Feedback topics can be closed, almost immediately, following their initiation. There are a number of ways within the corpus that these closures, or possibly more accurately, a lack of expansion/extension, can be instantiated. One of the commonly occurring types of closures is that the trainee who initiates the FBT, rather than initiating one FBT, initiates several
possible topics in succession, within a given turn. This type of multiple FBT initiation often leads to the trainer, or trainee (who initiates the multiple topics), selecting one of these for ‘development through negotiation’ (see section 5.3.1.2). Another common way by which FBT’s are closed following their initiation is through simple agreement from the Tr: a FBT is initiated, the trainer responds with an agreement token, and the participants move to a new FBT, without any attempts being made by either interlocuter to develop the FBT (see also section 5.3.1.1). The following extract illustrates this type of closing of a FBT, it is taken from close to the end of the positive group-feedback phase of Annie’s feedback cycle on day sixteen of the course, the trainer is Ingrid.
Extract 19 – “Anything else you recommend…” D16FB 370 C1 14.08
1 (0.6)
2 I: !anything else that you: recomme:nd for annie
3 (0.3) ((Tr looks around the group))
4 C: I just wrote °don’t forget° to monito:r (.) because of °that
5 one°
6 (0.3)
7 I: do:n’t forget to monitor.= ((nodding head))
8 C: =°yeah°
9 (1.0)
10 D: yea:h a:nd then yeah I have a just a little thing, just to
11 er (.) beforeha::nd er pre (0.4) pre-stage (say) befo:::re,
12 (0.4) hand out
Following the closure of the previous feedback topic, the trainer self-selects and formulates a request for an account, which will initiate the next FBT, “!anything else that you: recomme:nd for Annie”. During this turn and continuing in to the pause that follows her turn, the Tr looks around the group seeking mutual gaze with the participants in the group. Cathy makes mutual gaze with the trainer as she utters her turn: “I just wrote °don’t forget° to monito:r” (line 4). The formulation of this account from Cathy may be
described as designedly, and explicitly, minimal, in several ways. The opening of the turn, “I just wrote” presents her FBT as a ‘note’, something that she wrote down. The use of ‘just’ might well be a way of mitigating or downplaying the ‘significance’ of this as a FBT and a potential orientation to the assymetry’s between the Trs’ interactional rights and the Tes’ (see section 6.2.1). Following this initial contextualization of her turn, the trainee presents her FBT as an imperative, “°don’t forget° to monito:r”: an explicit plan for future action.
As has been described previously in this chapter, FBTIs usually present a number of aspects of their topical focus, such as a description of the event or practice, an assessment, and often an epistemic claim of evidence, upon which the claim is based. The trainee’s FBTI in this example does indicate an area of practice (monitoring) and an implied assessment (‘don’t forget to’ indicates that this is a positive practice, which should be continued) and also an orientation to ‘plans for future action’ in its grammatical formulation. However, this is a very minimal and limited account, there are many instances in the corpus where this kind of
minimal FBTI would be responded to with request for expansion or extension from the trainer. But this is not the following action from the trainer in this example. After the opening TCU of her FBTI the Te continues with “because of °that one°” (lines 4-5), which seems to present a reason or evidence, though the vagueness of ‘that one’ as referent makes it difficult for the analyst to identify, furthermore the trainer does not orient to this in her next turn. The trainer begins to nod her head strongly as she utter her next turn, a repetition of the Te’s FBT, “do:n’t forget to monitor.” (line 7). She continues her head nodding
throughout this repetition, thus indicating her strong agreement with the Te’s FBT, but not requesting any type of follow up expansion/extension. Her agreement, through repetition of the imperative, also suggests that she is confirming the presentation of this imperative to the group, or ‘providing support for this advice’. Cathy then responds with an agreement token, after which a pause occurs. Dave then self-selects and begins to introduce the next FBT, he also employs a similar construction to Cathy’s FBTI, ‘just a little thing’, which may also be orienting towards the assyemtrical rights between participants by downplaying the strength of his claim (see section 6.2.1).
Thus we see in the above extract that a feedback topic can be closed at its very inception by the trainer, through simple agreement, and that this closure opens up the floor to the
expectation of a next FBT. Though not intended as analytic claims, a number of possible reasons why a trainer would close a FBT directly after its initiation might include: it's a topic that has been covered already, it’s something the Tr does not assess as important (enough to develop) at this juncture in the feedback session or in the trainee’s individual development, it may simply be that they are running out of time for that phase or cycle. However, we do not have empirical access to these ‘possible intentions’ and therefore they remain just that, possibilities. What is clear, however, is that the trainers and trainees jointly negotiate the treatment of FBTs at their point of initiation. Feedback topics initiators are always subject to the possibilities of being closed, or undeveloped. From the analysis of this corpus, it seems most likely that FBTs will be closed if they are presented as a group of multiple FBTs. There are no instances in the corpus where several FBTs are presented at once and then all
subsequently developed. At the same time as the possibility of closure, there is always the possibility that the FBT initiator will perform the first of a series of interactional moves in a negotiation that takes place between the participants, to develop a FBT through the various stages of the ELC.
To summarise, this section has investigated the ways in which feedback topics are initiated, through accounts, within the various phases of the feedback meetings in this context. The vast majority of talk-in-interaction within the phases of the post-observation meetings, is oriented toward the discussion of a series of specific feedback topics, which are introduced by the various participants, dependant on which phase of the feedback cycle they are in. For example, the Tw has the interactional rights to introduce feedback topics in self-feedback phases. This section has outlined the ways in which FBT initiating accounts open a FBT. It has investigated a range of ‘foci’ that are found within the corpus. The ‘foci’ of FBTIs include; (1) self-oriented accounts, which focus on the actions of the Tw who formulates the account, they are typically found within self-feedback phases; (2) other trainee-oriented accounts, which typically occur within group-feedback phases, and are formulated by the Tes as either first person referents (you) or third person referents (s/he) to the actions of the Tw; (3) ‘passively’ formulated accounts, where the action or event is the focus, rather than the actors within that event; (4) student-oriented accounts, which focus on the actions of the students, rather than the Tw, they occur in all phases; and finally, (5) Tr initiated accounts, which occur infrequently within FBTs, but the Tr has the rights to introduce them in any phase within a feedback cycle. The section closed with an analysis of one of the ways in which FBTs can be closed, immediately following their introduction, by simple agreement from the Tr. The following section of this chapter investigates the ways in which FBTs can be developed via negotiation between the participants, after their initiation.