Digital classroom analysis and teaching schemas

Submitted by: Dimitrios Koutsogiannis
Abstract: There is a rich scientific tradition concerning the use of digital technologies in language education and an even richer tradition in classroom discourse analysis (e.g. Rymes 2016). However, a classroom analytic perspective incorporating the pedagogic use of digital technologies has not yet been developed.

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the development of a digital classroom analytic perspective, using ethnographic data (field notes, recording of lessons, teachers’ interviews) from eleven teachers of Greek as L1 in primary and secondary schools, who extensively used digital technologies in their lessons.

Combining traditions from sociolinguistics of globalization (e.g. Blommaert 2010), Social Semiotics (Kress 2010), and classroom discourse analysis (e.g. Rymes 2016), I propose a nexus analysis theory and method, articulated in three interconnected levels: a micro level focusing on the teaching events; a meso-level focusing on the teaching schemas, a kind of teaching “mental models” (van Dijk 2008) that can be recognized in and mainly across the teaching events and behind the well known as IRE/F classroom discourse sequence; and a macro level focusing on the context which is interwoven with the other two levels.

Following a social semiotic principle, that the social is prior (Kress 2010), in this paper I will concentrate on the following: 1. Indicating some of the dominant teaching schemas, 2. analyzing how digital technologies shape and are shaped by these schemas, and 3. showing how multiple contextual levels related to local and global traditions in teaching L1 and teachers’ agency are encapsulated in these schemas.

References

Blommaert, J. (2010). The sociolinguistics of globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kress, G. (2010). Multimodality: a social semiotic approach to contemporary communication. London & New York: Routledge.

Rymes, B. (2016). Classroom discourse analysis: A tool for critical reflection (2nd ed). New Jersey: Hampton Press INC.

van Dijk, Th. (2008). Discourse and context. A sociocognitive approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.