The Co-Construction of Knowledge in Foreign Language Teacher–Student Classroom Interactions

Abstract

Interactions between instructors and students in the foreign language (FL) classroom have been researched from various angles, among others, in the fields of discourse analysis and conversation analysis (Markee, 2015a). While research has shown that classroom interactions facilitate learning (Walsh, 2011), an in-depth semantic perspective is rarely adopted. This study investigates how instructors at a private university in the United States support the co-construction of both language and content knowledge through their oral interactions with learners in a German FL class while discussing a magazine article. A systemic functional linguistics (SFL) framework has been used for the qualitative analysis of discourse semantics and lexicogrammar in classroom discourse. SFL was chosen due to its functional view of linguistic resources. Specifically, the concepts of SPEECH FUNCTIONS, MOOD, CLAUSE COMPLEX, and TRANSITIVITY informed the analysis of transcribed observations of three content- and language-integrated FL classrooms. The analysis was triangulated with semi-structured interviews with the respective instructor.

The analysis of SPEECH FUNCTIONS reveals that the discourse semantic moves of registering, elaborating, and extending can be particularly effective in the elicitation of knowledge. Furthermore, clarifying and confronting rejoinder moves seem to play an important role for the co-construction of knowledge. As far as linguistic realizations are concerned, all three instructors use a type of mitigation strategy for giving commands. The MOOD analysis shows that questions are usually congruently realized as wh- and polar interrogatives. On the syntactic level, instructors use less projection in their CLAUSE COMPLEXES than their students, who seem to quote the text as support for their statements. Finally, the TRANSITIVITY analysis demonstrates the instructors’ individual differences and their flexibility in word choices, despite the overlap of instructional materials. This research suggests a stronger focus on the effect of different discourse semantic moves and their linguistic realizations in teacher training and pedagogical practices for fostering more productive classroom communications. For example, an increased use of rejoinder moves can encourage the co-construction of content and language knowledge.