Pre-Service teachers’ management of student-initiated word searches in an EFL classroom

ABSTRACT

Searching for unknown words is a common interactional practice of learners in EFL classrooms. Language teachers exploit learner-initiated word searches in several ways to promote learning opportunities. However, it can be more challenging for pre-service teachers during their teaching practicum, as it is their first contact with students in a real classroom. Therefore, it is worth analysing how pre-service teachers manage word searches in classroom interaction during their practicum. For this reason, we video-recorded 43 lessons of 16 pre-service EFL teachers doing their practicum at a high school in Turkey. We analysed student-initiated word searches and the orientations of the pre-service teachers to them. The results indicate that word searches are collaborative practices shaped by momentary the pedagogical focus, and the use of L1. Teachers attend to the word search by choosing the appropriate candidate word or providing reformulation for the negotiated words. When they do not attend to the word search, they may let it pass or prioritize fluency. Those two pathways will be discussed in relation to learning opportunities and teachers’ classroom interactional competence, and implications regarding EFL classrooms will be presented.

KEYWORDS:

• EFL classroom interaction
• word search sequences
• pre-service EFL teachers in practicum
• classroom interactional competence
• learning opportunities

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. While in English, (1) someone may break a window or (2) a machine breaks, in Turkish there are different words for these different actions (1) kırmak and (2) bozulmak. S7 might have had the idea that s2 (line 13) and T (line 14) misunderstood her and thought that s7’s mobile phone was separated into pieces. That’s why T might have wanted to clarify the meaning.

2. We first thought that s2 meant that the word was the same in English by opening his hands. However, one of the reviewers suggested that opening two hands could display a certain helplessness in finding the correct word or putting this word up as a candidate suggestion for the other student to deal with.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gözde Balıkçı

Gözde Balıkçı is a faculty member at Kahramanmaraş Sütçü İmam University, Turkey. She received her Ph.D. degree in English Language Teaching from METU in 2018. Her research interests include but not limited to pre-service language teacher education, teaching English as a foreign language, and classroom interactional competence.

Gölge Seferoğlu

Gölge Seferoğlu is a faculty member at California State University. She holds MA, EdM, and EdD degrees from Teachers College, Columbia University in the fields of TESOL and Applied Linguistics. Her research interest includes teacher development, technology-enhanced teaching and learning, and classroom research