Decisión de localización del proyecto.

In some rare episodes, students provide remarks or comments, and thereby position themselves as providers of knowledge. This appears to create a competition with the teacher, who then has to outbid the student by providing more elements. We have seen a mild example in Excerpt 6.8 above: S, in turn 17, positions himself as someone who can assist the teacher; based on which the teacher provides a full statement in turns 18 and 20. There are another 5 such events, 3 of which also happen in the physics lesson at Skaro Motte; 1 in science and 1 in mathematics at Gallifrey Vale. We give an example from each class in this section.

The first excerpt, taken from the mathematics lesson at Gallifrey Vale, follows an episode where the teacher asked students whether they knew what a recurring decimal was (and had obtained a satisfactory answer).

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21 T: “[S]”

22 S: “You know when you write a, a, a recurring number, to say [it can't but?] you put a dot on the top of it.” 23 T: “Very good. Okay. So the first number that recurs

you put a dot over. Sometimes, you've got several numbers that recur, for example this one" [writes on non-Interactive whiteboard]”

24 T: “and that means... the one does not recur, but the seven and the four are the first and the last digits that recur. Which means that you get seven three four seven three four seven three four. Okay? You put at most two dots. Over things. The first digit, and the last digit that recur. Okay?”

Excerpt 6.9 (Gallifrey Vale, third mathematics lesson)

Here, in turn 22, the student partially explains the notation for a recurring decimal. This is done unbidden, although it is related to the original question – and can be seen, from the student’s perspective, as a complementary answer to that question. In turn 23, the teacher validates the student’s statement, but then completes it in turn 24 by exposing the case where the recurring motif is more than one digit long. In this case, the completion could be seen as a way of redressing the student’s answer, and to stem out of a desire for clarification, rather than out of a desire for re-affirming the teacher’s own position as the source of knowledge.

However, the interaction then continues with the teacher showing that point nine recurring is the same as one. This part of the interaction does not contain statements per se, but does participate in the furthering of content seen. This suggests that the teacher, having regained his position as expert, follows through by showcasing this proof independently (rather than through, say, an IRE/IRF sequence).

In the other two examples we provide, the teacher’s outbidding statement cannot be seen as a simple redressing of the student’s statement:

25 S: “Et si elle est pas graduée ca sert a rien”

“And if it isn’t graduated, it’s useless”

26 T: “Ah bah si elle est pas graduée, ca sert pas a grand chose hein. Et puis le problème aussi c'est qu'si elle est pas graduée correctement, par exemple la. Quel volume j'ai? Ceux qui sont plus proches?”

“Ah well if it is not graduated, it’s not much use eh. And the problem as well is that if it isn’t graduated correctly, for instance here. What volume do I have? Those who are closer?”

Excerpt 6.10 (Skaro Motte, second physics lesson)

The student’s statement at turn 25 follows a short IRE sequence where students were asked what the tool for measuring the volume of a liquid was, the answer being “a graduated cylinder”. At turn 25, the student takes a role which is normally the teacher’s remit: commenting on an answer. The teacher, in turn 26, validates this comment by repeating it, but then moves on to treating another issue:

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the suitability of the graduations. The new concept introduced is that graduations may be correct or not, and the statement is that it might cause a problem (to the same extent as there being no graduation at all). However, the right for the teacher to introduce that new content is short-lived, as he moves quickly to treating this new concept by means of an IRE/IRF sequence, which starts at the end of turn 26.

The final example we provide is taken from the science class at Gallifrey Vale. Students have been tasked with coming up with various man-made or natural disasters, in preparation for a BTEC assignment; and have been giving such examples, one group at a time. Excerpt 6.11 below is the answer provided by one group.

27 S1: “Um… you haven't spoken of an avalanche yet. [it would go?] in both”

28 T: “oh good. Avalanches, and they probably[squeaky] would go on both, yeah!”

29 [students discuss amongst themselves]

30 S2: “What's an avalanche miss? Is that a big ice thing?”

31 S3: “No that’s when snow falls down [???]”

32 T: “Yeah. A landslide would be a similar thing but with earth [???] I'll put them in [both?]”

Here, avalanches become the topic of the conversation through the student’s answer at turn 27. This was at the bidding of the teacher, who is in control of the interaction up until turn 29. At turn 30, S2 takes the initiative to ask what an avalanche is. Even though this question is directed at the teacher (“miss”), another student answers on her behalf (turn 31). The teacher validates this input (“yeah”), but still provides more information and introduces a new disaster: the landslide, which had not been mentioned up to that point. This linking of the two rather different catastrophes is completely unprompted, and is not supported by an external source: the teacher is completely responsible for this introduction. This can be interpreted as follows: at turn 31, S3 positions herself as someone who can answer questions asked in plenary interaction by other students. Throughout the rest of the lessons, this appears to be the teacher’s prerogative, especially when the answer introduces new content which does not belong to the conversational history of the classroom, as is the case here. This usurpation therefore happens both on the conversational level (to the extent that the question at turn 30 was addressed to the teacher) and, as we just outlined, on the nature of the behaviour. It prompts the teacher to assert her own teacher role: this role is culturally associated with the position of an expert, who introduces a new element. In order for that element to be new, the teacher needs to outbid S3 in her provision of information.

Whilst the value of linking landslides to avalanche is debatable in the wider context of the BTEC assignment, which includes investigating the causes of catastrophes, both disasters are considered jointly throughout both lessons. Thus, this new element enjoys a marked longevity both from the students’ and from the

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teacher’s perspective. In the other cases of outbidding, the element at hand is not taken up again later. Both at Skaro Motte (physics) and at Gallifrey Vale (mathematics), however, this may be explained by the absence of an occasion for these elements to be brought up again – either through the specificity of the new element, or because of how late in our dataset the element is introduced.

In each of the excerpts above, then, we find a student positioning themselves as experts. As this position is culturally and functionally associated with the profession of teacher, this undermines the teacher’s own position. This is the case whether the teacher is holding the position of expert (as, arguably, in Excerpt 6.11, where she has just been positioned as an expert by the student’s question at turn 30) or not (as in Excerpt 6.9, where the student’s statement interrupts an IRE/IRF sequence). However, the teacher’s position after such an interruption is systematically that of an expert: not only do they validate the interruption, they also provide new information. It should be noted that this section only presents those episodes where the statements made by the teacher are mathematical or scientific. There are, however, occasions where the teacher also displays non-scientific expertise: for instance in Gallifrey Vale, she mentions that a documentary on Haiti was broadcast the previous night.

Therefore, it appears that the position of expert in plenary interaction is the teacher’s exclusive, and heavily defended, domain. Where students take this position, either it is at the bidding of the teacher (through questioning), or it leads to a reclaiming of the expert position by the teacher.