How can analysis of classroom talk help teachers reflect on their practices?

Thwaite, Anne ; Rivalland, Judith

Introduction

Currently in Australia there is widespread concern about literacy standards, a concern that extends to teacher education students and in some cases teachers themselves. There is an expectation, which we support, that teachers should have a good understanding of language and the way it works if they are to be effective in their teaching of literacy, or indeed of any area. That is, teachers should have a metalanguage to enable them to reflect meaningfully on language in their teaching contexts, and to participate in spoken and written interactions about language as an object of study. This expectation is reflected in the recent National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy (DEST 2005), which gives importance to teachers' own literacy skills and their ability to teach literacy in different contexts; it is built into the STELLA standards for teachers of English (AATE 2002); and it dates from at least 1991, when the Christie Report (Christie et al. 1991) outlined the range of knowledge about language and literacy needed by teachers.

Here we describe a Language Education unit in the Bachelor of Education program in one of the largest teacher education programs in Australia. The unit was designed to increase the explicit knowledge about language (KAL) for both practising teachers and fourth year pre-service teachers, as recommended by the above-mentioned reports. A major part of this unit entailed analyses of classroom discourse, which we believed would help improve the language knowledge of university students by providing them with grammatical knowledge that would enable them to analyse lessons and thus improve the effectiveness of their teaching and student learning. We theorised that teachers would be willing to grapple with the complexity of this knowledge if they could see how it would improve their teaching. By reflecting on classroom lessons the university students (both in-service and pre-service teachers) were able to gain insight into how teacher talk plays an important role in student learning. The reflections showed that the unit had greater impact on the in-service teachers who recorded their own practice and were intimately familiar with their classrooms, although both groups of university students found the unit valuable.

Although we were aware that this unit was not unique, we chose to approach the development of the unit in the manner described because of powerful research to support such an approach (e.g. Cazden, 2001; Christie, 2002). In the introduction to her book, Cazden states that: 'only audiotapes, or less commonly videotapes, and transcripts make possible close attention to the words of a particular classroom' (2001, p. 7). Cazden goes on to demonstrate ways in which these transcripts can be analysed. Christie feels strongly that: 'unless we are willing to engage seriously with the discourse patterns particular to the institution of schooling, then we fail genuinely to understand it.' (2002, p. 2)

In this paper we use analytic tools to analyse classroom discourse and the effectiveness of teaching and learning in classrooms, as exemplified in transcripts collected by our students.

Language, culture and learning in Australian society

Our unit, 'Language, culture and learning in Australian society', was designed to attract students from the Early Childhood, Primary and Secondary programs in the Bachelor of Education. Most of the university students who enrolled in the unit had little KAL at the outset, although many of them were practising teachers. As mentioned above, a major part of the unit was devoted to classroom discourse, as we felt it was important to highlight its impact, and found that critical approaches to classroom discourse had not been emphasised in the university students' previous training.

The major assignment for this unit was for the university students to tape-record, with permission, either themselves or another teacher teaching a lesson, and to reflect on the structure of the lesson, the values and ideologies underpinning it, and the way literacy was constructed in the lesson. For the use of the transcripts below, and other material from student assignments, permission was obtained from all parties involved; all names mentioned are pseudonyms.

Theoretical background

In teaching our unit we relied largely on ideas from Systemic Functional Linguistics, particularly as applied to language in education, for example, Christie (2002), Collerson (1994, 1997), Derewianka (1991, 1998), Halliday (1994), Halliday & Hasan (1976), Martin (1992), Martin & Rose (2003), and Martin & White (2005). The reason for the choice of this model is 'the complete interconnectedness of the linguistic and the social' (Unsworth 2001, p. 16) in the theory. Systemic Functional Grammar explicitly relates features of the language to features of the social context, as will be elucidated below. It is a holistic model of language which covers all parts of language, from text in context down to the phonological level.

We provided the following tools and concepts from functional grammar to assist the learners' analysis of their lessons:

* analysis of Ideology

* analysis of Genre

* analysis of Register (Field, Tenor and Mode)

* discourse analyses

Figure 1 (below) shows the functional model of language in context from which our analyses were taken.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

Figure 1, based on the work of Martin (e.g. Martin 1992), suggests that Ideology is realised or expressed in Genres; Genres are realised in Register choices; and these, in their turn, are expressed in language.

The analyses will be explained and exemplified below.

IDEOLOGY

Our approach to the study of ideology is based on the work of Fairclough (1989), Janks (1993), Kress (1985), Kress & Hodge (1979) and Martin (1992). The term 'ideology' has been variously defined; however, we prefer the following, rather general, definition: 'a systematic body of ideas, organized from a particular point of view' (Kress & Hodge 1979, p. 6).

The university students were encouraged to consider how a teacher's point of view and values were expressed in classroom discourse. They looked at things which may be valued by teachers, including, for example, speed, memory, so-called 'general knowledge', knowledge of particular topics rather than others, recall of specific types of information such as names and 'facts', basic skills, creativity, enjoyment and particular bodily postures like sitting up straight.

Apart from these behaviours, they looked at how teachers express values in relation to the lesson content or topic. Values in a piece of discourse can be constructed by, for example, 'loaded' adjectives or other grammatical items. The students found that the way values are realised in classroom discourse may be so taken for granted that they are not easily discernible, especially by the speaker. Therefore they found tools, such as the analysis of Agency, helpful in seeing how these values can impact on classroom values and learning.

GENRE

Genre refers to 'the range of ways in which things get done in a particular society or culture' (Gibbons 2002, p. 53). For the school context, Christie (2002, p.161) provides the following definition of genres: 'staged, purposive, goal-driven activities in which teachers and students structure and organise teaching-learning processes of various kinds.'

In relation to this concept, we asked the university students to consider:

* the stages a lesson goes through to achieve the teacher's aims

* who controls these stages and how?

To help our students with their analysis of their lessons, we encouraged them to transcribe their tapes and then identify the different stages of their lessons. In order to understand the structure of each lesson they needed to ask themselves about the purpose of the different parts of the lesson and provide a label for each. So, for example, the beginning stage of a lesson was often connected to settling the school students down, which might be called 'transition'.

Having established the stages of the lesson, the university students then needed to examine each stage and decide who controlled it, for example who took the initiative and who the dominant participants were. In the majority of cases it was the teacher who had the most power, but some teachers were highly responsive to their class and permitted them the space to take control of some of the stages. For example, one teacher took on the role of one of the characters in the narrative being read and invited the school students to ask her questions.

REGISTER

The third type of analysis we introduced our university students to was the concept of register. Register refers to how the context or situation in which talk occurs can be described by the three variables of Field, Tenor and Mode (2):

Field = the subject matter and activity that is going on

Tenor = relationships among the speakers

Mode = the channel of communication

(Adapted from Halliday & Hasan 1976, p. 22)

While Genre refers to the way a text unfolds for a particular social purpose, such as a lesson, Register refers to the language choices particular to a specific context. For example, at the most basic level a well-formed lesson will have a beginning, middle and end. In each of these three sections of the lesson, language choices will be made (usually sub-consciously) relating to the topic and activities, the teacher-student relationships and the medium of communication. For instance, it is not uncommon for relationships to be slightly more formal at the beginning of a lesson where the teacher establishes authority and gains attention.

We used register theory to connect background information on the contextual situation to the language. For example, the Field or topic is expressed in content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs) in the discourse, rather than in grammatical items. Knowledge of register can be used to:

(a) plan the types of interactions the teacher wishes school students to be engaged in. The teacher will need to know the linguistic demands that each situation will place on the students.

(b) identify the related linguistic variables, in order to, firstly, relate the situation to the school students' prior knowledge and, secondly, give explicit scaffolding and input. For example, young school students may be unaccustomed to talking to particular audiences. The teacher may need to help them with terms of address for religious authorities or elders, for instance.

Looking at these variables, the university students were able to tell us about the following: the information being exchanged; the relationship between the teachers and the school students; and the role of speech, writing and physical objects in the interactions.

In the following discussion we will look at each of the three register variables in turn.

Field

In our treatment of Field, we asked students to consider the following questions:

* What is the content and focus of the lesson and how is it organised and/or shaped?

* How is the content linked to learning outcomes?

* What values are inherent in the construction of topics? (In this case there is an interrelationship between Ideology and Field.)

* Does the teacher have a preferred way in which lessons should unfold? How does this relate to the perceptions and expectations of the class?

The university students focussed on these aspects of Field by examining content words and lexical strings (see, for example, Martin 1992). In some cases it was very interesting to see how the teacher integrated more than Field. In the following example, Transcript 1, the discourse about the ostensible subject matter of the lesson and the management discourse necessary control the class were interwoven.

Most of the discourse in Transcript 1 is taken up with management; presumably the function of this is to ensure that the teacher has the children's attention for the content discourse. The transcript illustrates how she easily switches between the two types of discourse.

Some teachers are very skilled at combining the management and content discourses without disrupting the flow of the lesson. It is a tribute to these teachers that they can stay on track while managing this type of complexity. For experienced teachers this is probably an automatised skill, but beginning teachers can sometimes trip themselves up while trying to control the two discourses at once. As Christie (2002) discusses, the two types of discourse, which she refers to as 'regulative' and 'instructional' registers, have a complex relationship. Some of the university students were surprised to find that much of class time was taken up by the Field variables of management rather than knowledge development. After the students had collected and begun to analyse their data we led class discussions about what they had noticed about the discourse. Discussions around issues of management versus content discourse were highly valued by our students.

Mode and Tenor

As already defined above, the register variable Mode refers to the channel of communication in a piece of discourse. For this variable we asked university students to consider the role of speech, writing or other media in the lesson, because differences in the medium of communication will make different demands on the school students' language. As well as this, we asked about the relationship of the text (i.e., the dialogue as recorded in the transcript) to the physical situation. This also affects the type of language used, in this case whether it is 'context-embedded' or 'context-reduced' (Gibbons 2002, p. 4). In context-embedded registers, 'the visual context provides a support for meaning making' (op. cit. p. 4), through the use of props and other objects that make the referents of the discourse clear. This is not the case in contextreduced registers, where the interlocutors rely more on the language itself rather than any outside clues to meaning. Halliday and Hasan (1976) use the term 'exophoric' reference to describe words that refer to items outside the text, e.g. words such as 'that' and 'those' can be used without being able to name the items that are present in the situation. For speakers who are still learning English, this means that they can participate in interactions without having an extensive vocabulary.

For example, the teacher's utterances in Transcript 2 are very closely related to the situation, illustrating a context-embedded register.

In this transcript references to the immediate situation are shown in bold. Without being present in the situation we do not know what 'this one', 'these' or 'that high' referred to. However, students who were present would not have to use explicit vocabulary to refer to 'this one' or 'these'. Therefore the visual information available would support their learning in this case. However, students who were not looking at the board may not understand what is under discussion.

Thinking about Mode helps teachers plan the physical setting and resources used in classroom activities, as they become aware of the relationship between these and the language used. Looking closely at the Mode also enabled the university students to understand the differences between speech and writing. This, in turn, assisted them in conceptualising the extent of the leap that school students must make when developing written literacy.

As already defined above, Tenor refers to the relationships among the speakers in any given situation. We spent time in class discussing Tenor in terms of the relationships among participants in the discourse, including among the school students in the tape-recorded classes. For example, we examined how these relationships were expressed in Modality (e.g. 'certainty markers' and hedges) and pronouns. Teachers, for instance, were more likely to sound certain of what they said than school students were. Teachers also sometimes made use of the stereotypical 'we' as an indication of building solidarity with the students. Consideration of the Tenor helps teachers critique the social setting of the discourse.

Discourse analyses: Ways of thinking and talking in classrooms

Much of our work with the university students involved various types of discourse analysis, primarily from a functional perspective. We did also make use of the concept of 'interactive trouble', derived from Conversation Analysis, however, due to constraints of space, we do not discuss this here. Our use of the term 'discourse analysis' here refers to analyses below the level of register (see Figure 1, above). A register analysis describes the context of situation in broad terms, for example in terms of the overall topic (Field) of the discourse. A discourse analysis looks more closely at smaller units such as turns at talk, as is illustrated below.

Initiation/Response/Feedback (IRF)

This model, sometimes known as Initiation/Response/Evaluation, derives from the work of Sinclair and Coulthard (1975), and has been developed in the work of Cazden (2001), Christie (2002), Martin (1992), Ventola (1987) and Wells (1993), among others.

An example of an IRF sequence is:

Teacher: Can you tell me why do you eat all that food? (Initiation)

Pupil: To keep you strong. (Response)

Teacher: To keep you strong. Yes. To keep you strong. (Feedback)

(Adapted from Sinclair and Coulthard, 1975:, p.21)

We found that the university students easily picked up the concept of IRF, and that it was a useful introduction to discourse analysis. We used IRF to examine the roles played by different participants in the lesson, and the distribution of power and control. The teacher is constructed as a controller, guide or facilitator through the structure of the discourse. For example, if Initiation is usually done by the teacher, it may indicate their dominance in the classroom. On the other hand, if students feel free to Initiate, it may show that the teacher values their contributions. Responses by the teacher to the school students' Initiations can also show what sort of knowledge the teachers consider important. (Interpretation of IRF structures will of course depend on the individual contexts.)

The IRF structure of Transcript 3, below, shows that the teacher values the first language of child B, who volunteers information about it.

While an IRF analysis may not be the best way of capturing 'what is going on' here, it does show that child B feels comfortable about contributing some information about his first language (turn 12). The teacher's response to this suggests that she values his contribution, firstly in that she explicitly thanks him for it, secondly in that she finds out from him how to say it and spell it correctly, and thirdly in that she writes it beside the English word, giving it equal status. An Exchange Structure analysis (See below.) would further explain what is happening here. However, from the perspective of Field we would also need to ask about the clarity of information in Transcript 5. The question asked was, 'What are some of the things on the elephant's body?' It is assumed that the teacher is asking what the parts of an elephant's body are. If so, the answer provided is not pertinent, since the response given is about actions undertaken by elephants. However, the teacher accepts this answer and encourages discussion to continue around it, before redirecting the talk in turn 21. She has used this opportunity to affirm the children's contributions; even though they were not in the direction she had anticipated. This issue of effective and clear responses relating to the subject was a very important one for the university students, because some of them realised they were affirming inaccurate information in the process of trying to encourage children.

One of the important uses of the IRF analysis is that it can indicate which school students' contributions are considered important; the Feedback move, used for evaluation and praise, is particularly relevant for this purpose. While teaching this unit we discussed multilingualism and some of the ways in which school students' first languages can be valued, of which Transcript 3 is an example. This had a positive effect on the university students, one of whom, a Year 1 teacher, decided to implement bilingual news telling in her classroom one morning a week with the help of her Vietnamese-speaking Teachers Aide.

Speech Function

Drawing on the work of Halliday (1994) and Martin (1992), we introduced university students to the concept of Speech Function (2). We focussed primarily on different types of Initiations: Questions, Commands, Offers and Statements (2). Regarding Questions, we asked our students to consider:

* who uses them?

* what is their purpose?

* how do the Questions position the participants?, and

* what assumptions do participants make about them?

Question and answer sequences can either be structured to allow school students to explain and elaborate on their answers, or else to restrict what they say to what is short and expected. This may also affect the teacher-student relationship, as providing opportunities for extended input from the school students will enable teachers to get to know them better. Some of the teachers in our class did not realise that they were asking so many closed Questions until they had recorded and transcribed their lessons.

The different types of Commands were examined for their relationship with power. Commands may be realised directly or indirectly. Examples of indirect Commands are T: 'That's not how we ... hold our crayons at school' (Text collected from Pre-primary class), which refers to institutional values, and T: 'I think we'd better remember our manners' (Text collected from Year 1 class), a modalised inclusive direction. Confusion can arise if it is not clear where the power lies, as in the following example, Transcript 4:

Here a school student, Josh, has taken the teacher's Statement in turn 12 as an invitation to visit the Principal, seeming to assume that this overrides the normal rules about asking permission to leave the class. Even when the teacher challenges him she does so with a polite Question (turn 15) and a Statement (turn 17), as opposed to, for example, a more direct 'Get back to your seat right now!' (a Command). The problem for Josh and the other students is that the teacher has not made clear the conditions under which her Offer to leave the room could be actioned.

Exchange Structure

Exchange Structure is a type of discourse analysis which provides an alternative to a Speech Function analysis. While some of the categories of the two types of analysis overlap, Exchange Structure provides an extra dimension in that it allows description of dynamic aspects of the discourse. Our use of Exchange Structure analysis follows Berry (1981a, 1981b, 1981c), Martin (1992) and Ventola (1987). We investigated the following features:

(a) Primary knower role (including delayed primary knower). The primary knower role is the role taken on by the speaker who is constructing themself as the 'expert' on the topic under discussion. In many cases this is, of course, the teacher. However, the primary knower role can change rapidly through the discourse and school students may take up, or may be given, this role when they are the 'experts' on topics of personal significance to them. The delayed primary knower is predominantly taken on by the teacher, in 'teacher knows the answer' questions. The university students found the analysis of the primary knower role especially useful. On reflection, one wrote: 'I have disempowered the students by being the only primary knower and dispensing learning like Father Christmas dispenses presents.' (Secondary Physics teacher).

(b) Predictable and unpredictable moves

(c) Dynamic aspects of the exchange (usually involving unpredictable moves). These included turn-taking and turn allocation, who is allowed to talk to whom, length of turn, topic control, interruptions, challenges, and misunderstandings and their repair.

An analysis of the dynamics of the exchange can demonstrate, among other things, whether school students are given opportunities to explain or elaborate upon their answers to the teacher's questions. It can show whether these students feel able to challenge the remarks of their classmates or the teacher, and will identify students who are reluctant to speak or reluctant to initiate, thus contributing to a discussion of power distribution in the discourse. The discourse dynamics can be investigated to see whether factors such as gender, ethnicity, language background or perceived ability may influence students' access to what is happening in class.

The dynamics of the following transcript from an Intensive Language Centre, Transcript 5, , show how excited the children are by the Field, and how keen they are to participate in the conversation, even though they have not been learning English for very long. Their excitement is translated into utterances which are relatively lengthy given their English experience, and responses to open questions such as 'why' questions.

A Mode analysis of the above transcript would comment on, among other things, how the children make use of a non-verbal (gesture) and a paralinguistic feature (chicken noise) in their communication with the teacher, as they are still learning English vocabulary and structures. However, it is interesting to see that in this phase of the lesson the teacher does not provide models of the correct structures in her feedback to them, as some teachers might. For example, following turn 24 she could have provided the model, 'Yes, that's dirty water' or 'Yes, the water is dirty'. Alternatively, she could have provided some feedback with correct English structures at the end of the episode. She chose instead to allow the children turns to contribute and to behave a little more like a 'normal' conversational partner rather than a teacher.

The above transcript illustrates these school students' conversational abilities. Although their English vocabulary and grammar are still developing, there is no doubt about their skills as participants in interactions, such as producing relevant, extended and expressive utterances and answering interlocutor's questions. Observing students in situations like this will help teachers assess what they are able to already do in spoken discourse, in this case in a group situation, and what they may still need help with.

Conclusion

Even within a one-semester unit, pre- and in-service teachers were able to use the knowledge about language to which we introduced them to reflect meaningfully on their contexts and practices. The analysis of classroom discourse tends to be an under-emphasised area in teacher education, perhaps partly because it is quite time-consuming. In the current climate where literacy skills of both teachers and school students are under the spotlight, we feel that it is important for teachers to have this kind of knowledge about language. We found that through participating in this unit our pre- and in-service teachers increased their understanding of the way classroom discourse can construct the meanings arrived at by school students. As well as this, they became aware of the potential for serious miscommunication in the discourse and, perhaps, more able to avoid this. The university students became far more conscious of their own classroom behaviour: how they shape the discourse of their lessons and, in some cases, the benefits of using accurate and explicit language to ensure clarity. According to the feedback provided to us, such analysis enables teachers to critique their own teaching and to understand how some of their students' misunderstandings arise. One of these teachers reported that the unit had changed her life.

Our work with these learners has shown that, with some exceptions, teachers lacked explicit knowledge about the structure and function of language, or, alternatively, they lacked experience in discussing and analysing their language explicitly. Our experience, both past and current, shows that the school system is not ensuring that pre- service teachers arrive at university with explicit KAL.

It is often difficult for teachers to find the time to reflect during the busy and demanding school day. However, when teachers understand the value of discourse analysis, tape-recording a lesson does not seem to be so onerous given the insights it can provide. Obviously it would not be possible to record and analyse all lessons in this way, but a great deal of information can be gathered from just one lesson. The university students were often surprised at what they discovered, giving comments in their assignments such as, 'I have found that I am not as aware of what is occurring within my classroom as I previously thought' (Secondary Physics teacher). One of the other in-service teachers did not realise that her students were not meeting her expectations in the news telling genre until she had recorded and transcribed a news telling lesson in her class. She found that her students were not covering all the elements required of a good Orientation to clarify their news, and realised that she needed to model the elements more clearly for them. In another case a teacher found that he needed to reframe his lesson objectives, as his analysis showed that they were not explicit enough. While an intuitive approach helped the university students to start to critique the discourse they recorded, explicit knowledge about language enabled them to move further in discussing and evaluating this discourse.

We found that classroom discourse analysis and a critical and analytic approach to spoken, written and multimedia texts in their own classroom contexts helped our students to be reflective practitioners. In turn, this could assist them in passing critical literacy skills onto their own students. We have found that the knowledge taught in this unit was most useful in supporting teachers to be reflective about their practice. The skills developed by the university students clearly helped them understand how to become a more effective teacher.

References

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Anne Thwaite and Judith Rivalland

EDITH COWAN UNIVERSITY

Notes

(1.) An earlier version of this paper was presented as a keynote address to the International Systemic Functional Congress, Sydney University, 2005.

(2.) In functional grammar it is customary to write technical terms that are labels for functions and metafunctions with an initial capital.

(3.) We would like to thank Dr Caroline Barratt-Pugh, Dr Ann Galloway and Dr John Hall for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

Transcript 1
Year 1 class: Writing number stories

T = teacher; other letters represent children's names
(...) = uncertain transcription
Bold = management discourse

1 T Right, eyes to me please, on your bottoms please. Yes
 Jessica?

2 J (Can I a lease go to the toilet?)

3 T Be very very quick Jessica because we're doing very important
 learning here.

4 B (Can I go to the toilet too?)

5 T I'd like you to wait till she comes back please.

6 Looking this way, your beautiful eyes to me please. Everyone
 looking up here.

7 Quickly Jessica. Danielle, eyes up to me please.
 Rory, eyes up to me please.

8 We're now going to write a story about these fish and you're
 going to have an opportunity to write your own story in a
 moment so,

9 I'm just waiting for Joel to cross his legs please. Right,
 looking this way and sit on your bottom please. Danielle,
 eyes to me please.

10 Now, my story has to be the same as my sum, okay? I need to
 do the same information. I'm not 1. to say there were ten
 fish,

11 Right, come in and sit down please. Thanks, quickly. Right,
 Alex, sit right here please. Right, Bailey, can you move back
 a bit please? No, stand up. Mitchell, can you move over there
 please next to Joel? Right, sit down there please, ...
 excellent. Right, eyes to me please, looking this way. Rory,
 looking at me please.

12 So we've got three fish here ...

Transcript 2
Primary class: Spelling exercises

T 1 Okay, here comes the next word. This one's a hard one,
 so watch.
 [Writes jumbled word on the board.]

 2 It's a very funny word as far as I'm concerned. I don't
 know what it is.

 3 I'm going to move so the other people can see in a
 minute.

 4 Hand up the person who's doing the talking over the other
 side.

 5 Did I ask that? That wasn't the person I was looking at.
 I know who it is. I want him standing up.

 6 Are you the person that was talking?

 7 That should be eight words.

 8 If you look in the book you will find these, but I wrote
 them on the board. The words that I want you to do in
 this book, I will talk to you about in a little while.
 So keep looking at these over here.

 9 Yes, David, what was the first word?

David 10 Fur.

T 11 Come here. You can write it. Can you reach up that high,
 or do you need a chair?

David 12 Yeah!

T 13 These should have gone away before play, shouldn't they?

Transcript 3
Intensive Language Centre Year 4/5, Phase 1 class:
Talking about zoo animals

T 1 OK, here's the elephant book we had a look at yesterday.
 What are some of the things on the elephant's body?
 2 Yes?
J 3 Elephants can sit on the floor?
T 4 That's right Josephine, elephants can ...
K 5 ... happy!
T 6 Elephants can sit ...
K 7 Happy...
T 8 Yes, just a minute, Karwan, let's finish this sentence
 and you can tell me our sentence.
K 9 OK
T 10 Good boy.
 11 Elephants can sit on the floor. Do we say floor if it's
 outside?
B 12 I In Bosnia we say 'sula'.
T 13 R Thanks, B.
 14 I How do you spell that?
B 15 R S...U...L...A
T 16 I Can you say it again?
B 17 R Sula
T 18 F Sula. OK.
 19 I In English we say 'ground'. I'll write the two words
 together. So when it is outside like in the playground or
 in the grass we say the 'ground' and when it is in your
 house or inside the classroom we say the 'floor'.
 20 K, move over now.
 21 Let's think of some things the elephant has on its body.

Transcript 4
Maths class (all boys)

1 T I know it's hard, boys. It is very, very hot, none of us
 want to be here but we can't let you go till half-past three
 so you'll just have to put up with it. That is the way it is
 ...
2 S1 What is the temperature?
3 S2 Maybe it's above 40C!
4 S1 We get to go home if it is above 40C.
5 T Is that so?
6 S3 It is only 35C.
7 Ss (...)
8 T Shhhhh [pause] Boys! If you feel it's above 40C and it
 isn't, it is probably because of the humidity.
9 Ss (...)
10 T If you feel the school should be allowed to go out [pause]
11 S1 Go home.
12 T Go home [pause] And you are prepared to go to Mr B and ask
 for permission, I tell you what, if you are prepared to do
 that, you are a lot braver than I am!
13 S1 What if it is over 40C?
14 J [Josh gets a from his desk and marches towards the door.]
15 T Err [pause] Excuse me! Josh! Where are you going?
16 Ss He is off to see Mr B.
17 T You don't leave the class without my permission!
18 J But [pause] you said [pause]
19 T Nobody leaves without my permission. Nobody actually said
 that I am reared to go.
20 Ss [Students murmur among themselves with discontent.]

Transcript 5
Intensive Language Centre Year 1, Phase 1+ group (6 children): Talking
about chickens

All the group had experienced hatching chicks in their classroom.

(... ) = untranscribable

 1 T What are the chicks like now?

 2 R Now like a big chicken.

 3 S Is nearly big.

 4 T They are growing.

 5 L Very big

 6 A Get big and big and big and big.

 7 L And chicken big and sometime go home.

 8 T Why?

 9 K Because ...


10 L [Interrupts] They big chicken ... too big. [All start
 talking at once.]

11 T Can we have one person talking at a time? I can't hear you
 if you all talk together.

12 K They have wings.

13 R Little wings ... not big wings.

14 S Have feathers ... feathers.

15 L I like the yellow one.

16 R I like the orange one. [All start to tell what they like.]

17 T What else can you tell me about them?

18 R They grow and big.

19 K The eat (...) ... eat food.

20 T What sort of food?

21 S Little bit.

22 K Little bit like that [gestures on hand] ... chicken food.

23 R They like water.

24 H And he dirty water.

25 K They ... they ... and the water everywhere.

26 T Are the messy?

27 K The walk in water.

28 H They splash ... splash.

29 A Yeah, yeah, splash ... splash.

30 T Do they make a big mess?

31 All Yes, yeah.

32 T How do you keep where they live clean?

33 R I dunno

34 K Outside ... outside.

35 L Paper.

36 S Newspaper.

37 K I see him. He live in a box.

38 T Why do they live in a box?

39 H Mrs H. put them in a box.

40 T Why?

41 H Because the run away.

42 A Go chee chee chee chee [makes chick noise].

43 S And he do poo poo!

44 T Oh, we don't want that all over the classroom do we?