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The apprenticeship of the children into scientific ways of talking is clear when the Field of discourse is examined. Scientific terminology, at the level of these children, is introduced. It is in the Tenor where the distinction between the teachers and teacher aides is clearest, as they establish different relationships with their young charges.
Field
The unit of work centred on an understanding of buildings and their purposes. Teachers designed hands-on learning experiences around this theme to engage the children in nine different activities over nine weeks. Activities included taking photos, investigating materials, measurement, construction, exploring scale and perspective, and using technologies. In the learning experiences the children were simultaneously learning how to learn, learning literacy and learning science concepts.
Vocabulary
Many of the learning experiences introduce the children to scientific terminology, with both teachers and teacher aides building up children’s knowledge of the Field in this way. Most of the vocabulary used by the adults is for Labelling items, with much repetition from all the adults to reinforce vocabulary items (Thwaite & McKay 2013). The teachers, as opposed to the TAs, sometimes also use Describing and Classifying (in terms of ‘speech acts’) with the more capable children. As these children are very young, the emphasis is on terminology rather than the more scientific processes of description and classification, although these do occur. The terms used by the teachers are more technical than those from teacher’s aides. For example, Sara frequently uses words such as ‘shape’ and ‘structure’, which are linked to the focus concepts of the unit. In Example 1 (Table 1) below, she is focusing simultaneously on geometric terms, computer processes and spelling:
The teachers, Sara especially, use some vocabulary that is relatively advanced for five-year-olds, more so than the TAs, as in Example 2 (Table 2) below:
This contrasts with the same activity done by Mrs Edgar, without this type of vocabulary: see Example 3 (Table 3), below:
To help children organise their knowledge of the Field, the teachers provide generalizations and focus on processes like observation. These generalizations and observations could be seen as subgenres of the classroom discourse and may consist of more than one move. Thus, there are several differences between the teachers and teacher aides in terms of the technicality of the discourse and its approximation to talking scientifically, albeit at a five-year-old level.
Tenor
All the adults working with the children express positive relationships with them, and use praise. The teachers, especially Sara, relate to the children as if they are on the same level as adults in some ways, while of course ensuring that they can comprehend the discourse. Sara is more creative in her praise than the other teachers, for example when she says: “You're the lucky winner”. Teachers also use humour to form positive relationships with the children. Sara, in particular, makes frequent use of this device, for example, remarking about a computer cable: “Is it a skipping rope?”, and, about chewing gum: “You need to stop chewing that Amanda. I'm going to give you some sauce to put on it so you can swallow it.”
Sara uses non-patronising phraseology, such as, “when you turn into an adult” rather than “when you grow up”. The children are from many different kinds of backgrounds, and she responds positively to their different circumstances. The other adults do not display this type of inclusivity. Nearly all the adults use correct terms of address for the children; however, Mrs Edgar abbreviates the name of Yolanda, a Chinese girl, using only the first part of her name. The teachers were never heard to do this.
Of the teachers, Sara in particular displays knowledge of the children’s backgrounds and circumstances. In contrast, Mrs Edgar treats dialect differences as if they are mistakes: see Example 4 (Table 4), below:
Here Mrs Edgar is trying to force Katrina, an Indigenous Australian girl, to use Standard Australian English (SAE). Katrina is clearly unaware that Mrs Edgar is focusing on a literacy aspect (dialect features) rather than the meaning of her utterance. Mrs Edgar is attempting to bring together two functions of her discourse: encouraging Katrina to recount what she has done, as well as teaching her a lesson about SAE. The result is a very confused child.
The discourse
Over the nine-week unit, the discourse as a whole is evenly distributed between adults and children, in terms of the total number of turns. In 4292 turns at talk, children produce 50.2% and adults 49.8% (Thwaite & McKay 2013). This indicates the success of the teachers in creating an environment where children can actively participate. Among the adults, teachers dominate the discourse in terms of turn number and length. Of the total of 2136 turns of adult talk, teachers produce 77% (Thwaite & McKay 2013). The contribution from different children also varies greatly, with some children dominating. Children vary in their contribution according to the situation and which adult they are working with. For example, among the ‘Bricklayers’ group there are large differences between Cara, Jessica and Luc in the different contexts. Luc takes more turns (albeit very short ones) with Mrs Edgar (TA), who very deliberately sets out to get him to respond (Thwaite & McKay 2013).
Exchange structure
In terms of the exchange, the typical structure of the discourse in our dataset is that the teacher initiates, usually with a Question, then allows various contributions from the children, sometimes with feedback along the way, before rounding off the interaction. All the adults studied seem conscious of turn allocation; however, the teachers carry this out in a different way to the teacher aides. Teacher Sara facilitates all children in a group having a turn, but also gives them opportunities to expand on and elaborate their turns, which often results in a rich discourse, for example the children’s thoughtful discussion in Example 11, below. Mrs Edgar, the TA, concentrates more than the teachers on managing the children and getting them all involved, without necessarily developing their turns to a great extent; for an illustration of this, please see Example 6, below.
Expanding on the discourse
Teachers develop the discourse by adding information to children’s utterances. Often this is just a single adjective. It may also be in the form of a Question, often an alternating Question. The type of elaboration, shown in Example 5, below, is typical of Sara:
Example 5
And did you make a building each? Did you make one big building together? [Children answer softly] You got to make one each. And are they all really interesting? And was it easy or hard? [Children answer softly] It was easy.
Sara expands on her meaning with exemplification. For example, she says, “Right, now you're going to take some photos of some structures. Could be the bike rack …”. She also uses a simile to describe the downloading icon on the computer: “It’s like a little train.” and a metaphor for the relationship between the camera and the computer: “Your camera's not glued into this.” Mrs Edgar does not use any of these terms, traditionally considered to be rhetorical devices.
‘Teacher knows the answer’ – dk1 moves
Exchange Structure describes the type of ‘display’ Question where the teacher knows the answer as a ‘Delayed primary knower’ (dk1) move. These are illustrated in Example 6, below. While the teachers do make use of these moves, Mrs Edgar does them very frequently. For example, in Week 5 in 142 turns of talk she asks 28 dk1 Questions, such as the ones in Example 6 (Table 5), below. The dk1 moves are sometimes used to check that the children have followed instructions, and sometimes simply to ensure that they are involved in the discourse. However, in line 6, Mrs Edgar genuinely does not know the answer to the Question. She uses the dk1s not only to get the children to predict what they will be doing, but especially for them to reflect on what they have done. Both of these processes, prediction and reflection, are part of scientific method, as described, for example, in the Australian Science Curriculum:
“Science investigations are activities in which ideas, predictions or hypotheses are tested and conclusions are drawn in response to a question or problem.” ACARA (2013a)
Australian students in the third year of school are required to perform investigations and “Reflect on the investigation, including whether a test was fair or not.” ACARA (2013b)
Mrs Edgar sometimes answers her own dk1 Questions, for example: “What will we do, Bruce? Put them [photos] on the computer” and, “Do you think carpenters build cranes? No, they don't.” In one example, Cristiano indicates that he knows the answer (“I know”) but Mrs Edgar answers the Question herself. This is another feature that distinguishes the other adults from the teachers, who rarely answer their own Questions.
Enabling children’s answers
Adults give prompts or hints to enable children to respond. For example, Sara says, “What shape are they? We just said it; we just said it right now.”
Teacher Diane also gives prompts such as, “I think you told us before.” Mrs Edgar also uses a hint, but of a different kind: “I wonder what you are? Hmm … hmm? It starts with c-c-c…” Her hint differs from the teachers’, in that they refer to previous discourse, modelling for the children a technique for answering questions in class. In contrast, Mrs Edgar is, as often, trying to elicit a particular word with a dk1 move, and refers to its pronunciation.
Other strategies
If a child does not give the expected response the adults rarely say that it is wrong. Instead they use various feedback strategies, or in some cases redirect or reframe the Question. Adults also ask different types of Questions so that children can build on their own contributions to produce extended turns.
Speech function
The discourse can be analysed according to Initiations (I), Responses (R) and Feedback (F) moves (Sinclair & Coulthard 1975) and Speech Functions (Halliday 1994;p.69; Halliday & Mathiessen , p.69; Halliday & Mathiessen p.69; Halliday & Mathiessen 2004, pp. 108–110). The structure of the discourse can be described by the IRF pattern. This is typical of classroom discourse in general, where adults are overwhelmingly the ones doing Initiations, although occasionally children perform them. In saying that this is a typical pattern, I am not implying that teachers should follow this pattern, merely that it is a very common one.
The adults assign importance to acknowledging what children have said, although this is not always possible in groups of this size (approximately 50 when all the children meet together). As mentioned above, the adult nearly always initiates, usually with a Question, then different children respond. The adult sometimes gives feedback on these responses before concluding the discussion or introducing a new thread. These Questions and feedback are usually successful in encouraging contributions from the children. Adults almost never directly contradict the children; they will sometimes use Modality (Halliday & Mathiessen 2004, pp. 146–150) to avoid doing this. In fact, teacher Sara tends to use Modality to soften her many of her utterances, as in Example 7 (Table 6) below where she is avoiding questioning Cristiano too intrusively:
Commands
Commands involve asking for Goods and Services (Halliday & Mathiessen 2004, p. 107f). The adults in the dataset vary in the number of Commands they use, with the non-teachers using more, and more congruent ones. In the focus lessons, Mrs Edgar produces many Commands, often without attached reasons. In contrast, Sara, the teacher, models scientific discourse by giving reasons for phenomena. Mrs Edgar also produces more short Commands expressed as minor clauses, for example: “Two photos. Have a think about what carpenters take photos of. What work do they do? Two photos.”
The teachers use incongruent Commands more than the other adults. Different types of Commands are part of Sara’s wide range of strategies for involving the children in the lesson.
Command complexes
All the adults make use of Command complexes, groups of one or more Commands; however, the types of these differ. Sara’s Command complexes are indicative of her particular style. Often she precedes her Commands with Questions, for example: ‘What do you think the bike rack is made from? Have a look, go over.’ and: ‘See that little one there, press that one.’ She also associates Commands with (explanatory) Statements or justifications, for example: ‘We're going to look in there, but don't press it yet.’ and ‘Just have a look first, we're not taking the photo yet.’ In another example, she explains how to hold the camera: ‘Put your hand through there Missy Moo. That means you won't drop it.’ Her tendency to give explanations also applies to larger units of text; for example, she tells the children how they are going to download the photos before they start doing it.
Sara also contextualizes her Commands by associating them with ‘if’ clauses, for example: ‘If you need to go closer, come closer’. She precedes the Commands with anaphoric reference, possibly to focus children’s attention, for example: ‘Now, you're going to do this:…’ and ‘Press on this word, “clear all”’. As well, she follows her Commands with suggestions and examples. Her instructions become more specific if she realizes children have not understood, for example: ‘You need to give him a bit of room. You need to move back my darling.’
Thus, Sara uses many different types of Command complex, even solely within the focus lesson. This is not the case with Mrs Edgar. Her Command complexes involve more bare repetition rather than giving reasons, as in Example 8 (Table 7), below:
Another example from Mrs Edgar is shown in Example 9, below:
Example 9
“Hannah, you're next. Go and stand with Ollie and he'll give you the camera in one minute. Stop chewing. Hold it carefully. Slide the door across to close the camera, remember, each time. Pass it to Hannah. Have a think of … try and remember the photos that you took with that … Put the string through your … Hannah that was great.”
Overall her approach to the lesson focuses more on the process than the reasons for doing things. At one point she repeatedly asks, “What are we going to (do) now?” The children are carrying out actions without necessarily understanding why. Thus Mrs Edgar is not using this opportunity to model or develop the children’s capacity for explanation.
Questions
Questions asked by the adults are sometimes WH- Questions, in some cases ‘how’ and ‘why’ Questions, but often closed Questions that predict a one-word answer. Even for the trained teachers in our data set, 71% of Questions are closed (Thwaite & McKay 2013). In the focus lessons, Mrs Edgar asks more closed Questions than Sara; many of these are dk1s (already discussed above). In comparison to the other adults, the teachers ask more Questions and their Questions are more varied. The teachers also ask more ‘why’ Questions than the other adults, such as, “What’s holding this wall up? I wonder why there's sand in it, falling down.” and, “What's holding that door on? I wonder why the door won't fall off the building.” (both from Sara).
Mrs Edgar’s Questions are sometimes not particularly interesting, for example: “What else do carpenters build?” Sara’s Question: “What else can you see when you look up?” is somewhat similar, but differs because it is directing the children in the scientific process of observation (DuVall 2001), whereas Mrs Edgar’s Question is asking them to think or possibly simply recall. In general, Mrs Edgar asks more procedural Questions, to which she already knows the answer, for example: “What are we going to (do) now?”.
Tag questions
Sara uses many tag Questions. Sometimes they function as checks, perhaps to avoid contradicting the children, as shown in Example 10 (Table 8), below [tag Questions bolded]:
Sometimes Sara seems to use the tag Questions for inclusivity, for example in: “Oh, memory full. That didn't take many, did it? That's very strange.”, where she treats the children as being equally knowledgeable about digital cameras as she is.
Indirect questions
Sara asks more indirect Questions than Mrs Edgar, for example, “I wonder what's holding the roof up?” Interestingly, this type of Question is also copied by at least one of the children; please see Example 11 (Table 9), below, for an illustration:
Question complexes
The adults use Question complexes in different ways. In the focus lessons, Mrs Edgar’s Question complexes are more repetitive than Sara’s, in the same way that her Command complexes are repetitive. This is illustrated below in Example 12:
Example 12
“What's the title of your group; are you bricklayers; are you painters; what's the title of your group? You are…?”
Questions from the children
It is also noticeable that the children ask less interesting Questions with Mrs Edgar than they do with Sara. For example, with Sara Questions include: “Are we allowed to take pictures of people and buildings in the background, with buildings in the background?” (thinking beyond the original task), “How is it glued onto the floor when there is no cement…?”, “Why does it…?” and “What's the photo button?” With Mrs Edgar the Questions are mainly procedural, such as, “Excuse me, are we supposed to take our badges off?” Sara gives the children more autonomy in her responses to their Questions, for example: “No, well you told the answer yourself.”
Overall, we find that across the Speech Functions of Command and Questions there is a clear difference between the teacher, Sara, and the teacher aide, Mrs Edgar, with Sara taking more opportunities to extend the discourse and encourage the children to think scientifically.