Triadic Dialogue in Oral Communication Tasks: What are the Implications for Language Learning?

Abstract

activities to explore the sequential implications of the teachers' initiations across each task. During speaking book the teacher initiates with topic initial elicitors which invite news, ideas or opinions from the child. In story-writing the teacher employs invitations, which call for the children to generate ideas or suggestions. Analysis of teacher follow-up turns demonstrates ways in which they recast and reformulate the children's response turns and elicit further material related to the pupils' agendas. By contrast, there is limited evidence of negotiation in the circle-time activity. The study demonstrates the potentially facilitative role played by triadic dialogue in language learning and therefore has professional significance for all those involved in the development of oral language skills in classrooms.

Opening up and closing down: How teachers and TAs manage turn-taking, topic and repair in mathematics lessons

“…As the role is primarily oral, TAs would also benefit from training in the principles and purpose of dialogic discourse (Alexander, 2008;Fisher, 2007). They require modelling of discourse techniques, including open invitations and how to use quality feedback turns (Radford et al, 2006;Radford, 2010aRadford, , 2010b.…”

“…This can be accomplished by initiations such as open questions, devices like 'tell us what you think' and authentic questions to which the adult does not know the answer (Coles, 2002;Myhill, 2006;Smith et al, 2004). Furthermore, when teachers use initiations such as 'open invitations', topic can be jointly constructed, even when a grammatically closed question is asked (Radford, Ireson, & Mahon, 2006). This is because open invitations (e.g.…”

Word searches: on the use of verbal and non‐verbal resources during classroom talk

“…The sequence starts with the teacher's story 'invitation' (Radford et al, 2006) whose design elicits an idea from C about a next possible event in her story. Ciara's story ideas concern two female characters (Mary and a princess) that are represented by figurines that she has drawn and which she can indicate with a point of her pencil.…”

“…The author was present during the recordings but did not interact with the participants. There were three distinct types of classroom activity: collaborative story writing in a small group; circle-time where children take turns to speak following the teacher's model; one-to-one 'speaking book' that contains pictures (see Radford, Ireson, and Mahon, 2006, for further information). To reduce observer effects, the data were collected over a period of four consecutive weeks, totalling 248 minutes of interaction in 12 lessons.…”

Using conversation analysis to study prosodic problems in a child with language impairment

“…The main difference between the different conversational partners was in the third slot where the specialist teacher and the peer provided an upgraded version of part of the child's turn and more often continued with a personal contribution which led to a more genuine exchange of opinions. A teacher's frequent use of initiating question turns is also described in a study of asymmetry in classroom discourse (Radford et al 2006). The importance of the first turn in an RRE sequence as a key to the type of information generated and the range of possibilities in the third slot is pointed out.…”