CLASSROOM DISCOURSE

The term classroom discourse refers to the language that teachers and students use to
communicate with each other in the classroom. Talking, or conversation, is the medium
through which most teaching takes place, so the study of classroom discourse is the study of
the process of face-to-face classroom teaching.

The earliest systematic study of classroom discourse was reported in 1910 and used
stenographers to make a continuous record of teacher and student talk in high school
classrooms. The first use of audiotape recorders in classrooms was reported in the 1930s, and
during the 1960s there was a rapid growth in the number of studies based on analysis of
transcripts of classroom discourse. In 1973, Barak Rosenshine and Norma Furst described
seventy-six different published systems for analysing classroom discourse.

It soon became clear from these early studies that the verbal interaction between teachers and
students had an underlying structure that was much the same in all classrooms, and at all
grade levels, in English-speaking countries. Essentially, a teacher asks a question, one or two
students answer, the teacher comments on the students' answers (sometimes summarizing
what has been said), and then asks a further question. This cyclic pattern repeats itself, with
interesting variations, throughout the course of a lesson.

The following excerpt from a whole-class discussion in a fifth-grade science class illustrates
the nature of this typical participation structure. The teacher was reviewing what the students
learned earlier in the day during a science activity on light.

Teacher. What's transparent? Something is transparent. What does that mean? We did that
this morning, didn't we? What does transparent mean?

Valerie. Ah, it doesn't … It goes through.

Teacher. Can you explain that a little more? What goes through?

Valerie. Well it goes through like, um … You can, like, you shine a torch on and you can see.

Teacher. What goes through?

Valerie. The light.
Teacher. The light. Light can pass through something if it's transparent. What's the next one?
Translucent. What does it mean? Jordan?

Jordan. Um, just some light can get through.

Teacher. Absolutely. Some light can get through. Can you look around the room and see an
example of something that might be translucent? Well, you all can tell me something in here
that's translucent because you discovered something this morning that would let some light
through. What was it?

Clarice. Paper.

Teacher. Right. Some paper is translucent. It will allow some light to pass through it. Think
of something else that's translucent.

Morgan. Oh, um, the curtains over there, you can see right through them.

Teacher. OK. Yes that's interesting. They do let some light through don't they. Another
example? Think about light bulbs. Do you think some light bulbs would be translucent?

Pupils. Yes.

Teacher. They would allow some light through?

Pupil. No. Transparent.

Teacher. You think they're transparent. They let all the light through. I'm not too sure about
that one either. So we might investigate that one.

This excerpt contains two episodes, each initiated by a question ("What does transparent
mean?" and "Translucent. What does it mean?"). Within each episode the teacher directed the
discussion by commenting on student answers and asking further questions. Each question set
off a question-answer-comment cycle. At the beginning of the first episode, the teacher set
the context by repeating the question several times and reminding the students that they had
learned the answer during the morning's activity. This focused the students' attention and let
them know (from their previous experiences with this teacher) that they were expected to
know the answer.

The first answer (from Valerie) was not in the appropriate language of a definition. Through
two further questions the teacher elicited the missing information and, through a summary,
modelled the form of a scientific definition ("Light can pass through something if it's
transparent.").

In the next episode, after Jordon copied this model to define translucent, the teacher asked a
question to find out if the students understood the term well enough to identify an example
("Can you look around the room and see an example?"). After two answers (paper, curtains)
the teacher provided additional help by suggesting an example (light bulb) and asking if the
students agreed.

This excerpt illustrates how teachers use questions and student answers to progressively
create the curriculum, to engage the students' minds, and to evaluate what the students know
and can do. Underlying this exchange are the implicit rules and expectations that determine
what, and how, teachers and students communicate. Each statement depends for its meaning
on the context in which it occurs and, in turn, adds to the context that determines the meaning
of subsequent statements.

Analysis of the patterns of interaction characteristic of most classrooms has shown that, on
average, teachers talk for more than two-thirds of the time, a few students contribute most of
the answers, boys talk more than girls, and those sitting in the front and center of the class are
more likely to contribute than those sitting at the back and sides. Bracha Alpert has identified
three different patterns of classroom discourse: (1) silent (the teacher talks almost all the time
and asks only an occasional question),(2) controlled (as in the excerpt above), and (3) active
(the teacher facilitates while the students talk primarily to each other). Recent attempts to
reform teaching based on constructivist views of learning have called for teachers to ask
fewer questions and for students to learn to state and justify their beliefs and argue
constructively about reasons and evidence.

Earlier research on classroom discourse tended to focus on specific teacher or student

behaviors, and, because of the key role that they play, teacher questions have been most
frequently studied. Questions that challenge students to think deeply about the curriculum are
more likely to develop students' knowledge and intellectual skills than questions that require
recall of facts. In the excerpt above, the first question required simple recall ("what does
transparent mean?) while the last question ("do you think some light bulbs would be
transparent?") required the students to apply their understanding of transparent to their own
experience.
The results of this early research were often equivocal, and researchers have argued more
recently that specific utterances cannot be separated from the context in which they occur.
Greater attention is now being paid to the ways in which meanings evolve as teachers and
students mutually construct the unique discourse (with its roles, rules, and expectations) that
characterizes each classroom.

An entirely different form of classroom discourse occurs when students are working together
in small groups. The following excerpt is from a sixth-grade class studying Antarctica. The
teacher organized the students to work in groups of two or three and instructed the students to
"write down all the different types of jobs that you think people might do down in
Antarctica." Ben, Paul, and Jim worked together, and Ben wrote down the list that they
created. A nearby group consisted of Tilly, Koa, and Nell.

Ben. Most of the people there are scientists. In fact, just about all of them are.

Jim. Even the cooks would be scientists?

Ben. Not necessarily. OK.

Jim. Some of them?

Ben. Pilots.

Jim. Yeah, they'd need pilots.

Ben. All the things that need to be done to keep you living. You know, you need to have
food, you need to have shelter.

Jim. I know, a driver. But you could have a scientist to be a driver.

Ben. What else would they do? A-ah, what are they called? I don't know.

Jim. Maintenance man. Maintenance man.

Tilly (overhearing). Thank you. Maintenance person!

Jim. Or lady. Maintenance person.

Paul. I'll tell you what. Um, explorer.

Jim. Um, expedition leader.

Ben (aware that the next group is listening). Just whisper, will you?

(to next group) Stop copying, you lot. Can't you use your own brain?

Jim. Yeah, they haven't got any brain to use.

Ben. Exactly.

Tilly. How many have you got [on your list]?

Jim. Twenty-eight thousand.

Ben. You'll have a job to beat that.

Jim (whispering to Ben). Mm. Builder?

Ben (to teacher passing group). They're copying.

Tilly and Nell. We are not.

Jim. Yeah, they are too.

Teacher. Oh, you don't need that sort of carry on.

Jim. Let's see, um … um … a guide.

Ben. Isn't that kind of like a leader?

Jim. No, 'cause the expedition leader is a leader. He just, the guide knows where everything
is. The expedition leader doesn't.

Ben. An expedition leader has to know where everything is as well, or else he wouldn't be an
expedition leader 'cause he's supposed to guide them all around the place and tell 'em where
to go. He's the most experienced and therefore he should be the guide.

Jim. Yeah, but first of all they'd need a guide that's been there. While he's learning.

Ben. Well, he wouldn't be the leader while he was learning.

Jim. Yeah.

Unlike the teacher-led discussions, the structure of this excerpt is determined by the social
relationships between the students. Paul and Jim thought Ben knew a lot and encouraged him
to assume a leadership role. Mimicking the role of a teacher, he evaluated Jim's contributions
("Not necessarily. OK."), and provided guidance about how to think about the problem ("All
the things that need to be done to keep you living."). When Jim suggested "guide," Ben
questioned whether this was different from "expedition leader." Jim tried to defend his
suggestion but, in the face of Ben's reasons and authority, he agreed with Ben. Researchers
have noted that students are more likely to have their thinking changed by their peers than by
their teacher, and that resolving differences is simultaneously about negotiating social
relationships and consideration of reasons and evidence.

In this classroom there was an underlying competitiveness, and the teacher had previously
talked with the students about the gender bias in their texts and personal experiences. These
two agendas combined in the conflict that erupted between Ben's and Tilly's groups. When
Tilly overheard Jim use a sexist title ("maintenance man"), she corrected him. This alerted
Ben to the possibility that Tilly's group was listening and copying his group's ideas. He told
his own group to whisper and told the other group they had no brains. Jim followed Ben's
lead ("Yeah, they haven't got any brain to use") and challenged Tilly's group by claiming they
had a list of "twenty-eight thousand" items. Clearly, the structure and function of this
discourse reflects both the requirements of the task and the evolving social relationships and
culture (e.g., about gender and ability differences) of this class.

Classroom Discourse and Learning

There have been two distinct approaches to explaining how classroom discourse relates to
what students learn. Since the 1960s a large number of studies have been carried out in which
frequencies of teacher and student verbal behaviors and interaction patterns (such as asking
higher-order questions, providing structuring information, praising student answers) have
been correlated with student achievement. These developed into experimental studies in
which teachers were scripted to talk in specific predetermined ways. Such studies came to be
criticized for their impersonal empiricism and lack of theory. They failed to consider the
contextual nature of classroom discourse, particularly the meanings that participants
attributed to what was being said.

As interest in the constructivist nature of language developed, researchers argued that the
learning process was contained in the process of participating in classroom discourse. As
students engage in the discourse they acquire ways of talking and thinking that characterize a
particular curriculum area. For example, to learn science is to become an increasingly expert
participant in classroom discourse about the procedures, concepts, and use of evidence and
argument that constitutes science. This approach is supported by the theories of the Russian
psychologist Lev Vygotsky who argued that the higher mental processes are acquired through
the internalization of the structures of social discourse. There is still a need, however, for
these detailed linguistic and ethnographic analyses of classroom discourse to include
independent evidence of how students' knowledge and beliefs are changed by their
participation in the discourse.