Abstract
This research is concerned with clarifying whether teacher’s communicative strategies affect children’s conversational relevance in classroom discourse.
34 conversations between teacher and children in a nursery school in a Rome suburb of low social class, collected with a «quasi-experimental» methodology, have been audiotaped and analysed. 5961 turns at talk have been categorised in order to identify different levels of relevance of the teacher’s and children’s conversational contributions. Categories describe the links between the present turn and the focus or the topic of the preceding turn. Frequencies of turn categorization were elaborated by computing transitional probabilities.
Results of sequential analysis show that the children most often extend or elaborate on the information introduced by the teacher when the teacher has just extended the topic of a child speaker.
In the group observed in this research peer interaction can however take on a function similar to that of teacher-children interaction: high relevance to a preceding utterance somehow «activates» a subsequent highly relevant contribution by another child.
Résumé
Cette recherche se propose de voir si les stratégies comunicatives de l’enseignant influencent la pertinence des conduites conversationnelles des enfants dans les conversations en classe. 34 conversations, recuellies dans une école maternelle de Rome, avec une méthodologie «quasi-expérimentale», ont été audio —enregistrées et analysées. 5961 tours de parole ont été catégorisés. Les catégories decrivent la liaison entre chaque tour de parole et la centration du tour précédent. Les fréquences des catégorisations ont été elaborées en calculant les probabilités transitionnelles. Les résultats des analyses sequentielles montrent que les interventions où l’enseignant se réfère fortement à la centration introduite par le précédent locuteur sont suivies significativement par des interventions où l’enfant développe et élabore l’information introduite par l’enseignant. Ce même résultat a été observé quand le locuteur précédent est un enfant qui se réfère à la centration du précédent message.
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Orsolini, M. Information exchange in classroom conversation: Negociation and extension of the focus. Eur J Psychol Educ 3, 341–355 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03172739
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03172739