a multisemiotic investigation of iranian efl teachers’ turn-allocation strategies in their classroom interactions

Second/foreign language classroom interaction is believed to have its own idiosyncrasies and peculiarities. many studies have focused on the importance of turntaking systems for students to gain and hold the floor. nevertheless, a limited number of studies has explored teachers rsquo; turnallocation strategies in their instructional interactions. motivated by this gap, through the methodological framework of conversation analysis (ca), the present study attempted to investigate the frequently employed turnallocation strategies that iranian efl teachers use in their classroom interactions with their students. to this end, a corpus of nine hours of english instruction was videorecorded and analyzed through sacks et al. rsquo;s (1974) model of turnallocation. the results of indepth qualitative analysis indicated that iranian efl teachers used multiple resources to allocate the turn to their students. more specifically, it was found that iranian teachers generally allocate turns to their students through directing their gaze towards them as well as nominating them by their names. moreover, the teachers, in this study, used nonverbal strategies of head nods and pointing gestures to nominate the next speaker to take the turn. the study ends with some implications for the efl teachers in that they can manage their turnallocation techniques more efficiently in their instructional interactions.

A Multisemiotic Investigation of Iranian EFL Teachers’ Turn-allocation Strategies in their Classroom Interactions

Second/foreign language classroom interaction is believed to have its own idiosyncrasies and peculiarities. Many studies have focused on the importance of turntaking systems for students to gain and hold the floor. Nevertheless, a limited number of studies has explored teachers rsquo; turnallocation strategies in their instructional interactions. Motivated by this gap, through the methodological framework of Conversation Analysis (CA), the present study attempted to investigate the frequently employed turnallocation strategies that Iranian EFL teachers use in their classroom interactions with their students. To this end, a corpus of nine hours of English instruction was videorecorded and analyzed through Sacks et al. rsquo;s (1974) model of turnallocation. The results of indepth qualitative analysis indicated that Iranian EFL teachers used multiple resources to allocate the turn to their students. More specifically, it was found that Iranian teachers generally allocate turns to their students through directing their gaze towards them as well as nominating them by their names. Moreover, the teachers, in this study, used nonverbal strategies of head nods and pointing gestures to nominate the next speaker to take the turn. The study ends with some implications for the EFL teachers in that they can manage their turnallocation techniques more efficiently in their instructional interactions.