Discourse Patterns in First Language Use at Hcme and Second Language Learning at School: an Ethnographic Approach

Interpretation / 168

crucial in both settings but learning seems more effective in the family,
does this mean that trained teachers have to learn from illiterate
parents? This issue will be discussed in Chapter 6.

5.6.3 Classroom discourse

Teachers and pupils constantly interact in the classroom, well beyond
language lessons. Is there anything in the 'ways of talking' at home that
could be relevant to general principles of classroom discourse? It is not
realistic to apply patterns in turn-taking, in the sustaining of inter-
action or dominance prevalent in home discourse to the classroom, where
the interaction is between 1 adult and 50-60 pupils.

General guidelines, however, can be used to suggest to teachers what
discourse expectations children are likely to have when they start Grade
1. The analysis of home interactions in the particular group considered
in the study indicates that open questions are more used in natural
conversation than closed, and are probably more effective in developing
interaction; teachers should make an effort to consider that there are
many different ways to reply to a question, and that process is often
more important that product. Disjunctive questions should be introduced
gradually, as they are not a familiar type of questions. Rhetorical
questions are a way of using background cultural knowledge to stress a
point, and it is likely that children find them natural in contexts of
control or in problem solving. Teachers should leave children the time to
add another utterance in their turn, as often they give information in
more than one utterance and not necessarily as a reply to a question.
Test questions are better kept for assessment, when the situational
context is clearly tutorial and a certain type of replies is sought, as
they tend to produce minimal utterances (se also Veils,1986).
Clarification requests by children are almost impossible in large group
lessons, as 'it would be virtually impossible to observe a rule about

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