Teacher Talk Curbing Learner Participation in L2 Classroom Discourse

Of the multiple and dynamic contexts in classroom discourse, meaning-oriented contexts (MOCs), which specifically pursue the pedagogic goal of augmenting learners' participation opportunities, take on a special significance. In spite of being instigated, they tend not to be sustained in Iranian EFL classroom discourse. To explore the reasons from an emic perspective, this study used the methodological power of conversation analysis, thus video-recorded and transcribed naturally occurring interactions in 14 classes for three consecutive sessions. Analyses of episodes unveiled teachers' pedagogical practices that functioned as sequence-closing thirds, insinuated case-closed, curbed learners' interactional space for participation, inhibited dialogic teaching, and ultimately impeded sustainability of MOCs. Findings can be analytically generalized to the theory of pedagogical interaction and help teachers enhance their classroom interactional competence.