall or short
15
T
What is this?
16
Es
Sharp distinction
17
T
Wonderful you make sharp distinction but most people are not tall and are not very short. Most people are[
18
Es
]average
19
T
Yes, this is like (++) so then you classify people as here it says whale, whale means huge[
20
Oz
]giant
21
T
or tiny not tiny but little. But that’s not realistic again. In the same way can you classify people and students and teachers good and evil bad? No because I’m not so good but I’m not so bad. Between these two.
22
Es
Prejudices
23
Fa
There is no clear cut.
24
T
Yes, that’s right. They always fit into the gray shade, we call gray area. The things are not black and white but gray.
25
Sa
I think because Dorothy err (++) has some prejudgments.
26
T
That’s right.
27
Sa
About situation, about people she gives decisions
28
T
Wonderful but, unfortunately she always looks at the extreme not the between these two.
Excerpt 3 was taken from the third hour of Week One. Dr. Anne and students were discussing the poem in the book ‘Case of Crushed Petunias’. The excerpt began with Dr. Anne’s question about classifying people in extremes. She pointed out the biases one of the characters, Dorothy, had. In this excerpt, Dr. Anne wanted to show the students that many people in life were neither tall nor short, and neither good nor evil. In fact, according to Dr. Anne, most of the people fitted into the gray shade. In a similar way, when I thought about the findings of this study, I observed that they were neither all promising nor very disappointing. To put it in a better way, some of the findings of this study were encouraging, and they exemplified dialogically-oriented discussions, on the other hand, some others were rather unsatisfactory and implied tightly controlled monologically-oriented discourse where voice of students were silenced.
Based on these findings, it was difficult to claim that ‘literary discussions in the Drama Analysis and Teaching course reached high levels of student engagement and students freely discussed any topic in their minds’, as it was not fair to say ‘the students spoke too little and did not find any chance to elaborate upon their ideas because of tight teacher control’. Overall interpretations of findings were in the gray area as Dr. Anne mentioned. In fact this interpretation was line with Akyel and Yalcin’s (1990) comments about the place of literature in English education in the Turkish context. Based on their study that focused on the state of literature teaching in the English departments of five selected private high schools, Akyel and Yalcin suggested that the Turkish educational system was “wavering between modern and traditional practices” (p. 174). To name a few examples from their study, traditional practices would include teacher centered guided questions, informative background lectures, and/or reading the text aloud or silently. On the other hand, student centered group activities such as debates, discussions or writing activities would be categorized as modern practices.
Educational Implications
From a sociocultural perspective, Gibbons (2006) argues that teacher’s main role in student learning is that of mediation and the fundamental premise of teaching as mediation is “the recognition that both language and content learning depend on the nature of the dialogue between teacher and students” (p. 174). This premise reminds teachers that they should be aware of the discourse in the classroom because discourse as a tool can impede or facilitate the emergence of learning opportunities in many classrooms. A suggestion to the teachers who use literature in their language classrooms would be giving more focus to linguistic structures and creating opportunities for students to use the target language while using/teaching literature. While discussing their results, Donato and Brooks (2004) state that “discussions that take place in literature classes have the potential to incorporate advanced proficiency goals” (p. 195), however, to achieve this goal instructors and students should be aware of and well-prepared for this potential of literary discussions.
Based on the findings of this study, specifically when the level of student utterances is taken into consideration, one can argue that the discussions in this specific literature class did not provide opportunities that would enable students to incorporate advanced level proficiency goals. As we can see in Table 3, most of the discussions in Drama Analysis and Teaching class did not reach to the discourse level, where the students produced sentences one after the other without teacher’s interruption. Possible pedagogical implications drawn from this fact would be (a) asking questions that would produce occasions of dialogical discussions, and (b) creating a classroom atmosphere where students can freely use the target language without teacher’s control and interruption.
Students’ perceptions about literature in general and literature courses in collegiate curriculum in particular might be the focus of another suggestion for teachers and educators. Most of the students in this study viewed literature classes as a part of ‘reading’ courses that were offered throughout their programs of study. In fact, this reflects a global perception of literature classes in many parts of the world by students, teachers, and researchers (Akyel & Yalcin, 1990; Carter & Long, 1991; Cho & Krashen 1994; Lao & Krashen, 2000, among others). This perception of literature might be a big barrier in front of the students (and educators) who can benefit more from the more active and participatory side of literature. The problem can be tackled by emphasizing the utilization of literary texts to improve oral skills of students with the help of techniques such as interpretive role-playing (Kramsch, 1985), critical discussion or debate based on the literary texts (Lazar, 1993), and other conversation activities (Berg, 1993; Martin, 1990).
The findings of this study also revealed that students found many chances to use English in meaningful contexts during the nine weeks of recordings. However, there were only two student-initiated episodes. There are some studies that claim that topics that are initiated by students have a better chance of being claimed to be learned (Slimani, 1989; Troudi, 1994). Particularly, it is argued that “classroom language acquisition is facilitated if the learner is able to nominate and control the topic of a conversation” (Troudi, 1994, p. 246). This argument does not sound plausible if teaching of basic skills to beginner-level learners is considered. However, it might be quite applicable in situations where content is taught to advanced-level learners. Therefore assigning an active role to students in determining the topic and flow of the conversation might result in better results with respect to learning.
Conclusion
The findings of this study, among other things, reiterated the lack of speaking and practice opportunities that literature classes may provide to foreign language learners. This problem, if taken together with the exploration of new ways about using literary texts to create pedagogically effective environments for the development of proficiency (Carter, 2007), might be a good start to think about specific features of literature and literature teaching that might have some influence on the development of second language skills such as speaking.
As it is widely acknowledged, speaking is a major problem in foreign language contexts and learners do not find enough opportunities to develop their speaking skills. Teachers and students often feel frustrated because of the limited opportunities of “speak[ing], read[ing] and writ[ing] meaningfully in English in a learning situation in which there is little of substance worth talking about” (Handscombe, 1994, p. 334). The findings of this study demonstrated that literature classes in the foreign language curriculum would be a venue to provide opportunities for the meaningful use of language in a context while most other interactions were based on some in-class mechanical drills, repetition, and memorization of chunks. However, in order to do that, foreign language literature teachers should be aware of the tool they have and develop the opportunity for discourse accordingly, which remind us, again, of the suggestions of Gibbons (2006) about the mediation role of teachers in the foreign language teaching classrooms.
Notes
1. Detailed analysis of the teacher questions in the Drama Analysis and Teaching class was conducted as well. However, because teacher questions were not the specific focus of this study, further discussion of the topic is not included. You can refer to Yuksel & Yu (2008) for further exploration of this aspect of the classroom discourse.
2. Following transcription conventions are used in this study.
Symbol
Meaning
T
Teacher Turns
Fa, Sev, Fe
Student Turns
S1, S2, S3, S4
Unidentified Student Turns
[ ]
Extra Information
(+)
Pause (number of “+” indicates the seconds)
[
]
Overlapping speech
[Tr.]
Utterances in Turkish
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Miao Yu, Dr. Deborah Hasson and Dr. Frank B. Brooks for their support and feedback during the preparation of this paper. I am also grateful to the instructor and students of the course for their cooperation and understanding during data collection.
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