Classrooms as cultural context: The legitimacy of educational exchange.

1. Classrooms as cultural context: The legitimacy of educational exchange. Legitimate TalkFiona CoplandAston University, UKf.m.copland@aston.ac.uk

2. Classroom as a Cultural Context What does this mean? • Classroom not a ‘neutral space’ (Auerbach, 1995) • Some knowledge/experience is legitimised and some ignored (Lantolf and Genung, 2002) • Social and emotional dimensions present, including those around power (Pennycook, 2000).

3. Legitimate Language Key features of legitimate language (Heller, (1996: 140), drawing on Bourdieu (1977)): • A legitimate speaker • Addressing legitimate interlocuteurs • Under specific social conditions • In language which is formed appropriately • And chosen by the speaker.

4. Legitimate Talk I define legitimate talk as being: • spoken by a legitimate speaker • under specific social conditions • about particular topics • according to particular participation structures. Legitimate talk can be seen in both content (what is spoken about) and process (by whom; to whom; in what way).

5. The Classrooms in this Study • CELTA (120 hours study) • 9 trainees and 4 trainers (all adults) • 2 groups • Feedback after teaching practice • Feedback is a group activity (cf. Waite, 1995; Hyland and Lo, 2006) • Pass/fail course (teaching practice assessed)

6. The purpose of feedback • ‘‘The purpose of feedback is erm, to get the trainees to evaluate the lesson that they’ve just given and develop those sort of critical skills, so they can, sort of, evaluate lessons and improve their own performance as a result of it. Erm, my function is to facilitate that and to encourage them to, erm, make comments on, on each other, and to reflect on their own lessons, and also to give my own appraisal of what they’ve done.’

7. Research Methodology Linguistic ethnographic study Data • Fieldnotes • 15 hours feedback (audio) • 4 hours feedback (video) • Pre and post course interviews – trainers • Post course interviews – trainees, in groups.

8. Legitimising talk (content) Two curricula: • CELTA curriculum (official pedagogy) 2. ‘Hidden’ curriculum (trainers’ personal beliefs and theories about language teaching)

9. Aims discourse (CELTA curriculum) Trainer: but let’s think about your overall ai:ms for the lesson cos I mean I know however people sort of hear the = Trainee: = mhm = Trainer: = word aims and shudder but I mean that’s the starting point it’s what I want my learners to achieve what I want them to get better at what I want them to take away from the lesson so what were you hoping that your learners would get better at Trainee: Just like I was hoping that they would sort of be able to get together and plan a role play together () and use ((inaudible)) [ Trainer: is being able to pl sorry to interrupt is being able to plan a ((slowly)) role play () an appropriate aim for a language lesson? Trainee: (..) mmm (….) non

10. Reading out loud discourse (hidden curriculum) Trainer: Think about when you read a language you’ve learnt say French or for us it would be French I don’t know what it would be for you Trainee:Yeah I did some French ((laughs)) Trainer: French ((laughs)) okay so can you you can remember the sort of rather stilted way that we read French and we don’t know when when the sentence ends or begins = Trainee: = yeah = Trainer: = and we don’t get any of that expression at all so as a mechanism for practicing the sentence stress that you wanted to to get across today not very useful

11. Rejecting trainee’s knowledge Trainer: Yeah yeah I agree totally I think I think it’s that issue of () putting it into a text rather than just saying isolated words so you know what a lo:vely activity I just think it could have been tweaked by them = Trainee: =((quietly)) yes Trainer: = rather than just () saying the actions that they saw () saying okay () it was a job interview () somebody came in () and pointed er the the man the interviewer pointed at the des the chair () er he sat down um he slou:ched in the chair () you know so that you know they had to actually put it into a context () I mean it was in a context but to put it into a te:.xt () so that they used the language more [ Trainee: I mean I could have asked them with more time perhaps I could have asked them to actually write = Trainer: =yeah = Trainee: = descriptions of the action they saw = Trainer: = yeah Trainee: like a mo:vie review or something Trainer: Yeah I mean wri although the the I mean writing’s ni::ce cos it it’s more () um controlled in a way isn’t it and it makes it sort of forces the language out a little bit more (.) but at at the same time it kind of slows up the whole process [ Trainee: mm the aim was to discuss ((inaudible)) [ Trainer: for me it felt the nice the nicest thing to do would be they both do their scenes and then they chat in their groups they talk in their groups they try to review exactly what happened and that would bring out all of the language into into a context () I mean to a text um

12. Legitimising talk (process) Trainers control the process of feedback in a number of ways, including: • On occasion, dismissing trainees’ suggestions (see above) • Controlling turns by asking questions • Employing a ‘hyper questioning’ discourse (Roberts and Sarangi, 2001) • Interrupting and taking long turns • Imposing a framework on the feedback session (e.g. round robin).

13. Legitimate experience FC OK. What sort of feedback have you found the most helpful and the least helpful? Tr1 Mmm Tr2 For me things which are activities which are designed to draw people out actually I personally find a bit tedious and time wasting and I () I I would rather have somebody particularly the assessor say ‘this is what I felt about it.’ FC Mm Tr2 Bish bash bosh. …………………… Tr2 Erm, but that’s just my take on things partly because () perhaps the environment I’ve been in most recently in the business place it’s like decide what’s wrong work out how to fix it and get on with it

14. Contesting legitimate talk Trainer: but you know how when you set yourself and this is there’s lots of really nice tasks f for for personalising th the topic and for responding to to the material [ Trainee: mmm Trainer: um (.) but as u the there wasn’t really any feedback on any:: of those little tasks that you set () um you moved straight on to the next sort of activity ((slowing)) um how do you feel the students might feel as a result of that so it’s been given (.) a a nice personalised task that’s there to get them to kind of really think about the meaning and talk about it [ Trainee:((laughs)) yeah Trainer: and then you move on to the next activity how do you think they [ Trainee: mm Trainer: what do you think the effect might be on students Trainee: Um you know my:: (.) ans ask when I went through the correct answers with them [ Trainer: mhm Trainee:((becoming quieter)) erm ((rising tone)) that’s not sort of feedback ?

15. Concluding Comments Legitimate Talk: • Trainers’ curricula: public (Cambridge ESOL) and private (individual) • Trainers’ discourse practices: (question /answer; silencing; taking long turns; setting frameworks).