Participation as a complex phenomenon in the EFL classroom

Abstract

The present study is concerned with the process of how EFL learners organise their classroom participation. Although oral engagement is considered the main indicator of student participation, opportunities to participate in oral discussion are not always available to all students due to different issues, (e.g., a large number of students in the class). The main focus of this research is therefore to describe how students participate in classroom discussion through other modes rather than explicit oral participation. This study involves the analysis of different forms of student participation used alternatively in EFL classrooms. Such forms related to the ongoing discussion are employed for different purposes by EFL students. Since previous studies have focused on verbal participation such the interrelated issues between teacher-student exchanges, much remains to be learned about the micro-interactional practice used by language learners to participate in classroom interaction. Therefore, this study aims to extend the existing knowledge of student participation in EFL classrooms. The analysis of data is based on Conversation Analysis (CA) methodology which can be used to analyse language and its environment, including a combination of talk and the use of body in the classroom context. The data base consists of about 14 hours of video and audio recorded lessons taken from second and third-year students of English Departments in Libyan universities. The reason for using video and audio recordings is that to have good chance for deep analysis of talk and embodied action. The findings show that there are other forms of student participation, including embodied action and desk talk. Embodied action analysis reveals that students as collaborative members rely on a variety of embodiments to sustain classroom interaction. The results obtained from this analysis provide evidence of the extent to which such these embodiments are exploited by language learners to participate in their classrooms. This means that students are not only orally participating but they are also non-orally constructing a kind of group participation through distributing meaningful signals. Such signals include different patterns of gazes, facial expressions, nodding heads body orientation and movements towards teacher or class. In addition, the findings show that desk talk produced beyond teacher-student talk is actually relating to the ongoing discussion. Students produce such desk talk in order to cope with ongoing discussion and to compensate for their lack of explicit oral opportunities to participate in classroom discussion.