Between Participation and Order: Teachers’ Interactional Adjustment in Early Primary Chinese Language Classrooms
Keywords:
early primary Chinese language classrooms; student participation; classroom order; interactional adjustment; classroom managementAbstract
With the increasing emphasis on student participation in contemporary classroom instruction, teachers are facing growing challenges in maintaining classroom order within oral interaction-based classrooms, while existing research has yet to adequately explain how teachers manage these challenges through interactional adjustment in practice. This study examines how teachers in early primary Chinese language classrooms maintain classroom order while promoting student participation in oral interaction-based classrooms. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 15 teachers and employing thematic analysis, it explores how teachers address the relationship between the expansion of student participation and the organization of classroom interaction within classroom management practices. The findings indicate that when instruction relies heavily on student talk, the expansion of student participation often generates interactional organizational challenges. These challenges take three forms: non-rule-breaking forms of interactional disorder triggered by increased student participation, disruptions to instructional progress caused by imbalanced interactional pacing, and heightened interactional fragility associated with the developmental characteristics of early primary students. Teachers respond through interactional adjustment practices embedded in ongoing classroom interaction, including organizing turn allocation and interactional boundaries, regulating interactional pacing to sustain instructional progress, and contextually adjusting responses to different types of student participation. These practices reflect three judgment orientations: prioritizing participation, prioritizing classroom order and instructional progress, and contextualized balancing. This study contributes to the understanding of classroom management as an interactional adjustment process grounded in teachers’ situational judgments and offers a process-oriented perspective on classroom management in interaction-oriented settings.
https://doi.org/10.26803/ijlter.25.6.8
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