166 Advances in spoken discourse analysis
make sense of such exchanges in the language classroom is to see them in
terms of Outer and Inner.
This type of teacher-initiated exchange where the teacher asks the
student to say some words, repeat something, make a question, all involving
language used as Inner, I have labelled ‘Direct:verbal’ (DV for short).
It is more akin to the Sinclair and Coulthard ‘Teacher Direct’ type of
exchange (which in a content classroom would predict a non-verbal
response) since it ‘directs’ a verbal performance from the student, whereas
the ‘Teacher Elicit’ predicts an informative, message-oriented response.
Both require a Teacher Follow-up move to complete the exchange
successfully.
TWO TYPES OF INNER: DEPENDENT OR INDEPENDENT?
In addition to choral repetition and teacher controlled language practice
of the type described above (Inner), some teachers ask students to do
‘question and answer’ type drills in pairs. Whereas the examples of Inner
language above were quite definitely non-interactive on their own, and
dependent on the Outer layer for their existence, in the following example
we have some question and answer pair-work which is not Outer because
the focus is still on the form of the words. It doesn’t really matter whether
the student tells the truth when replying; the important thing is that he/
she gets the form correct and yet the two students are taking turns to
speak and interacting in a fashion which I would call ‘pseudo-interactive’.
While this ‘pseudo-interaction’ is actually in progress, it can be temporarily
independent of the Outer structure; the two students together can complete
the required exchange or series of exchanges independently without teacher
intervention, until they finish, at which point the teacher’s Follow-up
move takes the discourse back to the Outer. Sometimes, though, the
teacher will offer a Follow-up move after each student move, even after
the Initiation.
So now we have a system with both Inner Dependent and Inner Independent
Columns (see Example 2 on p. 167).
The fourth exchange below, (45), is a very clear example of the type
of exchange that ensues when the teacher asks one student to ask another
student a question. In this type of exchange two responding moves are
predicted, on the Inner; one in the form of a question and the other in
the form of an answer. This resulting pair-interaction forms a two-move
exchange on the Inner Independent, followed by a teacher Follow-up
move.
This type of teacher inititated exchange I have called a ‘Direct:verbal
exchange’, DVX for short, to show the difference between a ‘Direct:verbal’
which predicts one Responding move and this one, which predicts two
Responding moves from two different students, a question and an answer,
jointly making an exchange in its own right.