English Language Teaching in its Social Context

RECORDING AND TRANSCRIBING TALK 3391 J: did you go to Jackie’s paryoy?(1 .O)C: who JackieJ: yeahC:5 J:C: is it?J: yeahJ: noC:no one never inviyoe me1 heard that she had a really nice par%y an’ Cheryl said there was a lo% of boys there (0.6)you know and they (were) playin’ pass the parcel an’ that10 C: she invite YOU?she never invite me neither an Leonie lave one as well never invite never tellme not’in’ (0.4) me no business too!Figure 20. I0 Transcription of a conversation using Creole and London EnglishSource: Sebba (1993): 19-20TranscriptionNotes1 S: Its tail is short and [b~ji] pronounced to rhyme withjsby2 T: Bushy ([buJi])more conventional pronunciation3 S: Rushy ( [buJi])more conventional pronunciationFigure 20.1 1 Representation of pronunciation using phonetic symbolsTowards an analysis: quantitative and qualitative approachesDiscussions of research methodology often make a distinction betwecn quantitative andqualitative approaches to research. Broadly, quantitative approaches allow you to identifyand count the distribution of certain linguistic features, or certain types of utterance. Youcan then draw a numerical comparison between, for instance, the types of talk produced indifferent contexts or by different students, or groups of students. Some forms ofquantification can be carried out ‘on the spot’. For instance, while observing a lcsson youcould count the number of times each student responded to a teachcr’s question. Morecomplex patterns can be identified from scrutiny of audio or video recordings, or from atranscript. G.D. Jayalakshmi, for instance, whose research in Indian classrooms I referredto above, noticed that students participated less in ‘traditional’ teacher-directed lessons(drawing on textbooks) than in lessons based on videos which she had introduced.To checkher impressions, she analysed recordings of a random sample of lessons, counting up thenumber of times a student initiated talk; and what types of talk this involved (whether thestudent was seeking clarification, asking about the meaning of a word, making a single wordcontribution, or making a longer contribution to discussion). She displayed her results in atable (cited asTable 20.1 below). Table 20.1 shows that, in the contexts analysed, studcntsinitiated more talk in video than traditional lessons, and they also made a large number oflonger contributions.