Teaching via Zoom: Emergent Discourse Practices and Complex Footings in the Online/Offline Classroom Interface
Abstract
:Prologue
1. Introduction
The big things reside in the small things, and the most inconspicuous and uniquely situated social action is, in that sense, “systemic” and “typical”, as well as a source for theoretical generalization.
- Primary online data: video recordings of online seminars/workgroups. Our emphasis is on first seminars, that is, events that involve a group of participants who are all new to each other—and to the teacher. There is no shared history. This means new routines and practices have to be bootstrapped from scratch (first events; Bannink and Van Dam 2013a, 2013b; Van Dam and Bannink 2017; Van Dam 2002a; Van Dam (van Isselt) 1993).
- Teacher and learner metadata on online teaching: written course evaluations by students in response to closed and open questions; informal comments shared spontaneously by participants either online or in response to prompts; pre- or post-lesson spontaneous comments both by teacher and (individual) students; diary entries from one of the teachers.
- Anecdotal data from journalistic sources; casual remarks by insiders.
2. Theoretical Framework, Methodology, and Data
- It emphasizes the importance of fine-grained pre-theoretical observation which means that no behavioral details or contextual phenomena may a priori be excluded as irrelevant (cf. thick description; Geertz [1973] 2008);
- It emphasizes the extent to which real-world phenomena are complex and context-dependent: emergent in the situation-rather than static or a priori ‘given’, as a result of the dynamic interplay of multiple systems that are simultaneously in force (cf. Larsen-Freeman 2016);
- It typically concerns questions, behaviors, beliefs, and experiences that are relevant to insiders (cf. triangulation; Sevigny 1978).
3. The Online Classroom Interface: Constraints; Insider Perspectives
4. Online Classroom Data. Participation: Access to the Lesson Floor; Impoverished Multimodal Cues
4.1. Participation: Turn-Taking Procedures
T | [gaze to camera] alright – welcome back - let’s continue – so – in looking at these two texts – uh who – who’d like to identify ways in which these two texts are in fact about directing the behavior of the audience – you can shout it out [brief smile] – |
SSS | [silence; blank faces; no visible smiles] |
T | - just unmute yourself - or you can type it in the chat window [broad smile] |
SSS | [silence; blank faces; no visible smiles] |
T | [5 sec pause] – or if you really want to - you can screenshare your text analysis with the rest of the class [smile] – so what do the two writers do to direct the behavior of their audiences – [6 sec. pause] – I – I can’t see all the hands but I can see - [different tone] N. – you’ve raised a hand – so you’re welcome to speak – |
SN | [3 sec pause] Mmm- yes – uhm - HI – uhm – in the first – uhm text – uh – there is a lot of use of must and should |
4.2. Participation: The Role of Multimodal Cues
T | Initiation/Question | |
T | Turn allocation SN | |
SN | Response | |
T | Follow-up | |
T | Initiation/Question | SK raises hand (Figure 2) |
T | Turn allocation SN | SK drops hand |
SN | Response | T gaze away from camera to second screen; SK raises hand (Figure 3) |
T | Follow-up | T gaze still away from camera; SK hand down; SK rubs eyes (Figure 4); T gaze back to camera; SJ raises hand (Figure 4); |
T | Turn allocation to SJ | |
SJ | Response | |
T | Follow-up | |
T | Initiation/Question | SK raises hand (Figure 5) |
SX | Spontaneous turn | |
T | Follow-up | SK eyes down, leans back, turns head away from camera, eyes roaming the room (Figure 6) |
T | [teacher question is on the floor; inviting look] |
SSS | [looking towards the screen] - - [silence] |
T | [looking towards the screen][reproachful tone] ik kijk naar JOU hoor |
((I’m looking at YOU [Dutch singular] - you know)) | |
SSS | [looking towards screen] - - [silence] |
T | [leaning forward; eyes scanning the screen] uhm – before we start the | |
quiz – can you give me an idea of [breaks off] – is this the first time | ||
you are - for you - uh - to be taught on Zoom↑ | ||
SE | I mean – I’ve just finished high school and we had a thing called Teams – so yeah | |
T | OK - yeah – so Elias has got some experience – any other↑ [eyes scanning the screen] | |
SA | just yesterday we had uh | |
[ | ||
SX | xx | |
T | [eyes scanning the screen] sorry – yeah – who was that↑ | |
SA | I don’t know – I said something – I don’t know | |
T | yeah – Annemarie – go on | |
SA | yeah – yesterday we had a lecture in Zoom | |
[ | ||
T | [nodding] |
5. Online Classroom Data. Discourse Complexity: Embedding Mixed Formal/Informal Domains
5.1. Pre-Course Mixed Formal/Informal Domains
5.2. Informal Lesson Subdomains: Zoom Etiquette and Teacher-Free Zone
“More than I expected, bringing the class together digitally [in the teacher-free zone] was extremely helpful. We used zoom mostly in the beginning–by now everyone is mostly too busy with their own studies to hang around long. But through zoom we created a Whatsapp group that is extremely helpful. Students are sharing questions, concerns and relieving each others’ anxiety, and even sharing the workload, like sharing article summaries through joint documents and helping each other out when we get stuck or don’t fully understand something. So it’s probably worth recommending this to other groups you’re teaching online as well!”
5.3. Self-Talk; Complex Footings and Reversal of Institutional Roles
T | so here’s the question [Powerpoint slide shows question] – could you | |
type in the chat box whether you think this is true or false↑ | ||
SX | xxx | |
T | you can’t↑ [stops abruptly] - - [worried look] [3 sec. pause] mm - | |
→ | [self talk; softer] why can’t I see the chatbox you think | |
SY | maybe because you are sharing the screen – maybe you↑shouldn’t | |
T | mm – that would be a bit odd [unshares screen] anyway you have | |
→ | eleven – [very fast; different tone] truetruetruetruetrue – yes – you’re | |
ABsolutely right – it’s true – it IS the smallest meaningful unit uhm | ||
→ | in the grammar of a language – [self-talk; softer; fast] this is going | |
to be very complicated – coz now I have to go back and do this all over | ||
again – this can’t possibly be right I don’t think but never mind | ||
→ | AArgh - this is going to take forEVER | |
SZ | we can do ‘raising our hand’ instead of typing | |
T | okay - we’ll do that |
“The teacher was 10/10, she knew what she was doing 99% of the time and was very open about her problems with handling zoom so we knew what was happening if she suddenly got kicked out of her own zoom, for instance.”
6. An Emerging Learning Community: Robust Feedback Systems; Laughter and Play
6.1. Feedback Systems: Peer-Scaffolding
SP | [raises hand] | |
T | [in dyadic interaction with SJ] ... I would be really challenged - if I had | |
to do this - but anyway - RIGHT - see how we can make the best of it = | ||
SX | → | = P. wants to say something |
T | → | [smiles; bends face towards screen; eyes scanning the screen; marked |
change in tone] OH - [inviting tone] yes? | ||
SP | [asks question] | |
T | [answers question] |
6.2. Laughter and Play
T | Okay - alright - I’m gonna put you in - [break-off; change of tone] shall I | |
put you in pairs↑- so that you can work with ONE person↑ - yeah↑= | ||
SSS | = (overlapping) yeah okay sure | |
T | = okay - good - SO I want 14 participants to 7 rooms - [softer, self-talk] | |
my arithmetic is really pathetic - [normal voice] but there you go - | ||
shall I do it automatically↑= | ||
SSS | =yeah alright okay | |
T | don’t forget to join and I’ll see you very shortly - okay↑ | |
SX | wonderful= | |
T | → | = and whatever you do - don’t PANIC - just follow the lead and you |
will get there= | ||
Sy | → | =I’m panicking already (laughter T + SSS; see Figure 7 below |
Sx | → | =I was born panicked (laughter T + SSS) |
7. Conclusions
Epilogue
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
1 | https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2021/02/10/coronanieuws-eenzame-studenten-a4031391; NRC 21 February 2021. Accessed on 21 February 2021. Translation authors. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
2 | Transcription conventions
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
3 | In computer-mediated interactions there is often a time lag between consecutive incoming turns (cf. Seuren et al. 2021) that may differ for different relay modes. For that reason details of timing are difficult to interpret. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
4 | For reasons of triangulation we invited SK to comment on the episode described in Data 2: “[I] must admit that my feelings are accurately captured in this study. It did feel frustrating to start over again three times without getting picked, but I must also say that the IRF sequences were running much more smoothly in the follow-up classes. The module was one of the most interactive courses of this academic year and [the teacher] certainly enabled us students to critically engage with the material that we had seen over the course of eight weeks.” | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
5 | SK also spontaneously shared his reflections on Section 4.2 as a whole: “[T]he parts about non-verbal and multi-modal practices [..] cleared up some education-related questions I had asked myself in the past (questions that are primarily related to non-compliance of students in an online setting). Personally, I always thought that us students were deliberately more reserved in an online setting because of the newly acquired anonymity that Zoom and other conferencing apps have to offer, but the finding that gaze-, and sound-cues were missing definitely explained why participance can stagnate at times.” | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
6 | Although in principle Zoom shows 49 participants on screen in gallery view, the size of the individual images of course decreases according to the number. |
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Bannink, A.; Van Dam, J. Teaching via Zoom: Emergent Discourse Practices and Complex Footings in the Online/Offline Classroom Interface. Languages 2021, 6, 148. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages6030148
Bannink A, Van Dam J. Teaching via Zoom: Emergent Discourse Practices and Complex Footings in the Online/Offline Classroom Interface. Languages. 2021; 6(3):148. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages6030148
Chicago/Turabian StyleBannink, Anne, and Jet Van Dam. 2021. "Teaching via Zoom: Emergent Discourse Practices and Complex Footings in the Online/Offline Classroom Interface" Languages 6, no. 3: 148. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages6030148