Classroom Extract 101A

(please see appendix 10.3 for transcription conventions)

Transcript 4:1

1. RICHARD: Okay. Good morning everybody

2. CLASS: Good morning.

3. RICHARD: And welcome to Academic Communication. So, every morning, FIRST period

4. CLASS: @

5. RICHARD: On a Wednesday AND a Friday

6. CLASS: @

7. RICHARD: You and me will spend 90 minutes … ALL semester, both Spring AND

Autumn Semester. So we’re going to get to know each other very

well, we will spend a lot of time er together in this class…

Noticeably my speech is very clear, very few ‘ers’ or pauses, but actually the speech is very

carefully enunciated and there are very minor pauses between most words. It does not sound (to my ear) particularly slowed down, although certainly this is a moderated way of speaking which I have adopted for classes in order to make my speech easier to follow. Also, it is noticeable that there is laughter coming from the students within the first seconds of the class. This was achieved through my emphasis on the first period, perhaps I had been able to hit on an aspect of the class which the students and I shared our attitudes toward. As outlined in Chapter Two, empathy is an indicator and prerequisite for synergy. I make many jokes in the introduction, and explain why they are lucky to be in this class. This is a standard introduction I have for nearly all my new first-year classes, in which I explain that Sophia is a good university for learning English because it is high in the Japanese league tables. This is

important to create a sense of cohesion by activating ‘group pride’ (Dörnyei, 1997; Levi, 2017) and I usually make a joke about how Sophia is much better than X University, which became a joke that I returned to often throughout the course. I also state that another reason they are lucky is because they have me as their teacher, and I joke that I am very handsome, whilst showing Figure 4.1 on my slides (in which I do not look handsome).

Figure 4:1 'I am handsome' joke

This show of arrogance actually opens me up as a person, although very carefully. In saying

‘I am handsome’, I am actually drawing attention rather to the fact that I am still quite young to be a university teacher. Also, this claim to be handsome shows me as fallible, something I feel is important so that the students feel able to question me and relate to me as an actual person (Glatthorn, 1975).

Later, I asked the students:

Who speaks good Japanese? Nihongo pera pera [are you fluent in Japanese]? Raise your

hand. [show of hands]

You speak Japanese, why speak English to each other? It’s strange.Although it’s strange, try to speak English to your partner, it’s the best way to practise. Some Japanese is okay. 20 per cent Japanese, 80 per cent English.

I then set up the task where students have to introduce themselves to their partner in English.

After the introduction, I ask for a show of hands ‘who spoke 80 per cent English’, and then ‘who spoke 80 per cent Japanese?’ and from the laughter, it seems more hands went up for the latter. After this I said ‘Ah well, it’s the first class’, as if in consolation. Again, this shows how I tried to create from the very first class an environment of honesty and trust, with mutual empathy. During the class I also made several references to myself as a learner of Japanese, even saying occasional phrases in Japanese (as in the above extract when I say

Nihongo pera pera?). Just after this, I say:

Hands up if you have a good partner. Ha, your hand was the last up! [class laughter] I’m sure he’s a good partner.

Here is an example of my teasing the students or using that type of humour which is often found in British stand-up comedy. Although I did not realise it at the time, this might be my own attempt to orient the class to my own sense of humour, a key aspect in rapport building (Haugh, 2010; McCulloch, 2012; Medgyes, 2002). Perhaps more broadly, this is also an attempt to establish my own cultural identity. Medhurst (2007) argues that the distinctly British sense of humour is an essential part of cultural identity, and comedy has always been a central part of my own identity; often being a talking point between friends and family and

deeply embedded in my own social development. The humour I exhibit in the above extract

is very gentle teasing and not particularly face-threatening, although it does draw on a potentially awkward scenario where a person may not really like their partner. In drawing attention to this possibility, I think I was actually trying to diffuse such a situation by making a joke about it. Just before this, I had gone around the room and monitored the students as they introduced themselves to each other. For many of them, they did not know each other and so they were meeting for the first time. Others already knew each other (perhaps from being in the same department, they would know each other only slightly from orientation camp), but few if any of them would know their other classmates well. This is important to acknowledge when teaching a class of mixed-major first-year university students. However, the seating arrangements and pairings rarely changed from this initial class, as I discussed in Chapter Three.

After this introduction task, I found myself explaining to the class about how the CLERAC course was brand-new, and very different from the previous year. I told them that last year, my class had 40 students, and now this was reduced to 25 (some of the students could be heard making surprised exclamations in the background). I explained this new course was very exciting, reiterating that they were lucky to be in the class. Again, this could have contributed to the creation of group coherence by highlighting unique features in the context.

Shortly after this, I ask ‘What does compulsory mean?’ I ask a student (Ms Oldriver?) to

explain and she says the word in Japanese (although, she said Hisshu, which means required). I then elaborate:

So it means you have to come to this class. So, you have to come to this class, so I want to make it fun.

Then I explain about the rule that below 85 per cent attendance results in an F, making a joke that even if they give me 10,000 yen I still have to say no. I explain that the attendance rule

is ‘not my rule’ but CLER’s rule, although I have to be ‘strict’ about it. This way I distance myself from the rules that I represent, showing that ‘I am just doing my job, I’m not a bad guy’, again showing how I attempt to build rapport with them by downplaying my situated identity and role as the teacher.

I explain about the pair-work approach which I use in class, although by now they have

already experienced it. Constantly throughout the class I ask questions and then say ‘ask your partner’,which is the students’ cue to begin a discussion about the question I just modelled.

Most of the communication is done between learners and their partner. I say it is their job

to find people they like, who ‘work hard’ and that they want to communicate with.

After going over the class rules, I ask students to create their own class rules, one for themselves and one for the teacher, which I then go around and monitor. Students had

trouble making ‘rules for the teacher’, but when I pushed, asking individualpairs ‘what do you think makes a good teacher’, one pair said ‘kindness’and another said ‘enjoy’. When one pair (Ms Lovehouse?) said ‘remember the names [of students]’, I became very excited

and explained that I also think this is important. Shi (2002) presents a narrative of her experience as a language teacher, talking specifically about her approach to names. She states that remembering a person’s name is essential in building a bond with that person, which I agree with completely. However, I work with over one hundred different students each semester, mostly for a period of just fourteen weeks, after which I may not work with

them again. Thus, I have a system for remembering students’ names which involves creating

a map of where they are sitting. After four to six weeks, I usually know most of the students’

names, but if I meet them out of context I can rarely recall their names. I did not explain all this, but I did take the opportunity to explain that it would take me some time to learn all the names but I would certainly try. I would probably have also made a mental note to

remember that student’s name, which is why I seem to recall it was Ms Lovehouse, although

sadly I cannot be fully sure as the audio recording is quite distorted by the background noise of the class.

After going around a few pairs and giving a few minutes for this task, I go back to the front and sum up the rules, especially the ones for the teacher. I explain about the rule for enjoying

class, saying ‘It’s my job to make the class enjoyable, I’ll try that’. I then tell the students about remembering names. I say to them ‘you should also try to remember my name’ at

which point I realise that I have not yet even told the students my name! By now, this is 30 minutes into the class. I also have not yet taken the attendance register (although I have

explained the 85% attendance rule). This seems to fluster me a moment, and I announce that

I will take the register shortly (saying ‘don’t letme forget’ as if some of the onus is also on

the students, which of course it really is not).

Before taking attendance, I finish off my explanation of the style of the class and the rules. I also briefly discuss the issue of sleeping in class. I warn them I will take a photo and upload

it to Facebook if they sleep, which elicits laughter and a few ‘e::::::h’ noises, although it is, of

course, a bluff.

I take attendance 30 minutes into the class. Going over the attendance list seems to suddenly remind the class I am a teacher and highlight my institutional power over them and my role as a marker, a grader and a kind of gatekeeper. The attendance register invokes and foregrounds my situational identity as the teacher (Zimmerman, 1998). This is why I consciously avoided doing that until I had built a rapport with them and spoken to them one- to-one before this. However, it is rather naïve of me to assume that this was a latent identity until now, when of course the entire class has been led and controlled by me, and to some extent by the institution I work for. Of course, there are other political factors involved which

may or may not be in the students’ minds during this, such as the position of English as an

international language and the educational requirements set out by the Japanese Ministry of Education (MEXT) which is tied to university funding and subsidies (even for Private universities like Sophia). These issues will resurface in Chapter Six.

After taking attendance, I go over the assessment weighting, by saying ‘the most important thing, how to pass this course’. I explain about the mid-semester and final exams, modifying this by telling them that I have done the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) so I know how they feel. This attempt at solidarity is unfortunately ingenuous (or inauthentic?) not only because there really is very little at stake for me when taking the JLPT, and because I chose to take it to test my own proficiency as a diagnostic exam, but also because it contradicts what I say to them in lesson 108A when we discuss the mid-semester exam.

With the overview of the syllabus complete, I move into the next task which is the

Relationship to EnglishDiagram (RED). This was a task designed to get the students talking about how they see English in relation to themselves, but rather than explaining this in words, I wanted them to draw a diagram which would not only transcend some of the linguistic limitations of expressing themselves, but also provide a multi-modal data type for analysis later. Without realising it at the time, this task was also a good way of developing the

students’ view of English and the ‘imagined community’ in which it is spoken (Anderson, 2006; Kanno & Norton, 2003; B. Norton, 2001).