Transforming Talk And Phonics Practice: Or, How Do Crabs Clap?

Transforming Talk And PhonicsPractice: Or, How Do Crabs Clap?SHEENA GARDNERThe University of BirminghamBirmingham, England

This article aims first to show how a teacher, working within a nationallyproscriptive, standards-driven, mainstream context turns a form-focused phonics practice activity into a word game that engages theimagination, intellect, and identity of 5–6-year-old English languagelearners. Based on the assumption that teacher–student interactions arecrucial for bilingual students’ success at school (Cummins 2000, p. 6),the transformation in the 15-minute Literacy Hour word work activity ispresented in terms of five key discourse threads related to (a) coveringthe curriculum, (b) surface justification, (c) deep justification throughshared imaging, (d) shifting the locus of experience, and (e) playingthe word game, each of which is explained by different theoreticalperspectives, and each of which embodies different pedagogical prin-ciples. The subsequent discussion focuses on the fundamental changesin instructional and social assumptions about the nature of language,knowledge, learning, the curriculum, and student outcomes to explainhow the traditional pedagogy implicit in the published activity developsinto a constructive and then a transformative pedagogy (Cummins,2001, p. 219). The article shows how pedagogical transformation workson multiple related assumptions and how these are realised in discoursethreads weaved through the teacher–student interaction.

Educational reforms and standards-driven curricula have forcedchange on English language teaching around the world, from North

America to Australia, Hong Kong, and Great Britain, as illustrated, forinstance, in Mohan, Leung, and Davison (2001). Such cross-nationaldialogue and comparison has shown not only the similarity of issues andconcerns, but also the extent of international borrowing from curricu-lum policies and classroom practices.

It is perhaps especially in times of restrictive legislation that researchon transforming educational practices is needed. Cummins (2000) pro-vides one such framework, which explores relationships between thecommunities, institutions, educational structures, and educator roles onthe one hand, and the central microinteractions between educators and

TESOL QUARTERLY Vol. 42, No. 2, June 2008 261

students that “form an interpersonal space within which knowledge isgenerated and identities are negotiated” (p. 43) on the other. It is theseinteractions, he argues, that reflect either an exclusionary, assimilationistorientation or a transformative, intercultural orientation (pp. 43–46)and which are therefore crucial in determining the success of bilinguallearners working in a mainstream context.

Interactions between educators and students represent the direct deter-minant of bilingual students’ success or failure at school. . . . if change ineducational practice is the goal . . . an adequate conceptualisation ofteacher-student interactions requires an interdisciplinary analysis. (p. 6)

Such an interdisciplinary analysis brings together theoretical perspec-tives on the nature of language, learning, and the curriculum (Cummins,2001, p. 219) as implicit in classroom talk.

This article begins by outlining extensive changes in macro-educational structures in England, which threaten to constrain teaching.In the lesson examined here, however, teaching and learning are liber-ated. This process is explored through an analysis of discourse threadsfrom a 15-minute phonics practice activity and through discussion of thechanging assumptions about the nature of language, learning, and thecurriculum which underpin the transition from a traditional, throughconstructivist, to transformative pedagogy (Cummins, 2001, p. 219).

CHANGE AND OPPORTUNITY IN ONE EAL CONTEXT

Change has become the norm for the English as an additional language(EAL)1 support team involved in this research2 in an urban primaryschool in the English Midlands: There have been changes in the cur-riculum with the introduction of the National Literacy Strategy to thisschool in 1998; changes in ministerial responsibility for EAL from Sec-tion 11 (a division of the Home Office) to the Ethnic Minority Achieve-ment Grant (under the Department for Employment and Education);changes in employer and employment status as EAL funding shiftedfrom the Local Education Authority to the schools in 2001; changes

1 The term EAL is used in UK primary and secondary schools in preference to ESL or ESOL.Both EAL teacher and language support teacher are currently used.

2 The lesson analysed in this article was recorded in 2000 as part of the ESRC MajorResearch Grant R000238196 to Rea-Dickins and Gardner for a Study of Classroom Assess-ment of English as an Additional Language: Key Stage 1 Contexts 1999–2003. I am mostgrateful to the project research team for sustained interest in EAL, to the staff and childrenfor welcoming us into their classrooms and to Minority Group Support Services for itsinvaluable assistance.

262 TESOL QUARTERLY

nationally in the assessment of all learners and for English languagelearners (ELLs; Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, 2000);changes in key personnel, including the head teacher, classroom teach-ers, and language support staff; changes in working relationships withclassroom teachers toward an emphasis on partnerships between lan-guage support teachers and mainstream class teachers (Arkoudis &Creese, 2006; Bourne, 1997); changes in the language proficiencies andlinguistic backgrounds of children entering school; and changes in prac-tice resulting from in-service training, from local strategy decisions, andfrom a general filtering through of pedagogical trends. In short, EALteachers have been subjected to change from all sides.

Although rapid and repeated change can produce uncertainty, it canalso create opportunities. For instance, Gebhard (2005) has shown howschool reform in the United States supported transformative literacypractices in a third grade Hmong–English classroom. Indeed the intro-duction of the National Literacy Strategy in England—considered byteachers initially to be problematic for EAL in its rather lock-step, one-size-fits-all prescriptivism—produced the conditions for transformationthat here benefit the linguistic, sociocultural, and cognitive developmentof learners, particularly ELLs. The proscribed nature of the literacy cur-riculum freed teachers to focus more on how to teach, rather than whatto teach; the focus on language in the literacy strategy has promotedmore opportunities for noticing wordings, for direct language teachingand for the development of a common metalanguage to talk about lan-guage in the classroom; this school also saw the introduction of theBradford Talking Partner scheme (based on an Australian scheme; Kot-ler, Wegerif, & LeVoi, 2001) with its focus on collaborative, structuredtalk which dovetails well with the ongoing Language Support Interven-tion Project’s dual focus on interaction in promoting talk and learningand gathering evidence of language development from spontaneous lan-guage samples to use not only to feed into the biannual assessments sonecessary as evidence for funding, but equally important as evidence tobe shared in the ongoing formative assessment which feeds into plan-ning in the classroom (Gardner & Rea-Dickins, 2002). These two teach-ing projects underscore this school’s explicit commitment to developingtalk in the process of teaching the curriculum.

Changes in the teaching context attracted research interest, particu-larly in assessment. Building on a one-year research project to provide anoverview of assessment practices in primary EAL, the data for this articlewere collected during an initial ethnographic phase of a 3-year study(also with Rea-Dickins and funded by the Economic and Social ResearchCouncil), which aimed to understand EAL classroom-based assessmentconcepts and practices across the curriculum. We tracked two learners inYear 1 and Year 2 in three schools for a full week in each of three terms.

TRANSFORMING TALK AND PHONICS PRACTICE 263

During the rest of the year, teachers would invite a researcher (me,Rea-Dickins, or a research assistant, as available) into their classroom toobserve specific formative classroom-based assessment events. Thus, overa 6-year period, I was a regular visitor to this teacher and her EAL classes.The data we collected include preobservation interviews, teaching docu-mentation (lesson plans, curricular guidelines, materials), video record-ings of classroom interaction, field notes, postobservation interviews(with teacher, bilingual assistants, and learners), and lesson outputs forthe target learners (student work, language sampling grids, teacher as-sessments, homework, and language development portfolios). The sub-sequent phase of the study included an intervention and is reportedelsewhere (e.g., Gardner, 2004).

THE SILLY QUESTIONS PHONICS PRACTICE ACTIVITY

Within this context of reform, change, and research interest, therewas much experimentation with new materials and approaches. The SillyQuestions phonics practice activity is taken from Progression in Phonics,Materials for Whole Class Teaching, which is a Department for Educationand Employment (DfEE, 1999) publication with suggested activities forword work in the second stage of the Literacy Hour:

1. Whole class (15 mins): Shared text work (e.g., ‘big book’ reading)2. Whole class (15 mins): Focused word work. (here: phonics practice)3. Group & independent work (20 mins)4. Whole class (10 mins): Plenary (DfEE, 1998, pp. 8–14)

With open-plan classrooms in this school, a bell was rung at the end ofeach stage of the daily Literacy Hour when all children would changefrom whole class to group work or back again, with minimal disruptionto others. The materials provide sets of Silly Questions on large cards andsets of yes/no cards to be copied, one per child. The procedure is givenas follows:

• give every child a ‘yes’ and ‘no’ card• hold up a Silly Question• ask the children to read the question and answer it by holding up a ‘yes’

or a ‘no’ card• repeat with other Silly Questions (DfEE, 1999, p. 31)

Questions are grouped to practice decoding, for instance, the SyllabusStep 4 CVC (Consonant-Vowel-Consonant) words (e.g., Can a cat run?);or Step 5 Consonant Blends (e.g., Do slugs swing?). The purpose of the

264 TESOL QUARTERLY

activity is given as “to read words in context” (DfEE, 1999, p. 31), whichhere means with cotext, in a sentence, rather than words in isolation. Aspresented, it is essentially a convergent, form-focused practice activitythat requires decoding sentences out of a meaningful or situational con-text, where the learner reads silently and individually then respondsnonverbally.

MACRO-SCAFFOLDING

The class comprises 21 Year 1 ELLs aged 5 to 6, the monolingualteacher (who is the language support teacher, LST) and two bilingualeducation assistants (BEAs). Most children are third generation BritishAsians with Gujerati, Mirpuri, or Punjabi home language. With the ad-ditional language support provided, this group of children are expectedto reach the national target of Level 2 in their Year 2 Standard Attain-ment Tests (a national test taken at ages 7, 11, and 14) the following year.

The activity might work well with a class of proficient English-speakingchildren in that it could offer them practice at rapidly decoding amusingquestions. However, because the teacher anticipated difficulties forELLs, she decided to modify the activity by adding a stage where childrenwere required to explain why they chose to answer yes or no to the SillyQuestions. This macro-scaffolding (Van Lier, 1996, pp. 198–199) wasdesigned, she explained in our prelesson discussion, to do a number ofthings:• To check comprehension: Even if the children can decode the sen-

tences, it is more meaningful if they can also understand them.Although the basic vocabulary used in Silly Questions might be un-derstood by most if not all Year 1 monolinguals, ELLs may lackgeneral vocabulary such as slug or swing.3

• To encourage all children to complete the task: If they know theymay have to justify their answer, they are less likely to simply respondas the majority of their classmates do. The teacher had high expec-tations of all children.

• To provide practice in justifying responses: With particular relevanceto academic English, this strategy is part of a school-wide approachencouraged by the language support team across the curriculum.

• To promote learning through meaningful talk, a main focus of thelanguage support.

3 One Year 1 ELL we tracked as part of the research was in the top sets for numeracy andliteracy, had been in school since Reception, yet in an art lesson revealed substantial gapsin vocabulary related to baby animals (chicks, lambs, etc.). Such gaps in everyday languageare not uncommon.


• To provide opportunities for language sampling and for formativeassessment in general: The main focus of the larger research projectwas EAL assessment, and I had been invited to observe the lessonbecause the teacher correctly anticipated this activity would providegood language sampling and formative assessment opportunities.4

Kotler et al.’s (2001) review of research supports this teacher’s approach:“Bilingual learners can adequately learn the rudiments of literacy withvery little understanding of the target language. Comprehension and‘higher order skills’ . . . are not possible without competence in oralregisters supporting reflecting and reasoning” (p. 404).

During the Word Work activity, the children sit on the carpet aroundthe feet of the teacher and bilingual assistants, who are seated on lowchairs. The teacher shows a Silly Question, the class read it silently,reflect, and respond with their yes or no cards, then the teacher invitesone person with each response to come to the front to justify theiranswers.

DISCOURSE THREADS

What follows are discourse threads selected to focus on (a) coveringthe curriculum, (b) surface justification, (c) deep justification throughshared imaging, (d) shifting the locus of experience, and (e) playing theword game. Unless otherwise stated, the extracts are from the 15-minuteWord Work session of the Literacy Hour where the activity was firstintroduced to consolidate and revise the Step 4 target “blend and readCVC words” (in the teacher’s weekly plan).

Covering the Curriculum

The move to mainstreaming creates a constant tension between cov-ering the curriculum, keeping up with the curriculum, and allowingenough time to properly meet the needs of ELLs. This tension has beenrecognised in evaluations of the National Literacy Strategy:

Schools . . . find it difficult to provide sufficient time within the curricu-lum for the development of speaking and listening but feel that this isparticularly important to the progress of [EAL] pupils. (Office for Stan-dards Education, 2001, p. 30)

4 A version of this article with a focus on formative assessment was presented at the TESOL2005 Research SIG. My thanks to colleagues, most recently K. Richards, for comments onthis and other versions.

266 TESOL QUARTERLY

It is important, therefore, that in implementation the Silly Questionsactivity does cover the curriculum. The children do practice reading theConsonant-Vowel-Consonant (CVC) words in sentential contexts. More-over, the occasional miscues provide opportunities to review readingstrategies. In Turns 93–103, for instance, one child misreads red as run.(Please see Appendix for transcription conventions.)

93.LST OkayPut your hands down, because I’m asking these two nowInderpreet, you’ve answered ‘yes’Why did you answer ‘yes’?

94.Ind I thought that was ‘run’ and then I thought ‘yes’Inderpreet indicates the word ‘red’, which shemistook for ‘run’

95.LST AhYou thought that word was ‘run’Okay, let’s have a look at itLet’s see if you can read—actually look at the letters now andtell me the sounds they makeR ?

96.Ind E D97.LST Right, so read the whole word?98.Ind RED99.LST RED!

So you can read itIf the—that word had been ‘run’ the sentence would havebeen ‘Is a dog run?’Does that sound right?Is a dog runIt doesn’t sound quite right, does it, Inderpreet?

100.Ind No101.LST If it had been ‘can a ru- dog run,’ the answer would have been

‘yes’

The teacher reminds the child of three familiar reading strategies:sounding out letters (95), blending sounds (97), and checking whetherit sounds right (99). The following day another child misreads tin as thin,which suggests the child is using what would, in other contexts, be a goodreading strategy—that is, making sense of the question Do ducks have tinlegs?

There is also evidence from the opening (Turn 17) and closing (Turn103) of the activity that the curricular objective of reading new words wasa focus and that this objective was achieved:


17.LST . . . . Please try to read the questions in your headI will be asking you some questions about themAlthough these questions have new words in—got some newwords in—you will be able to read themRight, Miss Begum’s just going to explain it in Mirpuri now

103.LST . . . . Because all the words here use the rules thatwe’ve been working on in word work, okay?So I know that you can read these words . . . .

Within the context of covering the phonics curriculum, however, theteacher wants children to develop justificatory speech.

Surface Justification

One of the goals in asking for justification was to check comprehen-sion; another was to give children the opportunity to practice the lan-guage. Here is an early response to Can a hen dig?

52.LST Okay, Davinder, can you explain why you answered ‘no’, whichis what most people answered

53.Dav Because hen can’t dig54.LST Because—?55.Dav Hen can’t dig56.LST Right

Hens—you think hens can’t dig . . .

Turn 54 by the teacher gives the child, who is proficient enough to beable to offer more accurate and detailed explanations, the opportunityto expand and to correct his answer—neither of which he does. Theteacher then accepts his response justifying no, and indeed has acceptedsimilar responses earlier (See Turns 30–32). There are several possibleexplanations for this. First, this is the second question in the activity,which will only last about 15 minutes (and is being recorded) and shemay feel she has been held up explaining the nature of the activity, soshe may be anxious to move on—the children will understand the activ-ity better with practice. Second, it has been observed (e.g., Willes, 1981in Edwards & Westgate, 1994, p. 159) that teachers of young childrenoften accept answers that are less than adequate in order to nurture theturn-taking aspects of classroom discourse—here the child has answeredin an appropriate manner in that he has used a clause of reason (be-cause . . .) that is consistent with his no response to a why question. He isexhibiting appropriate turn-taking skills, even if other aspects of the turnare minimal. She builds on this in her feedback (56) by not only offeringa linguistic correction, but also possibly suggesting a pedagogically ap-

268 TESOL QUARTERLY

propriate response if we consider the argument: Hens can’t dig; this is ahen; therefore this can’t dig. She may not feel the child is able at thispoint in the game, day, or lesson to produce a better response. Finally,in this context, in the initial rounds of the activity, the answers acceptedin this way were explicitly acknowledged as those most people had given(Turn 52, 32), so the onus to explain the so-called commonsense answeris less. Indeed, where alternative (less common) answers are not ex-plored, the danger is that some children are quite lost as to why no wasthe commonsense answer. Such an approach fosters assimilation, andfailure in those who cannot see the majority view. In this respect,McWilliam’s (1998) advice to teachers is apposite: “We need to inquirehow words affect the imaging of learners and maintain awareness thatcommon usage of words can mask differences in the meanings whichlearners construct” (p. 113).

What was obvious to the teacher and most of the class did not matcheveryone’s imaging of the meanings of the common words in Can a hendig?

Deep Justification Through Shared Imaging

From the surface justification that Davinder takes as self-explanatory,the teacher moves to Nita, perhaps expecting another misreading of thesentence.

56.LST . . . Why did you answer ‘yes’, Nita57.Nita (.) Nita looks blank.58.LST Can you read us the question?59.Nita CAN A HEN DIG60.LST Okay

Do you think a hen can dig?What are you thinking of a hen doing?Nita does not respondCan you show us with your handsDavinder mimes digging with a spadeDo you want to ask her in Gujerati, Mrs Vadgama?

61.BEA2 Khabar chay thuane (***)? ⟨ Do you know (***)?⟩Hatha tha kere bhathow. ⟨Show it with your hands.⟩

62.Nita Mimes a hen scratching63.LST Right

There’s a special word for thatCan you all look, because I think Nita has got a logical an-swer, even though it’s different from the all the rest of you


You’re thinking of a hen with its claws, scratching on theground, NitaThinking of hens—have you seen hens scratching?Have you seen hens doing that?

64.Px Yeah, I have65.BEA2 Karta jou chay? ⟨Have you seen it doing it?⟩66.Nita Nods67.LST Where have you seen them doing that?68.Nita I went somewhere69.LST When you went somewhere

Do you remember where it was?Was it in India?Or was it in England?

70.Nita I think it was in England71.LST You think it was in England

Perhaps on the farm trip? (.)Go and sit down Davinder and Nita sit downYou see, sometimes you can have those two answersMost people thought, ‘no’, a hen can’t digAnd I would say ‘no’Because when I’m thinking of big—digging with a spade, orsomething like thatBut Nita was thinking of how a hen—you know how a henscratches on the soil?On the ground?And she’s thinking that that is digging

There is much of interest in this exchange, which turns out to bepivotal in the transformation of the activity. The LST, BEAs, and otherchildren use positive encouragement, suggestion, and probing strategies(verbal, nonverbal, translation, imaging) to co-construct Nita’s meaning.The whole class is involved in the exchange and excited by the meaningsthat emerge and the possibilities they open up. The language of diggingand scratching has become, memorably, linked to Nita’s hens. This is nota simple comprehension check but the construction of meaning in a veryrich sense (through exploration of semantic features, linking languagewith prior experiences). The class has engaged in a multilingual, multi-sensory exploration of the meaning of digging and scratching involvingshared imaging.

Shared imaging is a way of talking about what connotations words triggerfor each of us. It is a process which involves all parties in reconstruction—the speaker reconstructing a set of mental images as a verbal text and the

270 TESOL QUARTERLY

audience reconstructing a mental/sensory set from the words they hear.(McWilliam, 1998, p. 113)

In our example, this is complicated by the fact that the teacher has tofacilitate the reconstruction without herself being clear what it might be.It is thus a process of valuing the individual as well as the linguistic andsociocultural perspectives he or she brings to the classroom commu-nity—a process which is particularly constructive, and fascinating, in amulticultural setting.

This extract shows why ELLs take longer—why fewer Silly Questionswould be read in this class, compared with a more fluent monolingualclass. It illustrates the tension between covering the curriculum andinvesting time in talk—not just listening to what learners have to say, buthelping them construe meanings and explore associations. It also illus-trates the scaffolding expertise that educators develop to promote suc-cessful interactions with ELLs.

The teacher uses a wide range of strategies. In all, she• allows ‘wait time’ (e.g., 57)

• goes back to the question to refocus (58)

• asks the child to do something she can more easily do to buildconfidence (58)

• asks her to mime her answer (60), to which another child respondswith a digging motion

• asks for a translation (60), to which the child does mime a henscratching (62)

• focuses the attention of the class on the word scratching and awayfrom the child (63)

• explicitly values the child’s contribution thus reinforcing the pointthat variety is acceptable and increasing the likelihood of other in-dividual explanations (63)

• tries to elicit an experience base and shared imaging (63), to whichother children respond (64)

• encourages translation again, to which the child responds positively,again nonverbally (65–6)

• breaks the question down, which makes it easier cognitively andlinguistically: where (67), and the child responds, verbally this time(68)

• accepts the child’s response (69)

• offers a face-saving option—the child may not remember—and thenprobes further (69)


• breaks the question down further by changing the open question(where?) to a polar question (was it in India?) (69)

• accepts the child’s answer and reinforces the child’s meaning as apossible alternative (71)

This investment in Nita’s response pays off. As the class become familiarwith the game and realise that both yes and no answers can be justified,they have increasing communicative pressure to actually explain an an-swer, and so the justifications become more sophisticated—they nowhave a reason to explain what to an individual learner might seem ob-vious, and the appeal to visual imagination has provided a means ofjustification to which children respond well. The activity here has be-come at once more cognitively challenging with the real communicativeneed to justify, more enjoyable in its appeal to the imagination, andmore social in its negotiation of meanings and past experiences.

The next series of extracts traces the transformation process throughwhich the class realise that alternative answers are indeed acceptable.

Shifting the Locus of Experience

Wells (1992, pp. 298–301) categorises questions in terms of locus ofexpertise, with the teacher, focal pupil, or other pupils in the role ofexpert in answering. Evident from the discourse threads of this extractare similar distinctions in what I would prefer to call locus of experience tosuggest less of an expert–novice distinction and more of a sharing ofunderstandings and experience:

9.LST . . . And what I’ve got on these bits of paper are somethingcalled ‘Silly Questions’(LST shows blank side of papers with questions on reverse)

10.Px Silly Questions!11.LST Some of them are true

Some of them, the answer will be ‘yes’15.LST If the answer’s– can I borrow yours, please, Mahesh?

If the answer is ‘no’ you hold up ‘no’, if the answer is ‘yes’ youhold up ‘yes’(LST demonstrates by showing the ‘no’ and ‘yes’ sides of the foldedpaper)But you don’t read the questions aloud, you’ve got to try reallyhard . . .

22.LST . . . . OkaySo, don’t call out the questionRead it—just look at it and read it silently if you canWhen you know the answer, hold it up . . . .

272 TESOL QUARTERLY

As the bold text shows, throughout the introduction to the activity theteacher’s talk assumes that each Silly Question has one “true” correctanswer. This assumption appears in the teacher’s use of the answer ratherthan you as typical subject, theme, and agent; true; the definite article (theanswer); and the lack of any modality (are, will be, know) or projection /interpersonal metaphor5 (you think).

28.LST . . . . Naima—(LST shows Naima the first question)What is the answer?

29.Nai (.)Er—(I thought it was ‘no’)

30.LST OkaySo—she thinks the answer is ‘no’And Salim thinks the answer is ‘yes’Salim, why do you think the answer is ‘yes’?

31.Sal Because a cat can run32.LST Because a cat can run

Okay, I think that’s a very good answer, and that’s what most ofyou hadBut sometimes I think you could—there could be the otheranswerNaima why do you think the answer is ‘no’?

Turn 32 hints that the first question might have more than one answer(the other answer), but because neither Naima nor any of the other noresponders are able to supply a reason, the class is left with the impres-sion that yes is the correct answer. The LST moves on to the second SillyQuestion: Can a hen dig? As she moves from what is the answer to why doyou think the answer is no to why did you answer yes, we see her language ismore open to the possibility of different answers now in that she asks anopen, referential question (Turn 52) rather than a display question (asin Turn 28). This question now has double projection: Can you explainwhy you answered ‘no’?

52.LST . . . Okay, Davinder, can you explain why you answered ‘no’,which is what most people answered

53.Dav Because hen can’t dig56.LST Right

Hens—you think hens can’t digWhy did you answer ‘yes’, Nita?

5 Terminology here follows systemic-functional grammar (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004).


There then follows the exploration of Nita’s understanding, whichclearly shifts the locus of experience from what the teacher talk presentsas true or common knowledge to an alternative, but less likely, understanding.

60.LST . . . . Do you think a hen can dig?What are you thinking of a hen doing? . . . .

63.LST . . . . I think Nita has got a logical answer, even though it’sdifferent from the all the rest of you . . . .

71.LST . . . . You see, sometimes you can have those two answers . . .

The teacher’s talk still suggests that one answer is better or moreexpected than the other. However, as the activity progresses, the typicalelicitation is referential, with you as subject, sayer-agent, and theme ofdouble projection. This referential shift invites different acceptable re-sponses (yes, no), with individualised explanations.

84.LST Can you tell us why you answered ‘no’?

This double projection shifts the locus of experience from one truecommonsense answer to the individual learner and his/her understand-ing, experience, or ideas. Thus, alternative explanations are possible,and as the activity continues it becomes increasingly a challenge forlearners to justify both yes and no answers. This difficulty with justifyingboth answers leads to, for example, a lively discussion of questions suchas Can a crab clap? in a subsequent lesson (on consonant blends). The nocamp argued that a crab can’t clap because it doesn’t have hands, and itcan’t clap its two front claws together or make a clapping sound; the yescamp argued that crabs can tap their pincers together to make a noise,which is how crabs clap. (Such debate is not unlike the philosopher’sblack swan paradox where it was thought that being white was an essen-tial characteristic of swans until black swans were encountered.) My useof argued here is perhaps misleading. In fact, the children very quicklyreached their own answers, and the process of exploring those answerswas similar to the exploration in Nita’s sense of digging in its multilingual,multimodal construal of meanings and construction of shared images.

The series of extracts presented in this article suggest a shifting of thelocus of experience from the teacher to the learners through transfor-mation in the discourse from display questions that elicit formally ac-ceptable responses where the teacher is the primary knower who con-trols the proposition base (Berry, 1981), to genuine questions thatprompt diverse shared imaging and exploration of understandings ofsemantic features, lexis, and, indeed, of the world. This transformationcomes about as a result of a willingness to pursue meanings, in a sociallyconstructed, nonassimilationist manner. It also brings the experiencesand identities of the learners to the curriculum and opens the curricu-lum up to more meaningful discussion.

274 TESOL QUARTERLY

Playing the Word Game

Silly Questions became a very popular activity for this class, partlybecause of the creative aspect (e.g., imagining crabs clapping) but also,I suggest, because it was introduced as a game, of which the class tookownership. The extracts in this discourse thread trace the developmentof the game, starting at Turn 1 on the day it was introduced.

1.LST Right, now—Today we’ve got a new word gameOkay?And I’m going to give you each . . . (LST and BEAs hand outindividual slips of folded paper, with the words ‘yes’ and ‘no’ on eitherside)You’ve each got a little—cos you have to show a word in thisgame . . . .

6.Px It says ‘yes’7.LST Once you’ve had a little look at it, fold it back so that it’s just

like it was when I gave it to you . . . .And—Salim, can you read the words that are on your little bitof paper?

8.Sal NOYES

9.LST GoodEveryone’s got exactly the sameAnd the first bit of this game we do without any talking, right?. . . .

Here the teacher introduces the activity as a game where everyonereceives a card to play with. The children are excited at this prospect andfollow the instructions carefully. The game-playing perspective is rein-forced after the first question has been posed.

26.LST . . . .Well done, put your hands downYou’ve really got the idea of playing this

As the game progresses, and it has become clear that alternative re-sponses are possible, a pupil suggests that the rules of the game be changed.

74.LST . . . . Okay, we’ve got time to do one more75.Px You know if you’re not sure, can you put ‘yes’ and ‘no’?76.LST If you’re not sure can you put ‘yes’ and ‘no’?

I don’t see why notYesGood—good idea . . .


Turn 75 is significant for a number of reasons. First, it is a pupilinitiation, and it is not at a point in the discourse where such initiationscould easily be made—the teacher had already moved on to the nextquestion. Second, it shows that Px has clearly understood the signifi-cance of the hen digging exchange and is working through the implica-tions for the rules of the game. Third, it seems to be pivotal in encour-aging other children to further extend the possibilities of the game,within the constraint of decoding the Silly Questions.

There was in fact much in the discourse leading up to this suggestionto show that the class were enthusiastic, engaged, and caught up in thegame, to the extent that Px continues, as he would do in play contexts,to suggest that the rules be changed. Such student-initiated changes tothe management of an activity were not observed in more formal school-ing activities, which suggests that playing the word game discourse has anempowering effect on the development of the activity. Researchers haverecognised this potential in the hybridity of play and learning discourses,which can interact to construct “third” spaces as effective resources forbuilding collaboration and promoting literacy learning (Gutierrez,Baquedano-Lopez, Alvarez, & Chiu, 1999, p. 89). It is clear in this extractthat a productive learning space has been created, although the notionof a productive tension between play and learning was not in the teach-er’s explicit strategy. It is not possible to say how the game discoursethread influences the development of the activity, partly because it op-erates here in a “safe” classroom space (Canagarajah, 2004) where chil-dren feel secure in making suggestions and expanding the game, but theactivity does develop into a more sophisticated language game, andlearning is thereby enhanced.

Research on language play offers explanations from second languageacquisition focusing on the tension between creativity and control (Bell,2005, p. 193). For instance, in discussion of the benefits of languageplay—such as deeper processing and richer interaction leading to in-creased quality of attention to language—Bell discusses the destabiliza-tion conducive to interlanguage (IL) development. “IL developmentoccurs through the push and pull of ‘more conservative forces demand-ing accuracy counterbalanced with more creative forces demanding in-novation’ (Tarone, 2000, p. 49)” (Bell, p. 209). This research highlightsthe significance of language play, which Silly Questions clearly is. Itengages learners in reflecting on and playing with the language, with allthe concomitant benefits of developing control over, interest in, and funwith the language.

As with play, there are those who shape the game and those who try toimitate successful players. For example, in justifying a yes and no responseto the Silly Question Can a man run?, one learner replied:

276 TESOL QUARTERLY

36.Dav Because mans have got two legs and if they had one leg theycan’t walkIf they had two legs they can run

This is the child who earlier (Turns 53–55) had given a minimalresponse. In contrast, this response is praised by the teacher and re-corded by BEA1. Two questions later, another child tries to give a similarperformance in response to the question Has a duck got tin legs?

53.LST Satnam, you said ‘yes’Can you tell me why you said ‘yes’

54.Sat Cos if ducks didn’t have legs they couldn’t of swim55.LST If ducks didn’t have legs they couldn’t swim, you’re quite right

But what sort—what sort of legs does it say this duck has?

This less contingent response gives the teacher insights into the dif-ferent children’s level of comprehension and reasoning in English aswell as a clear sense of who is working to develop and expand the pos-sibilities of the game. The game has brought out something of the ele-ment of competition, imagination, air of excitement, and learner own-ership—a sharp contrast from guessing commonsense interpretations ofCVC patterns.

DISCUSSION

Examining threads of classroom discourse has shown how the lessonwas transformed in practice. In the discussion that follows I develop thetheoretical analysis to explain how this was possible, building on Cum-mins’s (2001) framework of instructional and social assumptions under-lying traditional, constructivist, and transformative pedagogy (p. 219) which,in turn, underlie the micro-interactions with the children (p. 20). Forreasons of space, I shall not discuss macro-interactions, educationalstructures, and educator roles further; it is hoped that readers will havegleaned a sense of these from the earlier discussion of change andmacro-scaffolding and will appreciate that the language support team isworking within a mainstream context where bilingual support aims topromote access to the national curriculum in English.

Views of Language

Inherent in the decontextualised, form-focused, convergent phonicspractice activity is a traditional, building-block view of language that


contrasts with the teacher’s view that language is best taught whole andused for meaningful communication. As the activity progresses, theteacher elevates the language work to meaningful contexts, and throughthe emerging need to explain meanings, the language is used for in-creasingly meaningful communication with the challenges to common-sense meanings. During the lesson, language is clearly transformed fromthe decontextualized traditional building-block view to a contextualized,whole-language, and communicative view.

Such a contextualised view of language is not, however, inconsistentwith a focus on form, and the teacher does focus on the form of the textin developing the children’s decoding skills. This approach is consistentwith current research on second language acquisition, which suggestsnot only that noticing and talking about language structures is beneficial,but also that it is effective in the context of meaningful interaction (e.g.,Ellis, Basturkmen, & Loewen, 2002).

Whole language here also means exploring vocabulary from all angles.Through shared imaging, the class reconstructed images of hens digging(or scratching)—and subsequent images of crabs clapping, and so on.This process of shared imaging proved essential as soon as it becameclear that one person’s image of a hen digging was not necessarily thesame as another’s. These constructions involved the whole class, differ-ent languages, gestures, actions, and much playful working out of mean-ings. In exploring the semantic features of words (digging versus scratch-ing), learners developed greater precision of ideational meaning; in ex-ploring collocations or typical participant-process patterns (Can crabsclap?), they explored contextual meaning with the full realisation ofemergent bilinguals that what crabs do may well be different in differentlanguages, and in imagining where the images might occur, they con-nected the images to their own experiences. For ELLs this became a veryuseful vocabulary development and awareness-raising activity.

As the game develops, there is increasing language play. With thecognitive challenge of lateral thinking, the children started imaginingthe different conditions for the Silly Question to have a yes answer and ano answer. Surprise has been expressed at the extent of humour andlanguage play in spoken British English (e.g., Carter 2004), so althoughthese answers seem to be leading to the childishly absurd, they alsorepresent talk that is common in the United Kingdom. Indeed, I recentlyheard a comedy team on national radio questioning the nature of a“lame duck” prime minister, in exactly the way that the children herewere imagining crabs clapping and red dogs (Punt et al., 2005). Thisdevelopment to language play presents a whole new and exciting view oflanguage as something the children can manipulate and control.

Alongside changes in view of language is a shift to more academicEnglish as children are encouraged not only to respond to a general

278 TESOL QUARTERLY

question, but also to justify their responses. Research has shown thatsuch interventions can be effective with young children (McWilliam &Howe, 2004; Wegerif, Mercer, & Rojas-Drummond, 1999). What we seeso clearly from this study are the drawbacks of surface justification whencompared with legitimised, meaningful justification of responses.

Views of Learning

Consistent with these views of language is a move toward an increas-ingly social constructivist pedagogy, where knowledge is not proscribedin advance but is generated from interaction within the class. The knowl-edge is construed by the child, with the teacher, and so it is the teacher’srole to draw the meaning out of the child—or to construct it with her.This reverses the usual power dynamic in classrooms. By persevering, theteacher sends the message that what individual children think, theirreasons, are valued. She works at trying to understand their meanings,where often it is the children’s role to work at understanding her mean-ings. Communication is established as a two-way process and opens upthe classroom as a genuine space for learning.

Creating a genuine space for learning is achieved through multifac-eted scaffolding, as with Nita’s hen digging. This collaborative interac-tion generates new knowledge, which in turn leads to critical inquiry notonly about, for instance, the precise semantic features of clapping andhence to the paradox of yes and no responses both being justifiable, butalso to critical awareness of differences between languages and culturesin that what the teacher calls a drum has different properties and culturalassociations to what some children call a tabla. This suggests that learningin this lesson has moved from traditional teacher-controlled internalisa-tion of standard knowledge implicit in materials, through a constructivistphase where learning is scaffolded and inquiry collaborative, to an ap-proach that suggests the beginnings of critical inquiry, where learnersare encouraged to question common sense and evaluate alternative ex-planations and understandings of events.

When I observed the Silly Questions initially in March 2000, childrenworked silently on their own to reach answers. By March 2002 literacypartners had been introduced and children discussed their answers withtheir partners first. Where possible, literacy partners are friends whoshare the same first language. I was intrigued to see how the childrenhuddled in pairs to discuss their answers. It was impossible to hear whatthey said or what language they spoke, even if you were right next tothem. This process was clearly seen as private brainstorming. I was alsoamazed how quickly they could agree on a response. It seemed as if theyread the question, put their heads down for a few seconds (often with


accompanying gestures such as pincer movements for crabs clapping),and then were ready with their agreed-on response. This was an exampleof understanding between friends par excellence. A meaning had beenagreed, but it still remained for that meaning to be put into words andexplained to the class in English, for private understanding to becomepublic. This putting into words happened in the teacher-guided report-ing stage (Gibbons, 1998, 2002) when children’s coming to the front ofthe class provided that natural push for a more formal register. Althoughon a much smaller scale than Gibbons’ unit on magnets, it follows Gib-bons’ linguistic sequencing of class activities, suggesting how social con-structivism is enhanced, particularly for ELLs, when meanings are firstgenerated among peers, then construed in increasingly academic En-glish wordings, with teacher guidance.

A further aspect of learning brought out by this task is the shift froma lower-level decoding task to a task that engages the whole child with hisor her past experiences, identity, imagination, and intellect. Drawing onpast experiences and imagination, through scaffolding and shared im-aging, enhances the children’s engagement with and enjoyment of thetask. Requiring justification adds cognitive challenge, but the subsequentexpectation of providing alternative justifications created explicit infor-mation gaps which naturally required effective communication of justi-fications.

Student Experience and Empowerment

In terms of the curricular content of this lesson, there is a clear trans-formation from learning to decode curriculum-generated sentences tolearning to justify responses to questions in relation to students’ ownlives and experiences. Simply connecting to a broader range of knowl-edge and experience makes learning deeper and more meaningful, butproviding a space where alternative views are acknowledged and cel-ebrated affirms children’s original contributions as valuable and helpsdevelop confidence and identities. This process is building toward Cum-mins’s (2001) transformative pedagogy which focuses on “critical exami-nation of student experience and social realities” (p. 219). AlthoughCummins’s “attention to power relations” (p. 219) is not explicit in thelesson, the children are empowered in the increasing recognition oftheir ideas, imagination, and experiences. They are empowered in theirdeveloping ability to play with language. They are also empowered intheir increasing ownership of the process of playing the game, as theybring about changes not only to the rules, but also to the types of pos-sible response to the questions. The teacher has high expectations of

280 TESOL QUARTERLY

these children, and conveys this to them in her expectations of theirperformance and in her engagement with their ideas.

Classroom interactions which empower learners in this way are part ofthe process of socially constructing and negotiating learners’ multipleidentities. Moreover, students are disadvantaged when their language,culture, and experience are ignored (Cummins, 2001). “When [cultur-ally diverse] students’ developing sense of self is affirmed and extendedthrough their interactions with teachers, they are more likely to applythemselves to academic effort and participate actively in instruction” (p.2). In the following paragraphs, I show how learners’ identities are “af-firmed and extended” (Cummins, 2000, pp. 248–249) through engage-ment with their languages, past experiences, shared cultures, and indeedthrough the invitation to develop their individual senses of humour inclass.

The role of the bilingual assistants legitimises home languages andcultures. Although Nita never actually speaks Gujerati to the class, she isencouraged to respond by the BEA’s use of it, which affirms the heritageaspects of her identity important to many third generation British Asians(Mills, 2001, p. 400). A good example of the children explicitly makingcultural comparisons is in the answer to the question Can you bang adrum?: Yes if it’s a tabla because you use your hands, and no if it’s anEnglish drum because you use a stick. In looking for a yes and a noanswer, the child is thinking laterally; he uses his full range of culturalexperiences, imagining two different drums from different musical tra-ditions, or different funds of knowledge, and wording the knowledge forthe classroom context (Martin-Jones & Saxena, 2003). This potential forlateral thinking explicitly gives the activity the intercultural orientationanticipated when educational discourse has been transformed (Cum-mins, 2000). Although the BEAs support the negotiation of linguisticand cultural identities, it has also been suggested that the general posi-tioning of the BEAs as teacher assistants (rather than teachers) support-ing learning in English (rather than in community languages) may havesome negative impact on EAL learners (Bourne, 2001).

Not all aspects of the children’s experience is related to their homelanguage and heritage, of course. For instance, their familiarity with thecartoon character Clifford, the Big Red Dog, emerges in the yes responseto Is a dog red? The Silly Questions brought out aspects of the children’ssense of humour and imagination that were not often legitimised in theclassroom. As Wallace (2005) points out in a study of bilingual childrenin London, this kind of talk that crosses home and school boundaries hasrich potential to involve children and make learning meaningful, but itis infrequently associated with the Literacy Hour.

The National Literacy Strategy offers much opportunity to focus onlanguage to the benefit of bilingual learners in particular. However,


attention to basic skills such as decoding must be embedded in mean-ingful activity. Automatic decoding of isolated sentences cannot gener-ate excitement and interest in language. Arguably (Cummins, 2000, pp.248–249), the most effective means of developing basic skills is througha transformative pedagogy. This article has shown how this most unlikelyof exercises developed into an enjoyable activity which explores the rich-ness of language, develops justificatory talk, negotiates the identities oflearners, and begins to empower them with critical capacities for multi-cultural living in a world of paradoxes, and it has shown how the trans-formation is realised in talk through examination of interwoven dis-course threads. A traditional pedagogy has shifted through a construc-tivist pedagogy to a pedagogy that embraces most of the assumptions ofa transformative pedagogy: meaningful contextualised language, activi-ties that generate new knowledge, and learning through joint interactiveconstruction with developing critical examination of student experienceand social realities (Cummins, 2001, p. 219).

THE AUTHOR

Sheena Gardner is a Reader in educational linguistics at the University of Birming-ham, England. Her teaching of English linguistics and language teaching comple-ment her funded research on the discourse of classroom-based assessment and ongenres of assessed student writing across the curriculum in the British AcademicWritten English corpus.

REFERENCES

Arkoudis, S., & Creese, A. (Eds.). (2006). Teacher–teacher talk: The discourse ofcollaboration in linguistically diverse classrooms [Special issue]. International Jour-nal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 9(4).

Bell, N. (2005). Exploring L2 language play as an aid to SLL: A case study of humourin NS–NNS interaction. Applied Linguistics, 26, 192–218.

Berry, M. (1981). Systemic linguistics and discourse analysis: A multi-layered ap-proach to exchange structure. In M. Coulthard & M. Montgomery (Eds.), Studiesin discourse analysis (pp. 120–145). London: Routledge.

Bourne, J. (1997). The continuing revolution: Teaching as learning in the main-stream multilingual classroom. In C. Leung & C. Cable (Eds.), English as anadditional language: Changing perspectives (pp. 77–88). Luton, England: NationalAssociation for Language Development in the Curriculum.

Bourne, J. (2001). Doing ‘What comes naturally’: How the discourses and routines ofteachers’ practice constrain opportunities for bilingual support in UK primaryschools. Language and Education, 15, 250–268.

Canagarajah, A. S. (2004). Subversive identities, pedagogical safe houses, and criticallearning. In B. Norton & K. Toohey (Eds.), Critical pedagogies and language learning.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Carter, R. (2004). Language and creativity: The art of common talk. London: Routledge.

282 TESOL QUARTERLY

Cummins, J. (2000). Language, power and pedagogy: Bilingual children in the crossfire.Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters.

Cummins, J. (2001). Negotiating identities: Education for empowerment in a diverse society(2nd ed.). Los Angeles: California Association for Bilingual Education.

Department for Education and Employment. (1998). The National Literacy StrategyFramework for Teaching. London: Author.

Department for Education and Employment. (1999). Progression in phonics: Materialsfor whole class teaching. London: Author.

Edwards, A. D., & Westgate, D. P. G. (1994). Investigating classroom talk (2nd ed.).London: Falmer Press.

Ellis, R., Basturkmen, H., & Loewen, S. (2002). Doing focus on form. System, 30,419–432.

Gardner, S. (2004). Four critical features of teacher-guided reporting in infant sci-ence and literacy contexts. Language and Education, 18, 361–378.

Gardner, S., & Rea-Dickins, P. (2002). Focus on language sampling: A key issue in EALassessment (Occasional Paper 15). Luton, England: National Association for Lan-guage Development in the Curriculum.

Gebhard, M. (2005). School reform, hybrid discourses, and second language litera-cies. TESOL Quarterly, 39, 187–210.

Gibbons, P. (1998). Classroom talk and the learning of new registers in a secondlanguage. Language and Education, 12, 99–118.

Gibbons, P. (2002). Scaffolding language scaffolding learning: Teaching second languagelearners in the mainstream classroom. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Gutierrez, K., Baquedano-Lopez, P., Alvarez, H., & Chiu, M. M. (1999). Building aculture of collaboration through hybrid language practices. Theory Into Practice,38(2), 87–93.

Halliday, M. A. K., & Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (2004). An introduction to functionalgrammar (3rd ed.). London: Arnold.

Kotler, A., Wegerif, R., & LeVoi, M. (2001). Oracy and the educational achievementof pupils with English as an additional language: The impact of bringing “talkingpartners” into Bradford schools. International Journal of Bilingual Education andBilingualism, 4, 403–419.

Martin-Jones, M., & Saxena, M. (2003). Bilingual resources and “funds of knowledge”for teaching and learning in multi-ethnic classrooms in Britain. International Jour-nal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 6, 267–282.

McWilliam, D., & Howe, C. (2004). Enhancing pre-schoolers’ reasoning skills: Anintervention to optimise the use of justificatory speech acts during peer interac-tion. Language and Education, 18, 504–524.

McWilliam, N. (1998). What’s in a word? Vocabulary development in multicultural class-rooms. Stoke-on-Trent, England: Trentam Books.

Mills, J. (2001). Being bilingual: Perspectives of third generation Asian children onlanguage, culture and identity. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bi-lingualism, 4, 383–402.

Mohan, B., Leung, C., & Davison, C. (Eds.). (2001). English as a second language in themainstream: Teaching, learning and identity. Harlow, England: Longman.

Office for Standards Education. (2001). The national literacy strategy. The third year: Anevaluation by HMI (HMI332). London: Author.

Qualifications and Curriculum Authority. (2000). A language in common: AssessingEnglish as an additional language. Sudbury, England: Author. Retrieved September26, 2007, from http://www.qca.org.uk/libraryAssets/media/3359_language_in_common.pdf

Tarone, E. (2000). Getting serious about language play: Language play, inter-


language variation and second language acquisition. In B. Swierzbin, F. Morris, M.Andreson, C. Klee, & E. Tarone (Eds.), Social and Cognitive Factors in Second Lan-guage Acquisition: Proceedings of 1999 Second Language Research Forum (pp. 31–54).Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.

Punt, S., & Dennis, H., with Benn, M., Shavin, L., Holmes, J., & Brigstocke, M. (2005).The lame duck sketch [Radio series episode, BBC Radio 4, May 7, 2005]. In S.Punt & H. Dennis, The now show. London: BBC Radio.

Van Lier, L. (1996). Interaction in the language curriculum: Awareness, autonomy andauthenticity. London: Longman.

Wallace, C. (2005). Conversations around the literacy hour in a multilingual Londonprimary school. Language and Education, 19, 322–338.

Wegerif, R., Mercer, N., & Rojas-Drummond, S. (1999). Language for the socialconstruction of knowledge: Comparing classroom talk in Mexican preschools.Language and Education, 13, 133–150.

Wells, G. (1992). The centrality of talk in education. In K. Norman (Ed.), Thinkingvoices: The work of the National Oracy Project (pp. 283–310). London: Hodder &Stoughton.

Willes, M. (1981). Learning to take part in classroom interaction. In P. French & M.MacLure (Eds.), Adult-child conversation (pp. 73–90). London: Croom Helm.

APPENDIX. TRANSCRIPTION CONVENTIONS

LST Language Support TeacherBEA1 and BEA2 Bilingual Educational AssistantsRen abbreviated child’s name (e.g., Rena)P unidentified PupilPP more than one Pupil93 numbered turnsItalics stage directions⟨show it⟩ translation from Gujerati(**) inaudible(I thought) probable transcription(.) pause. . . transcript omittedtwe- false start, stutter, incomplete or interrupted word., ? ! used to suggest intonationunderline stress or emphasis‘red’ words referred to, not used or readCAPS reading aloudR E D sounding out letters ‘re’ ‘eh’ ‘de’BOLD CAPS the Silly Questions on cardsbold focal section of transcript

284 TESOL QUARTERLY

Documents

Transforming Talk And Phonics Practice: Or, How Do Crabs Clap?