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Isolde J. Jordan
University of Colorado, Boulder One of the recurring observations in the literature about turn-taking structure in the language classroom has been that there is generally a low incidence of self-selected turns by students. The term «self-selection», originally coined by Sacks, Schlegloff and Jefferson (1974), was modified by Allwright (1980:168) to fit his description of classroom behavior, where he distinguishes between «turn getting» and «turn giving.» In speaking here of self-selection, I adopt one of Allwright's subcategories of «turn getting»: «Take: Take an unsolicited turn, when a turn is available "discourse maintenance."» The author presents a case study of one student's performance in an ESL classroom. This student took twice as many of the above described turns as the other students combined. He also scored twice as high as all of his classmates together as a user of general topics (i. e., other than responding in drills, information or pedagogical/procedural matters). But he was an isolated case in a class that was confronted with an overwhelming domination by the teacher. Orletti (1981), in her study on «Classroom verbal interaction» based on the Sacks, Schlegloff and Jefferson model, also notes the lack of self-selection by students. Authors such as Allington (1980) and Eder (1982) attribute this to management activities and outright interruptions by the teacher who thereby obviously inhibits the students' performance and spontaneity. McHoul (1978) makes the «formality» of the classroom situation responsible for the state of affairs that «only teachers can direct speakership in any creative ways» (188). Lörscher (1982) also discusses the problem of independent student self-selection. He explains that «since utterance structures are mostly language-specific, their identification and anticipation should be practiced in the language classroom.» This, however, is done, if at all, only in exceptional cases. «The participation in the teacher-student communication in a foreign language fails to give the student the possibility to learn those forms of turn-taking that are necessary in order to be able to function with the foreign language in most conversational situations outside the class room» (214). «The commonly found structure of turn-taking [in the classroom] could be, at least temporarily, modified to allow self-selection by the student... Thus the student would have a chance to learn to anticipate foreign language utterances in their structure, to locate transitionally relevant points in the conversation and consequently, as in most every day conversational situations, to self-select his turn» (217, both quotes my translation from German). Thus it seems that we, as teachers, have not made much progress in developing the students' ability to communicate spontaneously and without turn-allocation by the teacher. Apparently we are afraid to «lose control» if we let the students digress from the proposed topic; we often fear that we may not be able to cover all the material imposed by the syllabus; and finally, we do not let the students speak freely because we are afraid that they will learn ungrammatical structures if we don't correct them on the spot when they make mistakes. It is a matter of the delicate balance between the requirements of the classroom situation, its «formality», the position of the teacher as guide and transmitter of knowledge, and the students' need to be able to participate in «normal» everyday conversations, which includes being able to self-select a turn. How do students take turns independently? From a sampling selection
of audiotapes (during which notes were taken as to the nature of turn-taking)
in Spanish classes at the University of Colorado at the first, second and
third year level, the most surprising conclusion was that some students do
self-select their turn without solicitation by the teacher at all levels.
During conversational practice the key factor is obviously the teacher's behavior when he/she tries to instigate a discussion
where he/she is just one of the
participants,
For example, in a second semester class (5 weekly contact hours), a discussion was held about several topics that seemed to interest the students. After an introductory explanation by the teacher, turn-taking took place as follows: 8 times the teacher allocated turns by calling specific students by name; twice he got answers to a question to the class in general (which do not constitute unsolicited turns); 11 times students raised their hand to speak, but not in answer to a question by the teacher; and 12 times students self-selected their turn even without raising their hand first. In contrast, in a fourth semester class (3 weekly contact hours), during a free discussion, the teacher was obviously more «in control.» She called students by name 23 times to give them their turn; 4 times somebody in the class responded to a question she asked the class in general; self-selection by a student occurred 5 times with and 7 times without hand-raising. While the ratio of turn-allocation by the teacher versus student self-selection was 10 to 23 in the second semester class, it was 27 to 12 in the fourth semester class, the distribution being roughly opposite in the latter. Here the teacher also interrupted the students frequently which obviously hampered their efforts to participate freely in the conversation. These are only random examples. It is not my intention here to establish exact statistics of self-selection by students. Rather, we should ask ourselves what techniques the students use to take a turn independently. One possibility that can be singled out is the use of so-called «discourse markers.» These are words such as -in English- but, and, well etc. In fact, 5 of the 12 self-selected turns in our second semester class started with pero. Here is an example: The discussion was about using stereo types in television advertising. All the students' turns were self-selected. Student 1: «Las mujeres en los anuncios son siempre muy lindas y delgadas.» Student 2: «Si no hay personas, no hay estereotipos.» Teacher: «La mujer es un modelo, pero es un modelo falso, las mujeres no son así.» Student 3: «Pero no es posible vender productos con mujeres grandes...» (Laughter) The pragmatic role of English but (and Spanish pero) has been analyzed repeatedly as introducing a new turn in conversation. Schiffrin (1987) gave a detailed account of the contrastive function of but as a discourse coordinator. The pero we found in self-selected turns in class corresponds to her description of «contrastive actions -as speakers' efforts to make a point in reaction to interruptions, distractions, challenges and disagreements» (177). Van Dijk (1979: 452) does not see but as necessarily contrastive: «Weaker forms [of but] may be used as conversational starters, e.g., when a speaker tries to interrupt an other speaker, even in those cases where no contradiction or semantic contrast is involved.» In a forthcoming article, I analyze pero at the beginning of turns not only as establishing a contrast to what was said before, but also to express doubt as to the content of the preceding discussion and to give a new direction to it. In other cases, pero has a restrictive function or can give a communication-internal signal such as «but this is not the question here.» In the classrooms we observed, the self selected turns starting with pero were mainly direct contrastive replies to the teacher's or another student's statement. The frequent use of this particular discourse marker shows that the teacher was able to interest the students in a discussion topic that challenged students to express protest and give their own opinion. Thus they were encouraged to function as full participants in a conversational ex change. However, teaching a language is not all conversational practice, even though newer methods emphasize conversation as essential for the ability to communicate. It is still necessary to teach grammatical structures, and especially in the case of the adult college student, to give grammatical explanations to those who do not «pick up» a language, but feel the need to «understand» how it is constructed. Is it possible to create a situation during these grammar learning sessions in which the students participate with self selected turns? In a second year class I taped and observed (a small class of only 10 students with 6 weekly contact hours), the following exchange took place: The topic was the use of verbs like gustar,
Teacher: «El libro le gusta. Si yo quiero sustituir el sujeto por un pronombre, sería: Él le gusta.» Student: «Entonces, la le gusto (he likes her) es incorrecto. Sería: Ella le gusta.» The student used a break after the teacher's turn and spoke without turn-allocation by the teacher. He was verbalizing his own learning process of this structure. In a classroom where the students are encouraged to shape their own understanding of a grammatical structure, applying it to what they themselves want to say, they are able to get away from the mere drilling and the pattern of direct question and answer dominated by the teacher. Thus the above student shows the reverse of the pattern when he asks the question which he then answers himself. Again I want to draw attention to the discourse marker used at the beginning of this self-selected turn. In my previously cited article, entonces was found to be a frequent turn starter. It was stated that «... [los participantes] con turnos iniciados por entonces se empujan uno al otro a conclusiones o generalizaciones.» «[El hablante] utiliza su turno para hacer que el informante se comprometa en cuanto a sus afirmaciones.» «Muchas veces [entonces] se encuentra al principio de una pregunta con la intención de sacar del otro participante una declaración definitiva o hasta concesiva.» This study was based on recordings of conversations by Mexican native speakers. But the explanation is valid for the above student's turn in the classroom: he is trying to draw some conclusions from the discussion about this grammatical structure and he wants to elicit a commitment from the teacher in support of her affirmations. It is therefore possible that, even in a more formal situation of teaching grammar, students assert their right to a self-selected turn. By doing so they convert the artificial classroom situation into a more life-like conversational exchange where all the participants have the chance to provide a full share of input. Conclusion From the preceding discussion we can conclude that turn-taking in the language classroom does not have to be a formal exchange orchestrated only by the teacher. We observed the potential for self-selection in the students, exemplified by their use of discourse markers such as pero and entonces. As suggested by Lörscher (see above), conversational structures should be taught in class so that the students will be able to anticipate them and learn how to participate in a «real-world» conversational exchange in the foreign language. I have tried to demonstrate here how teaching methodology can benefit from the linguistic field of conversation analysis, which can be useful in defining what the characteristics of spontaneous turn-taking are. These can then be incorporated in the teaching of language structure. With respect to our examples of discourse markers, pero and entonces (which to my knowledge are generally introduced to the students as mere vocabulary words and, perhaps, conjunctions), we as teachers might make active use of them in class as pragmatic connectives and thus demonstrate the element of opposition (pero) and conclusion, compromise, concession (entonces). By doing so we would break the pattern question (teacher) -answer (student), or command (teacher)- performance (student). The students would adopt these connectives as techniques in conversation and would begin to participate more creatively in the turn-taking process. When made explicit, this can be practically exploited in foreign language interaction. Thus we have suggested a direction in methodology for a subject that in the past has received mostly theoretical treatment. Works Cited Allington, Richard L. «Teacher Interruption Behaviors During Primary-Grade Oral Reading.» Journal of Educational Psychology 72.3 (1980): 371-77. Allwright, R. L. «Turns, Topics, and Tasks: Patterns of Participation in Language Learning and Teaching.» In Analysis in Second Language Research, Diane Larsen Freeman, ed. Rowley, MA: Newbury House Publ., 1980. 165-87. Eder, Donna. «The Impact of Management and Turn Allocation Activities on Student Performance.» Discourse Processes 5 (1982): 147-59. Jordan, Isolde. «El uso de los nexos pragmáticos al comienzo de turnos en la conversación» To be published in Foro Literario, Montevideo, Uruguay. Lörscher, Wolfgang. «Konversationanalyse and Fremdsprachenunterricht.» Neusprachliche Mitteilungen aus Wissenschaft und Praxis, 35.4 (1982): 211-18. McHoul, Alexander. «The Organization of Turns at Formal Talk in the Classroom.» Language in Society 7 (1979): 183-213. Orletti, Franca. «Classroom Verbal Interaction: A Conversational
Sacks, Harvey, Emanuel A. Schlegloff and Gail Jefferson. «A Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn Taking for Conversation.» Language 50.4 (1974): 696-734. Schiffrin, Deborah. Discourse Markers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. Van Dijk, Teun A. «Pragmatic Connectives.» Journal of Pragmatics 3 (1979): 447-56. 
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