I successfully
completed the course above on 16th December 2017 and following is my
certificate, my course progress chart and the full description of the
course. I found the course very useful
and effective.
UCI1x (September
2017)
Understanding Classroom
Interaction
Welcome!
Have you ever
wondered why some classroom discussions are lively and engaging and others more
like painful interrogations? Why some students always have an answer ready, but
others never participate? Why everybody (or nobody) laughs at a teacher’s
jokes? What role multiple languages should play in classroom talk? This course
gives classroom teachers at all levels and subject areas the analytic tools to
answer these and more questions about classroom communication. Each lesson introduces
fundamental concepts and techniques of classroom discourse analysis, developing
an analytic toolkit and promoting critical reflection on pedagogical practices
overs the course of five modules.
Instructors:
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Betsy R. Rymes, PhD. Instructor
Chair; Educational Linguistics Division
Graduate School of Education
University of Pennsylvania
Andrea Leone-Pizzighella, TA
PhD. Candidate in Educational Linguistics
Graduate School of Education
University of Pennsylvania
Objectives
You will learn
about:
• turn-taking
patterns and their function
• question types
and their effects on classroom talk
• the role of
intonation, gesture and other subtle cues on interaction
• types and
functions of classroom storytelling
• types of class
participation and their effects
Prerequisites
This course is
designed for practicing teachers as well as for undergraduate (3rd/4th year)
and graduate students who are student teaching or tutoring. There are no
content prerequisites for taking this course. However, we encourage learners to
take edX Demo101.
Please familiarize
yourself with the privacy and policy statement of edX before taking edX
courses: https://www.edx.org/edx-terms-service
Course Format
This is a
self-paced course with five modules. All modules will be released on September
19, 2017, at 9:00am EST (14:00 UTC). All coursework (including Discussions,
Quizzes, and Final Exam) must be completed by the close of the course—12 months
from the course open date—on September 19, 2018 at 9:00 am EST (14:00 UTC).
However, learners are encouraged to proceed through the course by completing
one module per week. The course takes most learners five weeks to complete.
More information on UTC conversion can be found at this link: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html
A time commitment
of 2-3 hours per module is expected. The Teaching Assistant (TA) will be
available to facilitate discussions on the discussion forum and provide
additional guidance on the assignments as needed. If you have any questions
regarding the assignments, please review the forums to determine if the
question has already been asked and/or answered. If it has not, we invite you
to post your question in the discussion forum, and the TA will respond within
48 hours.
Each module will
contain the following components:
• Lecture
videos
o 6-10 short
lectures (or approximately 45-90 minutes of video content) per module
o Cover all
content necessary for answering assessment questions
• Quizzes
o 5-question
graded assessment each module
o Two attempts are
permitted per question
• Final
Assignment
o Short discourse
analysis of turn-taking, questions, contextualization resources,
storytelling, or participant structures
in your classroom
o Open-response
reflection and identification of these structures is required
• Discussion
Forum
o Participation in
discussion forums is CRUCIAL as it is our means of interaction in a
class about interaction ☺
o Please exercise
good judgment and appropriate forum etiquette
▪ Be respectful of
your fellow learners
▪ Focus your
discussion on the course content
Grading
Grading will be based on:
• Quizzes (80% of your grade) – Two attempts are
permitted per question
• Final Assignment (20% of your grade)
A composite grade
of 75% is considered a passing grade. Learners who complete the course
requirements on the verified certificate track will receive a web certificate.
Learners on the audit track will see their achievement reflected in their
course profile.
This course uses
the edX honor code. Please do not use
any reference material while completing quizzes.
Course Outline
Module One:
Introduction to classroom interaction (What is it and why do it?)
• Introduction to
previous classic research and reasons for studying classroom
interaction.
• Introduction to
basic terminology of the field and brief examples of how this
terminology can be used to focus our
observation of classroom talk.
Module Two:
Turn-taking patterns and question types
• Introduction to
typical turn-taking patterns, the different types of questions teachers
and students ask and the consequences for
student engagement and learning.
• Students will
view examples of different types of questions and analyze the way
classroom discussions develop around them.
Module Three:
Beyond Language: The role of intonation, gesture and other non-linguistic
cues on
interaction
• Introduction to
the concept of “contextualization cues,” that is the role of gesture,
posture, dress, and appearance in cueing how
teachers and students understand and
contribute to classroom interaction.
Module Four: Types
and functions of classroom storytelling
• Review of
classic research literature on storytelling in classrooms, from pre-school
“sharing time” to literature and science discussions. Examples illustrate
techniques of
narrative analysis in everyday classroom
settings.
Module Five: Types
of participation and their effects
• Introduction to
different participant structures with emphasis on the joint nature of
any classroom talk (from group work to
teacher-delivered lectures). Examples of how
different frameworks for participation in
classrooms affects who talks, what gets said,
and how.
• “Tying it all
together” and analyzing individual repertoire within shared participant
structures: Final Discourse Analysis and
Reflection
Final Assignment. You are to do the following:
1.
Transcribe an event
-
Identify a Recurring Event in your classroom, workplace, community
- Record that Event—audio and video, if
possible (make sure you get permission
from participants)
- Transcribe the audio so you can investigate
closely (or, if not possible to record, take
extremely good notes of the event
and analyze them thoroughly)
2. Identify the “hot-spots”
- Foiled expectations
- Turn-taking & Questions
- contextualization resources
- Storytelling
- participant structures
- The role of individual communicative repertoire
- Anything that otherwise catches your attention
3. Analyze the event
- Identify possible explanations for your foiled expectations
- Turn-taking & Questions
- contextualization resources
- Storytelling
- participant structures
-The role of individual
communicative repertoire
4. Discuss
implications for ongoing interaction in your context
-what questions do you now have after analyzing this data
-what would be important for participants in this setting
to consider/be aware of going
forward?
-are your observations and findings something that
occurred in isolation, or are they "norms"
of this setting?
What COULD that imply?
After recording, transcribing, and analyzing your data,
pick three significant findings and the examples of those findings in the
transcript itself. Discuss your context, findings, and possible implications
and SUBMIT THIS in the OPEN RESPONSE SECTION BELOW. You can also upload a PDF
file below if you prefer (note: this is 20% of your grade).
Additionally, you will grade 3 of your peers' responses
using the rubric provided. ASSESSING YOUR PEERS IS THE ONLY WAY TO RECEIVE A GRADE
ON THIS ASSIGNMENT.
Final assignment
Context: The conversation in this
video takes place among three friends (two girls and a boy) and a waitress in a
restaurant. One girl wants to go out for a dinner with her friend, so she calls
her and invites her to a particular restaurant where they meet another friend
(male) by chance. They all go to the restaurant and order food and drinks they
prefer. While eating, they talk about the quality of food and what their current
work is. After eating, finally, they pay the bill and leave the restaurant. The
students study different majors at the university and English conversation is
one of the compulsory subjects they should study during their bachelor’s degree
program. Their ages range from 17 to 20 and their first language is Thai. They
study English as a foreign language in both school and tertiary level contexts.
Turn-taking &
Questions:
As this conversation takes places in a restaurant among friends, this can be
thought of as a casual conversation in which the participant structure is whole
group discussion. Therefore, each one is free to talk with the other friends. The
conversation goes on in a natural way as if it were really happening in a
restaurant because the turn-taking and questioning pattern are not disruptive
in that each student gets a chance to interact with other three participants.
Given this, it can be said that the interaction pattern which can be observed
in this discussion is mostly IRE but not always. In this conversation, no one
dominates but equality shares their ideas with one another in a relaxed
atmosphere. They use the right language to ask questions and respond relevant
to this specific situation (E.g., Let’s meet at Milky restaurant, How about the
food? Good evening, please take seats).
Foiled expectations: This conversation is not
free of foiled expectations. A good example to prove this can be linked to the
confusion which the boy gets when he is asked “Oh! I see. Can I taste it?” by
his friend (A). The boy does not seem to understand what she asks, Instead, he
himself is starting to taste the food again. This incident makes others laugh
(Please watch the video and see it clearly) how the boy becomes embarrassed. In
another situation, A is asking C (boy), “How do you know that?” to which C does
not reply but keeps on gazing and then he nods his head, and this leads to a
burst of laughter by all.
Contextualization
resources:
Since the conversation happens in a restaurant, a waiter is there to welcome
them and lead the customers to a table. Bringing menu (I prefer if they could
use a real one). Eating food (even though, they mimic), gaze, eye contact, facial
expressions, posture (how they sit around the table), gestures (taking food
from a plate and tasting a bit), wait time, and room set up and clothing
(University students go the canteen and have food with their friends in the
uniform) can be considered as contextualization resources present in this
conversation.
Participant structures: As can be seen from the
transcript as well as from the video, the participant structure in this
discussion can be ascribed to students working in a group project. If the
participant structure is mapped as shown in the table below.
A careful analysis of the participant structure as
shown in the table above, we can conclude that this discussion is near to a
real-world situation in which friends go out together for a meal.
The
role of individual communicative repertoire: Individual repertoire contains a number of elements such as greetings, ways of addressing,
gestures, languages, pronunciation of certain words, catch phrases or signal
words, expressing praises/criticism. In this discussion, I find that students
are competent with their communicative repertoires. When analyzing the
transcript, it is clear that that they know how to greet, how to address
others, use gestures, expressing praise and criticism. Needless to cite all
example, but I will cite a few examples to illustrate how the students in the
conversation use to make it meaningful and alive. When they evaluate the
quality of food which they are eating, they tend to ask each other how they
feel about the food. Some say food is tasty while the boy says his fried rice
is not good and allows others to taste. This may be culture specific. However,
this kind of activity is generally done by most cultures. Another significant
point which I would like to discuss here in relation to the role of individual
communicative repertoire is that most Thai learners cannot pronounce certain
words (e.g., fried rice is pronounced as ‘fire rice’ or phrases correctly.
Sometimes, they do not care much about stress and intonation which might lead
to miscommunication of the intended message. Overall, it can be said that each
student equally contributes to the speech event with no one taking a dominant
role.
Ongoing Interaction: Some questions that pose
me after analyzing this speech event can
relate to limited oral proficiency of students. As a result, they mostly use
short utterances that contain less than ten words and they are also not free
from grammatical errors (e.g., “These one fried rice, two pizza and three KFC”,
“I don’t sad”, “you can go there and saw the sunset”). Moreover, they cannot continue
a conversation for a long time. This is clear from the middle part of the
conversation in which they talk about their careers or talk about what they did
during their holidays. I think this kind of analysis will help me to identify
the types of language errors which the students tend to make when they talk in
social situations and provide them with feedback so that they will minimize
their errors in one respect, on the other, they will be better prepared to face
challenges they may have to face in their education and work place in the
future. However, this kind of interaction will allow students to expose
themselves to talk about issues relating to their education or society, share
their ideas in a less threatening environment, provide feedback to their peers
and finally to build up better understanding about each other and one another
as important members of their community.
This video shows a classroom based role-playing activity
which I recorded when I was teaching in a university in Thailand and it was
published in www.youtube.com with the permission of the students who act in
this role play. The video can be watched by accessing this website: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Vcg7ZWa5dhY
Roles: A- (a girl) B- (a girl), and C- (a boy) friends D-a girl (a waitress in a restaurant)
Transcript
A: (A calls her friend) Hello
B: Hello
A: Is that Pha speaking?
B: Yes. It's me. Who are you?
A: Hey, Pha. This is Pic. I want to go to have dinner
at Milky restaurant. Would you
like to
join with us?
B: Yes. I do. What time?
A: At 6p.m. today.
B: Ok, I'm free.
A: Oh! let's meet at the restaurant.
B: Ok. See you. bye.
A: Bye.
A& B meets C (another friend)
C: Hello, Hello.
A: Hello, Sea.
C: Hello, Pic.
A: Nice to meet you.
C: Nice to meet.
A: Let's go to the Milky restaurant.
B: Yea.
C: How about your restaurant?
A: Oh, It’s bad.
C: you sure?
A: yes.
At the
restaurant (The waitress welcomes them)
D: Good evening. Please take seats.
B: Yes.
A: Here.
A&C: Thank you.
A: Can I have menu please?
D: Yes. This is menu.
C: Ok. I want fried rice, two pizzas, three kfc.
A: I want a set of pizza and spicy salad.
B: I want (?) (what she is ordering must be some kind
of Thai food which is not clear)
D: Ok. What about beverage?
A: A glass of orange juice.
C: Pepsi.
B: A glass of iced tea.
D: Ok. Wait a minute.
(After a while, the waitress brings the food and
drinks they ordered)
D: These one fried rice, two pizza, and three kfc and
Pepsi for you. ..and these (?)
and iced
tea for you. And these a set of pizza
and papaya salad for you
and orange
juice. Enjoy your meal.
A: Ok. Thank you very much.
C: Pic. How about your food?
A: Oh. Its some (?). I want to taste. (tastes). Yes.
How about your fried rice?
C: Oh, fried rice bad.....
A: Bad.
B: Bad.
A: Really.
C: Yes.
A: Oh. I see. Can I taste it?
C: (he is confused a little, so he keeps on looking at
A for a while and then A
signals
that she wants to taste the food). Ok.
Ok. Ok ((laughter))
(A tastes
fried rice)
A: Mmm..it's so sweet.
(B also
tastes)
B: Same you.
A: How about your work?
C: Oh! I'm free. I don't have work....I don't have a
job.
A: Must be so sad.
C: No.. I don't sad. I'm very happy.
B: Wow!
(A asks D)
A: How about you?
B: Good. I'm a programmer.
C: How about your parents?
A: Oh, parents. There's good as well. Hey, last
weekend I went to Phuket with my family
C: Really.
A: Yea.
C: What interesting Phuket?
A: Oh, you can go to saw the sunset and Phuket.
C: I know...I
know that Phuket.
A: Have you been there?
C: No.
A: How do you know that?
C: (Keeps silent ((laughter))
B: Yes.
A: Ok. And Pathong beach is also beautiful.
B: Good. I went to Phuket last month. ( ) It is so beautiful.. little island. Some
beautiful..(?)
A: Yes, the beach is very clean. Right? Oh.. finish?
Can I have the bill?
D: Here's your bill. 500baht.
A: Here's 1000baht.
D: Here's your 500baht.
A: Ok. This is a tip for you.
D: Thank you very much.
A: Never mind.
D: Thank you. See you next time. Please come again.
A, B &C: Ok...
A: Please, let's go.
 
This is my course progress report
( https://courses.edx.org/courses/course-v1:PennX+UCI1x+3T2017/progress)
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