Teachers act to guide meaning making on the social plane by initiating interaction and responding to students in particular ways, both of which are often centrally mediated by oral language. This study investigated teachers' talking and teacher-studen...
Teachers act to guide meaning making on the social plane by initiating interaction and responding to students in particular ways, both of which are often centrally mediated by oral language. This study investigated teachers' talking and teacher-student interactions in a eighth-grade science classroom. Three science teachers with different backgrounds participated in this study, and eight classes were examined in terms of interactive/noninteractive and dialogic/authoritative dimensions. We analyzed characteristics of discourse context and teachers' talking by focusing on dialogical discourse, and also categorized teacher-student interaction patterns within dialogic discourse based on initiate-respondfeedback (IRF) patterns. This qualitative case study revealed that dialogic/interactive discourse usually appeared when teachers asked open-ended questions, provided appropriate examples, elaborated on a student's talking, and postponed immediate evaluation. The interaction patterns in dialogic discourse showed some variation compared with the original IRF pattern in authoritative discourse. The patterns changed in a way so as to provide students with opportunities for self-evaluation and reflective thinking, as well as various opinions. Based on these data and findings, we propose effective ways by which a teacher can use language that critically affects students' understanding of scientific knowledge and their in-class participation.