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