VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES TRẦN THỊ PHƯỢNG AN EXPLORATORY CASE STUDY OF CLASSROOM INTERACTION FROM CONVERSATION ANALYSIS PERSPECTIVES (Một nghiên cứu trường hợp tìm hiểu về sự tương tác trong lớp học sử dụng đường hướng phân tích hội thoại) M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Methodology Code: 8140231.01 Hanoi, 2020 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES TRẦN THỊ PHƯỢNG AN EXPLORATORY CASE STUDY OF CLASSROOM INTERACTION FROM CONVERSATION ANALYSIS PERSPECTIVES (Một nghiên cứu trường hợp tìm hiểu về sự tương tác trong lớp học sử dụng đường hướng phân tích hội thoại) M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Methodology Code: 8140231. Lê Văn Canh Hanoi, 2020 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com DECLARATION I declare that this thesis: “An exploratory case study of classroom interaction from conversation analysis perspectives” is my own work and effort and has not been submitted anywhere for any award. Moreover, the contributions of my colleagues and students are involved. Other sources of information have been used and acknowledged.
Hanoi, January 2020 Tran Thi Phuong i TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to show my sincere appreciation to the following people who supported me to complete this study. I wish to express my warmest gratitude to my respectable supervisor, Assoc. Lê Văn Canh, who instructed me how to do this research and provided me with a lot of professional advice on the thesis writing. I am deeply grateful to his generosity, kindness, and encouragement.
Without his support, I could have never been able to finish this study. I also would like to express my gratefulness to the participants of this study - students from class 10E1 and 10 A1 and the teachers at Le Hong Phong high school in Nam Dinh province for their whole-hearted participation. I feel a deep gratitude to my family. My thankfulness goes to my parents who have patiently supported me to complete the research, and to my husband who have stood by me as an enthusiastic supporter.
ii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ABSTRACT This study was designed to explore the classroom interaction observed in class 10 E1 and 10 A1 at Le Hong Phong high school in Nam Dinh. After the observation of some periods, data were collected and analyzed from conversation analysis perspectives. Then, major findings were drawn. Specifically, different patterns of interaction were analyzed in great details.
These included interaction between students and teachers and between students and students. It is hoped that this research will help Vietnamese learners and teachers have a better understanding of the nature of classroom interaction to improve the teaching and learning of English. iii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CA: Conversation analysis T: Teacher S: Student iv TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Description of the teachers.
Description of the students. Description of speaking lessons observed. The approach to study adjacency pairs. Turn Distributions in class 10 E1 for ‘Turn Giving” Categories.
Turn Distributions in class 10 A1 for ‘Turn Giving” Categories. Turn Distributions in both classes for ‘Turn Giving” Categories. Turn Distributions in class 10 E1 for ‘Turn Getting” Categories. Turn Distributions in class 10 A1 for ‘Turn Getting” Categories.
Turn Distributions in both classes for ‘Turn Getting” Categories. The occurence of Adjacency Pairs Type Response of the First Pair Part in class 10 E1. The occurence of Adjacency Pairs Type Response of the First Pair Part in class 10 A1. The occurence of Adjacency Pairs Type Response of the First Pair Part in class both classes.
The occurence of Adjacency Pairs Type Response of the Second Pair Part in class 10 E1. The occurence of Adjacency Pairs Type Response of the Second Pair Part in class 10 A1. The occurence of Adjacency Pairs Type Response of the Second Pair Part in class both classes. Different patterns of repair practices in both classes.41 v TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.
Different interactional practices. The approach to study turn taking organization. The approach to study repair organization .29 vi TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION. iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.
iv LIST OF TABLES .v LIST OF FIGURES. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS. vii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION. Statement of the problem and the rationale for the study.
Aims of the study. Scope of the study. Method of the study. Significance of the study.
Organization of the thesis.4 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW. Definitions of interaction. Definitions of classroom interaction. The roles of classroom interaction.
Aspects of classroom interaction. Types of classroom interaction. Definition of conversation analysis. Principles of CA .11 vii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.
Conversation analysis and interaction practice research. CA as a research method researching classroom interaction. Related studies on classroom interaction .18 CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY. Overview of case study.
Rationale for the use of a case study. Steps of a case study research. The research design .23 CHAPTER FOUR: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS. Turn taking organization.
Sequencing pracices and adjacency pairs. Turn taking organization .55 CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION. Major findings and conclusion. Implications for teaching.
Limitations of the study .63 viii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1. Statement of the problem and the rationale for the study Over the past few decades, foreign language teaching, which is a complex process, has witnessed extensive changes in methodologies. Many approaches have been come and gone so far. However, communicative competence remains to be the ultimate goal.
Accordingly, students should be encouraged to get engaged in interactive activities in classroom such as pair work or group work. The increasing importance of classroom interaction has been proved and demonstrated in many researches. According to Ellis (1985), classroom interaction plays a central role in the process of acquiring a language. It encourages students to participate in classroom activities and hence, produces more outputs.
He also claimed that communication would break down in the absence of interaction. Despite the acknowledged importance of interaction to the learners’ communicative competence, there has been little research on classroom interaction in Vietnamese high schools. Therefore, there arises a need to analyze interaction in the classroom on which, according to Betsy Rymes, it is worth spending time because it might 1. help both teachers and students acquire a deeper understanding of each other.
enable teachers to realize differences in classroom talks among different groups of students 3. to some extent improve students’ academic performance 4. inspire teachers themselves in the process of teaching In researching classroom interaction, conversation analysis (CA) has been promoted as an appropriate research method. According to Seehouse (2011), CA helps to “ investigate various dynamics of classroom talk-in-interaction and shed light on teaching and learning practices”.
CA originated from ethnomethodology - “the study of how people use social interaction to maintain an ongoing sense of reality in a situation” in the 1960s and 1 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. It laid a solid foundation for the development of CA. Initially, CA was used to analyze ordinary conversations in daily life. Later on, it was adopted to study interaction in second language acquisition (SLA).
Realizing the essential roles of interaction in SLA and the importance of analyzing interaction in such institutional contexts as schools, I would like to have a more thorough understanding of how interaction occurs and is maintained throughout in the environment of classroom, which therefore serves as an implication for future teaching and learning. All of these aforementioned factors have inspired me to conduct the study titled “An exploratory case study of classroom interaction from conversation analysis perspectives”. Aims of the study This study aimed to explore what actually takes place in a particular case, which is, in this study, a Vietnamese high school. The purpose of this exploration is to identify the relationship between classroom interaction patterns and learners’ learning through the lens of conversation analysis (CA).
In addition, the study was carried out to shed light on the possibility that interaction within class would open up opportunities for SLA and the extent to which students’ communicative competence would be improved through interaction. It is intended that the findings of the study can provide useful information on how teachers can improve the classroom interaction for students’ better learning outcomes, which are, in this study, limited to speaking performance only. Research question In the light of the aforementioned aims, the study is intended to answer the following research question: How does interaction occur in class in a high school in Nam Dinh province? 1. Scope of the study Classroom interaction is a matter of global concern so many researchers all 2 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com over the world have been doing researches on this issue.
Moreover, it extensively covers so many aspects in SLA that a great deal of work needs to be done to fully understand it. Therefore, this research paper has no intention of exploring the entire problems. To limit the scope of the study, the researcher made an effort to study conversational interactions in several English classes. The study was conducted on a male teacher, his students from class 10E1, a female teacher and her students from class 10A1 at a high school in Nam Dinh province.
They had two speaking lessons including unit 2 – your body and you and unit 3 – music. All speaking activities were recorded in order to examine patterns of interaction happening during these classes. The study just focused on two classes of grade 10 students so the results could not be applied for all students at high schools. Method of the study Basically, the researcher conducted a case study on classroom interaction between teacher – students and students - students.
As Jabcobsen (2002) stated that the study is intended for interaction between a specific context and a phenomenon to be analyzed, then the use of case studies is optimum. Therefore, qualitative method is adopted during the process of the study In order to get data for analysis and discussion, a number of steps were taken including: - Gathering materials on related studies - Finding a suitable theoretical framework based on which the analysis was performed - Observing classrooms and audio-recording 1. Significance of the study The findings of this case study are believed to be useful for both researchers and teachers. Firstly, once completed, it will provide a theoretical foundation for further study to investigate classroom interaction.
Secondly, will be much beneficial to EFL teachers as they can thoroughly understand the nature of interaction in the school context from a new perspective. Therefore, they can make some adaptations 3 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com to enhance the effectiveness of communication. Organization of the thesis The thesis consists of three main parts namely Introduction, Development and Conclusion. Chapter ONE: Introduction introduces the rationale, aims, research question, hypothesis, scope, significance, and method of the study.
Chapter TWO: Literature Review elaborates on relevant theoretical background including interaction, classroom interaction and its importance, conversation analysis approach and reviews of related studies. Chapter THREE: Methodology gives a description of the case of the study at a high school. Chapter FOUR: Findings and Discussion presents the findings together with data analysis and discussion. Chapter FIVE: Conclusion, recapitulates the major findings of the study, puts forward recommendations for further study and acknowledges its limitations of the study.
4 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW In this part, an overview of literature background related to the study is exposed, laying the solid foundation for the next parts. Key concepts of interaction, classroom interaction, types of classroom interaction are defined.