Communication pattern used during the lessons

Teacher A tried by all means to engage his learners in the conversations occurring during the lessons. The excerpts immediately below are evidence of the many instances in which Teacher A tried to engage his learners in the ongoing classroom conversations

Teacher A: Right but aah, l have got two things to mention on for example here. What

is missing in this data? Let’s say, look at this. What is missing there?

Learners: Chorus something inaudible

Teacher A: What is the relationship between I and R? Learners: Inversely proportional

Teacher A: No. So why are they the same here Mosa? (Not learner’s real name). Mosa: Because the resistors are equal

Teacher A: Total, so how do you find the total resistance, resistance there? Learner: Says something inaudible

Most of the questions asked by Teacher A as a way of engaging learners in the classroom conversation were either not answered or learners spoke in low tones that were too soft to be heard clearly. Probably the learners felt uncomfortable in the presence of the researcher or were simply afraid of giving wrong answers to questions posed by the teacher. Regardless, Teacher A still continued to encourage his learners to engage in the classroom conversations as demonstrated by the next excerpt

Teacher A: Let’s speak up guys. Let’s not be shy. It doesn’t matter whether you make

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Teacher A also tried to engage his learners in the lesson conversation by letting learners complete some of his sentences as demonstrated below.

Teacher A: The higher (pauses) Learners: the resistor

Teacher A: the less (pauses again) Learners: the less current

Teacher A also encouraged learners to evaluate each other’s responses and make additions where necessary instead of giving the class the correct answers as evidenced by the next excerpt.

Teacher A: Can you start from here (pointing at the two resistors connected in parallel). You can start from here, let’s see. You add the current for 2 and 3 and

then you get the current for this…. Ok. So who can elaborate on that hee? Who can add to that, to what she has said?

The foregoing excerpts evidence that to a greater extent, Teacher A’s communication pattern was largely two-way with teacher affording learners opportunities to engage in conversations with the teacher and other learners. This is important in science learning because this allows learners to verbalise their conceptions, and also practice talking science.

The communication pattern employed by Teacher B in his lessons was mainly one-way, with Teacher B doing most of the talking. Learners were mainly passive listeners during the lessons. There were very few instances where learners were observed engaging in the lesson’s conversations. Instances that Teacher B asked questions, he swiftly answered the questions himself without giving his learners a chance to engage with the questions and try to come up with responses to questions asked. The following excerpts below show a few of the numerous instances where Teacher B posed questions and gave answers to these questions himself.

Excerpt 1: What is speed? (Teacher does not give the learners an opportunity to answer the question but quickly answered the question himself) Speed is a scalar quantity

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Excerpt 2: Vectors have size, magnitude and direction. Scalars are what? Are

quantities with size only.

Excerpt 3: What is displacement? Displacement is distance in a specified direction or

distance travelled in a given direction.

The utterances by the teacher demonstrate how the teacher stifled the learners’ verbalisations during the lesson. By not giving his learners time to respond to his questions, Teacher B tends to deny his learners the opportunity to engage in the lesson’s conversations. The learners, therefore, were not able to verbalise their ideas, and also learn how to express their ideas in a scientific manner. The fact that Teacher B did not allow enough time for learners to respond to his questions or the way he responded to what he thought were wrong responses from learners (demonstrated by the excerpt below), or both might have contributed to the learners’ lack of enthusiasm to engage in the conversations going on in the lessons.

Teacher B: What is displacement? What is displacement? What is displacement? Learner: Change in position

Teacher B: Change in position? No Learner: Change in position

Teacher B: I said no! (Shouting). Displacement is distance in a given or specified

direction. Didn’t l tell you that? I did. You forget fast…..

The excerpt above demonstrates that Teacher B did not seem to respond well to learners making mistakes. Shouting out in response to the learner’s response could mean that he was angered by what he thought was a wrong answer. In fact, the learner was correct to say that displacement is change in position. The notion he gave that the learners’ response was incorrect could act as further cause of confusion in learners and this could result in the unwillingness of learners to participate. The way the teacher responded to the learner’s response tend to scare the learners causing them to shy away from attempting to respond to the teacher’s questions. This lack of talking about science in the classroom could negatively impacts on internalisation expected to happen through language use.

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4.2.3. Explanation and of non-technical and technical words and differentiation of