Assessment of Instructional Pauses in College English Classes: Aau in Focus
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Date
2006-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The aim of thi s study is to make an assessment on teachers' awareness and
use/implementation of the different kinds of pauses in classroom instruction . For the
purpose of categorizing instructional pauses, the present study has made use of Stahl 's
(1994) category as a framework. Accordingly, the following eight kinds of instru ctional
pauses are assessed in th is study: pauses following teachers' questions, pauses within
students' responses, pauses following students' response, pauses in students' selfin
itiated statement/comment, pause during teachers' lesson presentation , pause while
students work on tasks, pauses deliberately made by teachers, and pauses to create
cognitive\affective impact on classroom environment.
The study is done on EFL classes at tertiary level. Particularly, College English classes
of the freshman (2005/2006) program at AAU are the settings of the present study.
The study fo llows an observational approach with the help of video camera. A
questionnaire, for sampled teachers, is also used as a tool for data collection. First, the
whole lesson was recorded and th oroughly viewed. Later, taking the duration of the
eight kinds of instructional pauses into account, the lesson was transcribed and
tabulated for the analysis. Then, the obtained time duration at different instructional
places were examined against the standard time stated in the literature.
The investigation shows that teachers are not conscious and skillful on the pauses to
occu r at different place/time of instructional setting. Contrary to the literature, the pauses
in teachers' instruction are not extended as they are supposed to be i.e. three to five
seconds on average. The different categories of silent period within and between verbal
behaviors of teachers and students are immensely manifested lasting only for brief
moments of zero to two seconds. Thus, the study, in general shows that both teachers
and students are not beneficiaries of the potential learning and teaching benefits to be
obtained from extended pauses at appropriate classroom instructional setting.
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Keywords
Instructional Pauses, English Classes Focus