Students’ Social Positioning in the Language Classroom: Implications for Interaction

Abstract

This paper outlines some findings of a three-month investigation into the effects of students’ interpersonal relationships on communication in two EFL classrooms in a Japanese university. Data was collected to identify and describe the various social subgroups that existed within the classes, and samples of classroom discourse were then analysed to investigate how students’ social positioning in the classroom affected the observed interaction. The analysis suggests that the relationships that students develop in the classroom do have implications for interaction, and that conducting research into those relationships could have a positive impact on teachers management of classroom interaction.

Social Positioning, Participation, and Second Language Learning: Talkative Students in an Academic ESL Classroom

“…Whereas interactive and reflexive positionings of Tarek created learning opportunities for him, positionings of Ahmad did not allow him to benefit from those opportunities because his peers avoided interacting with him as much as possible. Similar to Stone and Kidd's () findings, the social positioning of students in the oral skills class impacted the level and nature of their communication with each other.…”

“…In a classroom, interactions and behaviors form the social make‐up and hierarchy of the classroom, while the very social make‐up influences the interactions that occur within it (Stone & Kidd, ). As members in any social setting, members of a classroom shift their identity positions to become a member of and be recognized by particular social groups (Miller, ).…”

“…These students' classroom participation, language learning experience, and access to learning opportunities were constantly shaped by the positions that they took on. In a similar study, Stone and Kidd () categorized students according to their social positions (e.g., outsider, loner, pair, invisible) in the two EFL classrooms in a Japanese university, illustrating how the classroom social make‐up impacted students' interactions. For example, students identified as pairs were more likely to dominate discussions.…”

Learners Performing Tasks in a Japanese EFL Classroom: A Multimodal and Interpersonal Approach to Analysis

“…The first phase of the study involved describing the social make-up of the classroom. In attempting to describe the interpersonal relationships of the participants I utilized and refined methods described in Stone and Kidd (2011). Data collection and interpretation centred on two main methods.…”

“…Student behaviour (and, therefore, task performance) is affected by the social environment in which it occurs (Young, 2009) and students’ interpersonal relationships are argued to play an important role in defining the classroom environment (Dornyei and Murphy, 2003). It is claimed that ‘natural’ friendship groupings among students will impact upon classroom interaction and learning (Stone and Kidd 2011) and that student classroom behaviour is often determined more by the interpersonal relationships of group members than by their roles as students (Widdowson, 1987). Given the above, in this paper I will describe task-based interaction in a classroom in Japan from an emic and multimodal perspective in order to explore how the interpersonal relationships of learners affect their participation in tasks.…”