An Investigation of the Pattern of Turntaking in Group Discussions in Grade 11 Efl Class at Kokebe Tsibah Senior Secondary School

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Date

1999-06

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Addis Ababa Universiy

Abstract

The pmpose of this study was to examine grade 11 students' level of participation in the group discussions by taking turns in ELT classroom at Kokebe Tsibah Senior Secondary School. The study was conducted on thirty students along with their English teacher from one section. The students were divided into five groups and each group comprised six members. Out of fourteen speaking activities presented in the newly developed grade 11 Engli sh textbooks for both semesters, three group discussion tasks were randomly se lected. Of the three tasks, two were taken from Student's Book I for the first semester and one was taken from Student's Book II for the second semester. For the two tasks, the videotaping was made for three hours during the first semester and for the third task the videotaping was conducted for an hom and twenty-five minutes dming the second semester. Taken as a whole, four homs and twenty-five minutes of videotaping was carried out in order to collect data from the group discussions. Each group discussion was videotaped nearly for eighteen minutes on each given task. The data were analysed by making a slight change of Allwright's turn-taking categories developed in 1980. The results from the analysis of the data showed that the sum total of 453 turns were taken in all the three group discussions under turn getting categories. Out of the aggregate turns (453), the students and the group leaders took 156 turns in response to personal solicits. 70 turns were taken through selfinitiation by the group leaders and other students in the groups. The highest number of turns (18 1) was used in di scomse maintenance under the category of 'Take' to keep the group discussions active. From 43 turns under the category of 'Make', the largest share of turns were taken by the teacher and the remaining few turns were used by the group leaders and by other students in the groups. The results also showed that a total of 307 turns were made across the catego ries of turn giving. Turns observed under the categories of 'P' , '0' and '0' were 135,45 and 127 respectively dming the group discussions.

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Kokebe Tsibah Senior Secondary School

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