Managing discussions after student presentations in English as a foreign language seminars
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2018 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | Although discussions after student presentations play an important role both educationally and academically, the dynamics and organization of these discussions remain relatively understudied. Building on a data set consisting of 12 videotaped follow-up discussions (collected in an undergraduate English as a foreign language course), this conversation-analytic study describes three practices that an instructor employed when managing discussions after student presentations: (1) the instructor created space for audience questions and participation by not speaking first after the presenters invited the audience to ask questions, (2) she elicited audience questions when there were none and (3) she encouraged the presenters to express themselves when answering her questions by using the “mhm” continuer. Using these practices the instructor controlled the ongoing interaction in order to achieve the institutional goal of creating space for exchanges among seminar participants and to provide the participants with opportunities to engage in oral communication in academic settings. |