The organization of repair in classroom talk

Abstract

This article is a conversation-analytic investigation of the forms of organization that allow specific items of classroom discourse -words, phrases, up to whole turns at talk -to be altered by subsequent items. Central to the article is an analytic distinction between self-correction and other-correction, that is, between repair sequences in which the speaker of the initial item (the "trouble source") makes the correction and instances in which this is performed by one of her or his interlocutors (cf. Jefferson 1974; Schegloff et al. I977). The classroom case is analytically interesting both for its own sake and also on account of research speculations that other-correction should be more frequent in adult-child talk than in other genres of conversation. However, in order to provide an analysis of the problem sensitive to the particularities of the classroom, it is necessary to look not merely at corrections, but at the larger repair trajectories in which they occur. These trajectories consist of corrections plus their prior initiations, the latter being means by which speakers mark out some item as requiring correction. Once the social identities of teacher and student are mapped against selfand other-forms of initiation and correction, it is possible to discern some of the structural preferences of classroom discourse along the general axis of repair.

“What is the date today?”: A dialogist perspective on expert EFL teachers’ classroom interaction

“…From the CA toolbox we can refer, for example, to the teacher's using pauses and intonation to mark important information (lines 1, 16) and for the transition from one concept to another (lines 15-16), to her initiating a repair sequence (line 12) and to her completing learner-performed correction (line 5, see also McHoul, 1990), and to the aspects of institutional talk regarding the organization of turns in the classroom (cf. Mchoul, 1978).…”

Pedagogical Functions of Sequences Organization of Talk in the EFL Classroom

“…Alternatively, knowing (K+) speakers can simply initiate talk concerning the matter at hand, thus launching a sequence, finding a warrant for this conduct by projecting their recipients to be in a relatively unknowing (K−) position." (Heritage, 2012, p. 33) The imbalance territories of information or knowledge state (K+ and K−) was also noticed by McHoul (1990) as a key driving element that motivate sequence organizations in a classroom. In McHoul's study, the focus is on the analysis of how teachers organize repair trajectories to achieve a pedagogical goal of initiating students' self-correction.…”

“…Previous studies on classroom interaction, most of them have narrowed their focuses down to the studies of particular action types (see for example Brown, 1994;Markee, 1995;Suter, 2001;Morell, 2007), and particular sequences structures in the classrooms (e.g. McHoul, 1990; Lee, 2007Lee, , 2008. What new and interesting for this field of classroom interactional research is an understanding of the more complex processes through which a teacher and students conjointly produce, interpret and negotiate meanings of actions being done, which manifests itself in the extended structures of interactional sequences or sequences of sequences rather than a building block of initiation−response−evaluation (IRE) sequences.…”

Investigating the Effectiveness of an Interactive IRF-Based English Grammar Learning System

“…It has been widely shown that the characteristic sequence of tripartite dialogic structure that dominates instructional discourse consists of an initiation, a response, and feedback (IRF) [13] [14]. In general, the basic three part sequence entails: (1) initiation of a known-answer question by the teacher, (2) a student response to that question and (3) teacher feedback or evaluation of that response, where responsibility for management of the interaction rests with the teacher throughout [1] [15].…”