Opening up and closing down: How teachers and TAs manage turn-taking, topic and repair in mathematics lessons

Abstract

Support for children with special educational needs in inclusive classrooms is increasingly provided by teaching assistants (TAs). They often have a direct pedagogical role, taking responsibility for instruction in mathematics. The quality of TAs’ oral skills is crucial for learning but has rarely been researched. Using conversation analysis, this study compares teacher and TA talk in terms of turn allocation, topic generation and repair. From 130 recordings, transcripts of mathematics teaching in four lessons were analysed in depth. We found that teachers open up students whilst TAs close down the talk. Teachers, with whole classes, adopt inclusive teaching strategies to ensure oral participation whereas TAs, working with individuals, emphasise task completion. Teachers use open strategies for topic generation whilst TAs ask closed questions. Teachers withhold correction with prompts and hints whilst TAs supply answers. The findings are interpreted with reference to the TA role and implications for management and training.

Introduction

In recent years there has been a huge increase in the number of para-professionals working in schools. For example, from 1997 to 2010, the number of full time equivalent support staff in English schools rose from 133,500 to 362,600 (DFE¹). This increase is paralleled in other countries such as Finland, Germany and the United States (Giangreco and Doyle, 2007, Giangreco et al., 2010). The names used for para-professionals who provide support in inclusive classrooms vary across countries: special needs assistant is used in Ireland (Logan, 2006), teacher aide in Australia and the United States (Bourke and Carrington, 2007, Giangreco et al., 2010) and learning support assistant or teaching assistant (TA) or higher level teaching assistant, in England, where TAs now comprise 24% of the overall school workforce. Developments that have contributed to the growth in support staff in the UK include: the delegation of funding for special educational needs (SEN); the introduction of literacy and numeracy strategies; and the implementation of ‘The National Agreement’, which aimed to raise pupil standards and tackle teacher workload via new and expanded support roles (DfES, 2002).

Although most studies have been conducted in England and the United States, the actual role of TAs varies both within and across countries, (Giangreco, 2010; Giangreco & Doyle, 2007). Increasingly, TAs work predominantly with pupils with low ability/SEN and disability² (Blatchford, Bassett, Brown, Koutsoubou, et al., 2009). Furthermore, with respect to these learners, TAs spend most of their time in a direct pedagogical role, supporting and interacting with pupils (Blatchford et al., 2009, Blatchford et al., 2009) yet this development is controversial.

Findings from a large scale longitudinal study of over 8000 pupils, known as the DISS project (Deployment and Impact of Support Staff), gives weight to this controversy. It found that the pupils who received most support from TAs made significantly less progress in mathematics, English and science than similar pupils with less TA support, even after controlling for pupil characteristics likely to be the reason for TA support, like prior attainment and level of SEN (Blatchford et al., in press). For some age groups and subjects this effect was most marked for pupils with SEN (Webster et al., 2010). The main explanation for these findings appears to be that TA-supported pupils become separated from their teachers and the curriculum as a result of spending more time with TAs. Observational studies conducted as a part of the DISS project also showed that the more support pupils received from TAs, the less interaction they had with the teacher. TAs had inadvertently become the primary front-line educators of low attaining pupils and pupils with SEN/disabilities. Contrary to Government policy, TAs therefore offer alternative rather than additional support. This makes it urgent that we have better understanding of the quality of the talk that takes place during interactions between TAs and pupils, a topic that has not been studied to date in any detail.

To address this issue, observation data on pupil–adult dialogue were collected in English and mathematics lessons (Blatchford, Bassett, Brown, Koutsoubou, et al., 2009). Using a coding frame drawn from Berliner’s (1987) instructional model it was found that teachers engaged in significantly more explanations of concepts and feedback whereas TAs used more prompts and questions. Overall, it was concluded that TAs compared to teachers tended to be concerned with task completion, not learning, and tended to be reactive rather than proactive in interactions with pupils (Rubie-Davies, Blatchford, Webster, Koutsoubou, & Bassett, 2010).

The main purpose of this paper is to explicate more fully ways in which teachers and TAs use language in inclusive classrooms. Whereas the Rubie-Davies study coded only adult turns, a more fine-grained analysis is now needed in order to illustrate precisely the nature of the instructional strategies and their effects on learner participation. Furthermore, no detailed observational study has yet been conducted that explicates the TAs’ involvement in learning episodes. The study therefore makes use of the techniques of conversation analysis (CA) which is proving a highly valuable tool for gaining detailed insights into pedagogical discourse (Gibson, 2009, Koshik, 2002; McHoul, 1990). CA as a discipline has its origins in Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology and Goffman’s studies of order in interaction. The approach is expressly inductive, as it involves rejecting a priori assumptions about the data and paying open-minded attention to detail (Have, 2007). Using CA thus offers the potential for fresh understanding of how the TA-student and teacher–student interactions compare whilst teaching the same lesson content (mathematical concepts). Instead of coding single utterances, a sequential analysis will take account of the talk of the students as well. This paper will examine selected features of teacher and TA talk with pupils by focussing on three aspects: turn allocation, topic organisation and how repairs are accomplished because, as we shall now discuss, they are central to classroom learning.

First of all, how turn-taking is organised was originally described by Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson (1978). Applying similar principles to the classroom, in whole class interaction it has been shown that teachers typically allocate turns and students have few opportunities to self-select (Jones & Thornborrow, 2004). In other words, teachers exercise tight control over who has the right to participate. The reason that the system of turn-taking is important for mathematical learning stems from research that aims to characterise which features of effective teacher–pupil dialogue promote conceptual understanding. The notion of ‘inclusive teaching’ is a key characteristic; it involves creating a classroom culture where each contribution is valued equally and teachers adopting deliberate strategies to ensure that the less able can participate (Kyriacou & Issitt, 2008). How TAs communicate messages about turn-taking and participation is yet to be explored, bearing in mind that they mainly support individuals and small groups rather than teach whole classes.

Secondly, the way in which topic³ is generated also has a significant bearing on the degree of student participation. In a typical classroom, teachers solicit topic through initiations (I) that generate student responses (R) which are subsequently given evaluative feedback (F) (Cazden, 2001). This three-part IRF sequence is widely known and well documented in mathematics lessons (Myhill, 2006, Smith et al., 2004). As teachers have superior epistemic authority, initiations usually involve asking questions to which they already have the answer (Myhill, 2006). Consequently, student answers are brief, despite the promotion of whole class interactive teaching in the National Numeracy and Literacy Strategies in the UK (Smith et al., 2004). One concern is that extensive use of IRF limits student engagement and participation (Hardman, Smith, & Wall, 2005). In terms of pedagogy in mathematics, a major research review concludes that ‘going beyond IRF’ is a likely candidate for effectiveness (Kyriacou & Issitt, 2008). This can be accomplished by initiations such as open questions, devices like ‘tell us what you think’ and authentic questions to which the adult does not know the answer (Coles, 2002, Myhill, 2006, Smith et al., 2004). Furthermore, when teachers use initiations such as ‘open invitations’, topic can be jointly constructed, even when a grammatically closed question is asked (Radford, Ireson, & Mahon, 2006). This is because open invitations (e.g. ‘Who should be in our story?’) solicit students’ own ideas and opinions, as opposed to the right answer, and generate student reasoning and explanations. In this way, they satisfy the criteria for dialogic discourse and create valuable learning opportunities (Alexander, 2001, Alexander, 2008, Fisher, 2007). Going beyond IRF also has implications for feedback moves; it is the key site for displaying genuine interest in student ideas and asking questions to further expand their mathematical thinking (Smith & Higgins, 2006).

As a third area of interest, this paper is concerned with repair sequences. Classroom talk is abundant with errors and misunderstanding because learners, especially those with SEN, are continually pushed to the limits of their understanding. Precisely how adults respond has important implications for student involvement in high quality discourse. CA studies of repair offer a well-established way of showing how adults deal with children’s incorrect responses and lack of clarity (Schegloff, 2007, Schegloff et al., 1977). In the classroom, teachers correct children’s talk more readily than in everyday conversation (Hauser, 2005, Macbeth, 2006, McHoul, 1990). Yet, to foster student independence, teachers should avoid direct correction and, instead, employ strategies such as clueing (McHoul, 1990), prompting, hinting and supplying a model (Radford, 2010a, Radford, 2010b, Ridley et al., 2002). These studies demonstrate that withholding correction, through use of devices like prompts and hints (also known as other-initiations), affords students the maximum opportunity to self-repair and find the answer by themselves. Indeed, asking for clarification and fostering reasoning through the use of why questions, instead of correction, are listed as candidates for effectiveness in the mathematics classroom (Kyriacou and Issitt, 2008, Smith and Higgins, 2006).

The key purpose of this paper is to compare TAs and teachers in terms of key dimensions of classroom talk. The comparison is relevant because TAs, like teachers, are often placed in an instructional role in mathematics lessons to support learner(s) with SEN and disabilities. Our questions are: (a) How do teachers and TAs allocate turns, initiate topic and deal with repairs when teaching the same lesson content? (b) What are the implications of the teacher and TA strategies learning and participation in mathematics lessons?