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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 to...

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Main Authors: Abdullah, Faiz Sathi, Hosseini, Kobra
Format: Article
Language:English
English
Published: Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2012
Online Access:http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/24390/1/Discursive%20enactment%20of%20power%20in%20Iranian%20high%20school%20EFL%20classrooms.pdf
http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/24390/
http://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/article/view/646
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spelling my.upm.eprints.243902017-08-22T08:07:39Z http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/24390/ Discursive enactment of power in Iranian high school EFL classrooms Abdullah, Faiz Sathi Hosseini, Kobra 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 Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2012 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/24390/1/Discursive%20enactment%20of%20power%20in%20Iranian%20high%20school%20EFL%20classrooms.pdf Abdullah, Faiz Sathi and Hosseini, Kobra (2012) Discursive enactment of power in Iranian high school EFL classrooms. GEMA Online™ Journal of Language Studies, 12 (2). pp. 375-392. ISSN 1675-8021 http://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/article/view/646 English
institution Universiti Putra Malaysia
building UPM Library
collection Institutional Repository
continent Asia
country Malaysia
content_provider Universiti Putra Malaysia
content_source UPM Institutional Repository
url_provider http://psasir.upm.edu.my/
language English
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 Abdullah, Faiz Sathi
Hosseini, Kobra
spellingShingle Abdullah, Faiz Sathi
Hosseini, Kobra
Discursive enactment of power in Iranian high school EFL classrooms
author_facet Abdullah, Faiz Sathi
Hosseini, Kobra
author_sort Abdullah, Faiz Sathi
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 Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
publishDate 2012
url http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/24390/1/Discursive%20enactment%20of%20power%20in%20Iranian%20high%20school%20EFL%20classrooms.pdf
http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/24390/
http://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/article/view/646
_version_ 1643828346853785600
score 13.211869

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