Discursive enactment of power in Iranian high school EFL classrooms

Teachers’ dominance in teaching environments has been criticized as an oppressive educational practice by critical theories of education. While critical pedagogy that espouses a problem-posing model of education has sought to promote a more equitable and dialogical teacher-student partnership and...

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Main Authors: Faiz Sathi Abdullah, Kobra Hosseini
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Penerbit UKM 2012
Online Access:http://journalarticle.ukm.my/4910/
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/4910/
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/4910/1/pp%2520375_392.pdf
id ukm-4910
recordtype eprints
spelling ukm-49102016-12-14T06:37:16Z http://journalarticle.ukm.my/4910/ Discursive enactment of power in Iranian high school EFL classrooms Faiz Sathi Abdullah, Kobra Hosseini, Teachers’ dominance in teaching environments has been criticized as an oppressive educational practice by critical theories of education. While critical pedagogy that espouses a problem-posing model of education has sought to promote a more equitable and dialogical teacher-student partnership and to transform the oppressive conditions of the ESL/EFL classroom, the claimed potential of the approach has had only limited success in practice. Drawing upon Fairclough’s approach to critical discourse analysis to make for a principled analysis of EFL classroom practice, this study investigated the discoursal features of unequal power relations in Iranian high school EFL classes. The data was collected via observation of two classrooms, one located in an urban area and the other in a semi-urban area of Iran. The analysis of the observation data, which included transcripts of classroom lessons as well as field notes, indicated that teachers played a disproportionately dominant role to the extent that the students were kept apparently passive and powerless via a range of discursive strategies including maximizing teacher-controlled talking time, turn-taking, topic control, modes of meaning-construction, and elicitation strategies. The findings of this study are expected to provide critical and emancipatory insights into ESL/EFL classroom practice and contribute to the transformation of its status quo. Penerbit UKM 2012-05 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://journalarticle.ukm.my/4910/1/pp%2520375_392.pdf Faiz Sathi Abdullah, and Kobra Hosseini, (2012) Discursive enactment of power in Iranian high school EFL classrooms. GEMA: Online Journal of Language Studies, 12 (2 (spe). pp. 375-392. ISSN 1675-8021 http://pkukmweb.ukm.my/~ppbl/Gema/gemahome.html
repository_type Digital Repository
institution_category Local University
institution Universiti Kebangasaan Malaysia
building UKM Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
language English
description Teachers’ dominance in teaching environments has been criticized as an oppressive educational practice by critical theories of education. While critical pedagogy that espouses a problem-posing model of education has sought to promote a more equitable and dialogical teacher-student partnership and to transform the oppressive conditions of the ESL/EFL classroom, the claimed potential of the approach has had only limited success in practice. Drawing upon Fairclough’s approach to critical discourse analysis to make for a principled analysis of EFL classroom practice, this study investigated the discoursal features of unequal power relations in Iranian high school EFL classes. The data was collected via observation of two classrooms, one located in an urban area and the other in a semi-urban area of Iran. The analysis of the observation data, which included transcripts of classroom lessons as well as field notes, indicated that teachers played a disproportionately dominant role to the extent that the students were kept apparently passive and powerless via a range of discursive strategies including maximizing teacher-controlled talking time, turn-taking, topic control, modes of meaning-construction, and elicitation strategies. The findings of this study are expected to provide critical and emancipatory insights into ESL/EFL classroom practice and contribute to the transformation of its status quo.
format Article
author Faiz Sathi Abdullah,
Kobra Hosseini,
spellingShingle Faiz Sathi Abdullah,
Kobra Hosseini,
Discursive enactment of power in Iranian high school EFL classrooms
author_facet Faiz Sathi Abdullah,
Kobra Hosseini,
author_sort Faiz Sathi Abdullah,
title Discursive enactment of power in Iranian high school EFL classrooms
title_short Discursive enactment of power in Iranian high school EFL classrooms
title_full Discursive enactment of power in Iranian high school EFL classrooms
title_fullStr Discursive enactment of power in Iranian high school EFL classrooms
title_full_unstemmed Discursive enactment of power in Iranian high school EFL classrooms
title_sort discursive enactment of power in iranian high school efl classrooms
publisher Penerbit UKM
publishDate 2012
url http://journalarticle.ukm.my/4910/
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/4910/
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/4910/1/pp%2520375_392.pdf
first_indexed 2023-09-18T19:42:50Z
last_indexed 2023-09-18T19:42:50Z
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