What Teachers Say When they Write or Talk about Discourse Analysis
WHAT TEACHERS SAY WHEN THEY TALK ABOUT DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
Compiling the spoken data
The eleven students enrolled in the Diploma course were invited to take part in a 15-minute Focus Group discussion session, to which they should bring pedagogic materials/coursebooks adopted at their schools. In order to ensure more spontaneous interaction, the sessions were mediated by one of the STs, specially trained by the researchers. This training was an attempt to ensure that the discussants did not stray from the topic suggested in the prompt and also that they illustrated, as often as possible, the points they were making.
The STs were allocated in two separate groups according to whether they taught at secondary schools or at private language schools. This was yet another ploy to ensure plenty of opportunity for the participants to exchange ideas, this time delving into a possible relationship between the kind of school where they worked and the nature of the constraints on their teaching practices. Both discussion sessions were tape recorded and then transcribed in their entirety. However, given the research focus on content rather than on interaction, no coding system was adopted for pauses, hesitation or overlap.
The following prompt was given to the participants:
Our research hypothesis is that Discourse Analysis, as a discipline, has a strong impact on: 1) your knowledge of the English language; 2) your ability to select and exploit spoken and written texts for TEFL; 3) your choice of tasks and activities for EFL learning; 4) your confidence as practitioners of EFL. However, this impact may not necessarily translate as changes in your pedagogic practice.
If you believe this hypothesis is TRUE, talk about what prevents you from changing your pedagogic practice.
If you believe it is FALSE, give at least one concrete example from your coursebook, of 1) a task or activity that you explored in class using knowledge of discourse analysis; 2) a task or activity that you found lacking using knowledge of discourse analysis; 3) how knowledge of discourse analysis helped you plan further lessons; or 4) any other example you find relevant to this discussion.”
