Taking learner initiatives within classroom discussions with room for subjectification

Abstract

This study shows how learner initiatives are taken during classroom discussions where the teacher seeks to make room for subjectification. Using Conversation Analysis, subjectification can be observed when students take the freedom to express themselves as subjects through learner initiatives. Drawing on data from classroom discussions in language and literature lessons in the mother tongue, the authors find that learner initiatives can be observed in three different ways: agreement, request for information, counter-response. A learner initiative in the form of an agreement appears to function mostly as a continuer and prompts the previous speaker to reclaim the turn, while the I-R-F structure remains visible. In contrast, making a request for information or giving a counter-response ensures mostly a breakthrough of the I-R-F-structure and leads to a dialogical participation framework in which multiple students participate. Findings illustrate that by making a request for information or giving a counter-response, students not only act as an independent individual, but also encourage his peers to do so.