Browsing by Author "Taddese Habte"

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    The Nature of Turn-Taking Among The Freshman Students in Their Group Discussions At the Addis Ababa University
    (Addis Ababa University, 1997-05) Taddese Habte; Hailom Banteyirga
    This study was carried out to describe the nature of turn-taking among the freshman students in their group discussions. In other words, it attempted to describe the nature of turn - taking to see the level of student participation. For the study one freshman class which consisted of 33 students was selected . The students were then divided into five groups. The data was gathered by video recording the group discussions. The recording was made three times and, on the average, one group was video taped for 20 minutes. Allwright ' s(1980) turn-taking categories (with slight modification) were used for the analysis of the data . The overall results revealed that students got the great majority of the turns(i.e., 126 or 33.9%), out of the total(372) , by responding to specific solicits, that is , by allocation . However, they got very limited turns on their own initiative, i.e., by volunteering (30 or 8 .1% turns), self - selecting (21 or 5.7% turns) and stealing (2 or 0 . 5% turns). Students did not take any turns by interrupting . Results also showed that out of 372 turns, 162(43 . 5%) turns were taken by both the teacher and the group leaders f or discourse maintenance. Both took 23(6.2%) unsolicited turns during others ' turns to maintain the discourse without the intent to gain the floor. Of these, students particularly group leaders took only one turn. The teacher took 2 specific solicits and interrupted only once . However, he did not steal any turns . The findings further indicated that out of the total of 117 specific turns, 53(45.3%) and 61(52.1%) turns were given by the teacher and group leaders respectively . Students gave only 3(2.6%) specific turns . Based on the results of the study, it was strongly recommended that instructors should help students build their confidence so that they could speak of their own accord without awaiting the teacher ' s and group leaders' allocation of turns for opportunities to talk .