Weekly Research (12): Construction of Discussion in Tutorials

This will be the last post for this task. I have noticed there are some people out there who have tried to stay under the 2000 word limit as set by keeping to 295 word posts. This freaked me out a little, as I have done no such thing. For science, I have diligently retrieved the word count for all 7 posts for this session and the final count is 3707 (excluding haikus). I might have gone a little over.

This week, I have posted my response here, and is as follows:

Having been enlightened that this structure exists, I have to say that I’ve noticed the three stages in class as well. It is very much an initiation, response and follow-up, and I suppose it’s just one of those things you just don’t give much thought. Also, you raise an interesting point with the structure in the final minutes of a tutorial. In the reading, talk is considered ‘a medium for the conveying of information, with varying degrees of effectiveness, from a speaker to a listener’. I believe that emphasis should be put on varying degrees of effectiveness, as it should be mentioned that whilst a tutorial is taking place – it does not necessarily mean that the structure will be followed completely. Sometimes I’ve found myself in a tutorial of tired, fed up students that offer no questions at all.

It is a tutor dominated space, to be certain (as the 3 stages set up the tutor as the controller of the discourse), and as such there is a hierarchical order to be followed but more often than not there will be a set of unstated rules by the first 3 or so tutorials with the tutor. Negative and positive face threatening acts are inevitable in this space, but rapport is still often created due to a suspension of typical rules of politeness. I found this interesting, since I hadn’t really noticed how much people are willing to put up with in a tutorial until I thought about it. I guess it really depends on the tutor when it comes down to the finer details, some tutors will have high negative politeness – with a bunch of hedging, others will focus on positive politeness and try and work on solidarity, often using ‘we’ or informal language to match the student group. A combination of the two is ideal, though too much of it could make a tutor look slightly incompetent – at least that’s my opinion, anyway.

Also, much like what you noticed of the ‘speeding up’ of the structure, I find that the turn taking often breaks down when the students are less likely to engage and the tutorial teacher is required to take a more ‘directive’ approach to her/his teaching. Though, it sometimes leads to tutors being trapped in perpetual ‘initiation’, with no response whatsoever. I’ve found that some tutors will ‘fill in’ the response stage and formulate a follow up stage to keep the tutorial moving, but more often than not tutors will be frustrated by the breakdown of social conduct and either pick a victim to answer a question or verbalise said frustration. I suppose it’s just another one of those things that are ‘talked into being’, without this kind of discourse, the tutorial ceases to exist. I just wanted to put that in because it’s my favourite thing ever and I’m not allowed to write a blog post about it, I have to respond to someone else’s blog, so. There.

References:
Benthen Benwell and Elizabeth H. Stokoe, (2002), “Constructing Discussion Tasks in University Tutorials: Shifting dynamics and identities”, in Discourse Studies, vol. 4, no.4, pp. 429-453.