[Critical Review] Classroom Discourse: Teacher-Student Interaction by Sakuro

Illustration of Teacher-Student Interaction

In the last 10 years, teacher talk has been seen as an important feature in teaching learning process. There is no doubt that teacher talk has significant effect to the student’s ability. A lot of study has proven this (Ambrosio, 2013; Forman, 2012; Inawati, 2014; Kiasi & Hemmati, 2014; Thombury, 1996; Wang, 2014; Yanfen & Yuqin, 2010). But then, those studies are more likely to be global. That’s why this study found the gap to the previous study in using Indonesian ethnographic approach as the effect considering to teacher talk and students talk. He provides the exchanges of teacher talk and how does the teacher talk affect classroom interaction patterns. The exchanges of the talk might be whether a positive or Negative. This has a huge implication on education system. In stating this argument, Ahmad Abdan Sakuro in his research paper Classroom Discourse: Teacher-Student Interaction Analysis, quotes many previous studies related to his research.

Looking for the research paper appearance, this is a well-organized one. The abstract of this study is good-written —not like a paragraph—and it states the topics, the aims and research problems, also the findings from this study. The chapter organization would not make us confuse as the findings and discussion is explained in a section. It will be a hard when the study and the findings & discussion is located in a separated subsection because whether to learn about the study, we could be in a bothersome time, busying to look at the findings section, then move to the literature review, to the methods and go back to the findings & discussion again.

In his study, based on the observations, interviews, and textual analysis, Sakuro suggest that teacher talk classified into two sub categories which are indirect influence and direct influence. Indirect influence deals with feelings, questions, clarifying, and jokes. While, direct influence deals with corrections, directions, critics, and responses. Sakuro has proven that giving information is the dominant talk used by the teacher in the classroom. The second dominant talk is asking and giving question. The two sub categories of talks can be in non-anomalous or anomalous exchange which lead them to a good sequence of conversation, or in the other words, the conversation which has the good atmosphere of response. 

At first, Sakuro’s argument of studying teacher & students’ talks by the ethnographic affected on it, seems really interesting, challenging and could be a crucial finding. But then, from those findings and discussion, it can be seen that Sakuro is not a consistent researcher as he provides the teacher & students talks exchange and whether it is influence the classroom interaction or not only. Next, the samples are used in this study only focus on 10^th grade students of vocational school in Bandung. Sakuro is in English education, so in his investigation he chooses to focus on the teaching learning process in the classroom using teacher talk between teacher and students, it is appropriate to his background as the educator. This scope is very limit to be studied and the point of view of classroom discourse which include teacher talk and type of questions also needed to be enlarged. This study also need other framework related to the classroom discourse to give other significant contribution to this field of teaching and learning language. As we know, references are used to support our ideas in order to explain some materials regarding to the topic. In this research study, the author used the total of 28 sources to support some ideas which the author ought to use at least 60 sources to create a good paper, but several these are from the first sources and also the second sources to complete it. Several sources are from International Journal, Indonesian Journal, and also book that talk about some contents related to the topic. 

Judging at the research questions (What categories of exchange of teacher talk and student talk used during interaction in English Class?, and, How does the Teacher Talk affect the variation of classroom interaction patterns?), they both have clear specifies status of what kinds or types of talk that will be studied, and it contains the purpose of the study. It is a focused research questions as it has a specific area of study (teacher and students talk in English class). This is also a complex research questions, because it cannot simply be answered by searching it on Google, but it has to be studied from the 10 grade of a vocational school in Bandung mentioned. But we found some weaknesses. First, as this study is investigating teacher and students’ talk by identifying the video recording, it will take so much time doing it. Investigating each talk and the phenomenon happens in the interaction. The second weakness is the samples used in this research are very small, so the author got a very limit scope to be studied and the point of view of classroom discourse which include teacher talk and type of questions also needed to be enlarged. This study also need other framework related to the classroom discourse to give other significant contribution to this field of teaching and learning language. 

Sometimes teacher talk between teacher and students during teaching learning process is occasionally or not happen in our education, teacher only focus on how to explain materials to the students without looking at students’ understanding about the lesson. Teacher talk could be happened between teacher and students are making interaction by talking each other, even only giving greeting or asking question. This study about teacher talk in the teacher and student’s interaction is very important to see how teaching learning process happen in the classroom, since the teacher talk is helpful to bring the good atmosphere for students’ motivation.  Sakuro’s study is interest in educational system, this research giving contribution among teachers to manage the classroom activities in order to make students more active during teaching learning process. Giving information and asking/giving question are the best way to create some interactions between teacher and students.

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Works Cited

Ambrosio, Y. M. (2013). Questions in Teacher Talk: What Questions are Frequent and how it Affects Critical Thinking . International Proceedings of Economics Development and Resesarch, 68, pp. 70-75.

Forman, R. (2012). Six Functions of Bilingual EFL Teacher Talk: Animating, Translating, Explaining, Creating, Prompting and Dialoguing. RELC Journal. Retrieved October 18, 2016, from http://rel.sagepub.com/

Inawati, I. (2014). Teaching Speaking to Yong Learners through Role-play. The Second International Conference on Education and Language (2nd ICEL) (pp. 97-105). Lampung: Portal Garuda.

Kiasi, A. M., & Hemmati, F. (2014). The Importance of ‘Teacher Talk’ in Teaching EFL Writing. Porta Linguarium, 22, 95-108.

Sakuro, A. A. (2016, February). Classroom Discourse: Teacher-Student Interaction Analysis. Research Paper.

Thombury, S. (1996, October). Teachers Reserach Talk. ELT Journal, 50/4. doi:10.1093/elt/50.4.279

Wang, H. (2014). The Analysis of Teacher Talk in "Learner-centered" Teaching Mode. International Journal of Social, Behavioral, Educational, Economic, Business and Industrial Engineering, Vol:8, No:4, 1172-1174.

Yanfen, L., & Yuqin, Z. (2010). A Study of Teacher Talk in Interactions in English Classes. Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics (Bimonthly), 33.