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Teacher-student talk in Singapore Chinese language classrooms: Construction or obstruction?
Citation
Paper presented at the international conference on education, Redesigning Pedagogy: Research, Policy, Practice, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 2005
Author
Liu, Yongbing
Abstract
In this paper, we analyze the interactive exchanges between teachers and students in the teacher-fronted
instruction by using transcribed classroom data. Adopting a social constructivist position, we examine ways in
which teachers construct or obstruct students‘ learning opportunities in these teacher-fronted communications.
Furthermore, we demonstrate how language is used to serve the functions of scaffolding and to provide learning
opportunities as students progress in the zone of proximal development (ZPD). Although teachers talk most of
the time and control most of the turns, we argue that teachers can improve their control and talk to facilitate and
optimize student contributions and scaffold students learning in their fronted instruction.
Date Issued
May 2005
Project
Core - Panel 4