164 Difference
I’ll call on a student who I think will give the answer, because it saves a lot of time and
I don’t think it’s any fun to sit there with somebody not knowing the answer and
waiting for them to struggle through something. [... ] No, I don’t try to stay with
someone to get to a certain point. I guess I have a low threshold for boredom and I
want to keep things interesting and if something gets dull, I switch. (.) And (.) I also
think that students have a limited tolerance for staying with the conversation between
professor and single student (.) and why waste time? You’ve got a lot to cover. (In-
terview 6)This professor stresses that moving around the class produces a more interesting,
quickly flowing discussion, and that this has pedagogical benefits.
We have also seen some variation here; just as with the more Socratic classes,
the more conversational, short-exchange classes are not all alike.^33 In the excerpts
from Class #3, the professor made heavy use of metalinguistic signaling to draw
the comments of diverse students into a coherent, ongoing exchange weighing
different sides of the argument. In the excerpts from Class #6, the professor kept
an ongoing stream of inquiry going using diverse students, but without similar
foregrounding of the speakers. In each case, the professors created coherence and
continuity through their questions and exegetical commentary, structuring the
topics for student comments down to a limited and more manageable scope. In-
deed, both professors begin the discussion with very explicit delineations of the
categories and questions on which students should draw in answering questions
about the cases assigned for the day.
The Dialogic Lecturer
Of course, the most explicit linguistic form for “pure” delivery of (semantico-
referential) information in these classrooms is the lecture. In one class in the
study, Class #7, a lecture structure predominated.^34 The professor talked for 95%
of the time in this class, with 4% of the talk in class produced by individual stu-
dents and 1% produced by the class as a whole. Professor monologue occupied
around 91% of class time, with 2% spent in longer focused dialogues, and 8%
spent in shorter exchanges.
Despite this apparently quite different discursive structure, it is surprising to
find that we could analyze much of the language in this classroom as structured
around some kind of dialogic form, despite the fact that in general, lengthy mono-
logues by the professor (ending with questions or prompts) alternate with short
student turns. In the excerpt that follows, the professor begins class with a lengthy
monologue about the case that was under discussion at the end of the previous
class, and then turns to questioning the students:
Transcript 7.13 [7/10/2–6]Prof.: [... end of 5.59 turn... ] We haven’t gotten very far in contract
formation analysis, but we’re- we’re at the very beginning here, yet. We
haven’t gotten off the dime yet, so, we’re really facing- there are only
two choices we’ve discussed so far, what are they?
Class: Offer.