Scaffolding talk in EAP lessons: an examination of experienced teachers’ practices

ABSTRACT

Purpose: The aim of this study was to explore how experienced teachers use classroom talk to support their pedagogic goals in pre-sessional and in-sessional EAP lessons.

Design: Data were gathered by video recording four teachers’ EAP lessons. Two lessons were pre-sessional and two lessons were in-sessional. A framework which identified scaffolding for metacognitive, cognitive and affective activities was used to examine how the four teachers supported pre-sessional and in-sessional students’ understanding of academic language and discourse practices.

Findings: The data revealed that although scaffolding of language and affect are prevalent in classroom talk in all four lessons, goal-focused metacognitive scaffolding was a distinct feature of in-sessional EAP lessons. The findings suggest that pre-sessional EAP teachers could provide more goal-oriented scaffolding by linking activities to the overall EAP goals.

Originality: The originality of this article lies in the identification of potential differences between pre-sessional and in-sessional EAP classoom talk. In particular, a more ‘efficient’ type of in-sessional classroom talk was identified. The implications of this study lie in teacher development for teachers moving from general ELT to EAP, as well as the potential use of classroom transcripts as a tool for analysis and reflection on practice.

KEYWORDS:

• EAP
• classroom talk
• scaffolding
• pedagogic goals
• discourse practices

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Marion Heron has been working in higher education for 30 years. She is currently Senior Lecturer in Higher Education at the University of Surrey. She has researched in the area of talk in post-observation feedback sessions. She is particularly interested in the application of sociocultural theory to teacher education contexts.

Joanne Webster is a senior lecturer and leader of a business English module at Sheffield Hallam University. She received an MA in Applied Linguistics from the University of Sheffield. Academic interests include teaching business English in an academic context.

ORCID

Marion Heron http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6129-1265

Notes

1 Stimulated recall responses.

2 S refers to student, T refers to teacher, Ss refers to students.