Teacher deployment of ‘oh’ in known-answer question sequences

Abstract

This conversation analytic study describes some specific interactional contexts in which native English-speaking teachers produce ‘oh’ in known-answer question sequences in English language classes. The data for this study come from 10 video-recorded Japanese primary school English language class sessions. The analysis identified three specific interactional contexts in which teachers deploy the particle in receipting students’ answers to known-answer questions: (a) when they reinforce positive assessments, (b) when they act out dialogues with students and (c) when they respond to students’ ‘unexpected’ answers to their questions. Through the exploration of the teachers’ deployment of ‘oh’ in third positions, this study uncovers teachers’ on-line attention to both local interactional contexts and overall pedagogical objectives. In addition, this study discusses how teachers’ deliberate or incidental deployment of ‘oh’ in third positions potentially enhances student opportunities for learning.

Keywords:

• Known-answer questions
• conversation analysis
• classroom interaction
• third turn
• oh

Acknowledgments

This project was supported by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research in Japan No. 16520359. I am grateful to John Heritage and Steven E. Clayman for their helpful and in-depth comments on the earlier draft of this paper. Thanks also to David Aline for his substantive comments on earlier drafts of this paper and participation in the grant project for which this data was collected. I thank as well the anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions and comments. All remaining errors are mine.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. In the task-oriented classroom context, this tight control of turns by teachers does not apply, and students voluntarily take turns to accomplish learning tasks (Hellermann and Pekarek Doehler 2010; Mondada and Pekarek Doehler 2004; Pochon-Berger 2011). Moreover, recent studies have shown that even in the teacher-directed classroom context, students may move out of teacher control and self-initiate participation (Jacknick 2011; Waring 2009, 2011).

2. Questions to which the questioner already knows the answer were first called ‘exam questions’ by Searle (1969), then ‘known-information questions’ by Mehan (1979a, 1979b), and have since become known as ‘display questions’ in the second language acquisition literature (i.e. questions to which the teacher knows the answer). In this article, I employ the term ‘known-answer questions’, which is commonly used in recent conversation analysis literature (e.g. Heritage 2005, 2013; Heritage and Clayman 2010; Heritage and Raymond 2012; Lerner 1995; Schegloff 2007).

3. As for non-English classes taught by Japanese teachers in Japan, Cook (1999) observed an alternative interactional pattern – an initiation–presentation–reaction–evaluation pattern – in which the students are expected to react to peer presentations prior to teacher evaluations.

4. However, recent research has found that teachers' attempts to close sequences with the production of explicit positive assessments (for example, ‘good’ or ‘excellent’) may occasionally inhibit the students’ opportunities to check their understanding or seek alternative answers within particular pedagogical contexts (Waring 2008; Wong and Waring 2009).

5. In qualitative studies, this process is commonly called ‘inquiry audits’ (Lincoln and Guba 1985).