Zack Nanbu reflects on teacher responses that are neither yes nor no.
Learner answers in the gray zone
One point of interest for me in the SWELL data is how the language educators go about leading the learners towards producing specific responses. One well documented resource for teachers to display their stance toward learner answers is the use of third-positioned assessments (Mehan, 1979). By giving either a positive or negative assessment, the teacher displays a relatively unambiguous stance towards the response, either accepting it or rejecting it. However, it is clear watching the TGG data that there are many instances where the educators orient to the suitability of a learner answer as falling in a gray zone: it is not wrong enough to warrant a rejection nor is it right enough to warrant endorsement. In such moments, teachers can use what I am calling fuzzy assessments to suggest to the recipients a response is not quite adequate but contains some adequate elements. They therefore signal that the response should not be discarded entirely but needs to be modified or refined in some way, or that there might be better alternatives.
Teachers use fuzzy assessments to suggest a response is not quite adequate but contains some adequate elements.
These moments of fuzzy assessment are often made projectable by certain embodied practices mostly involving the face and head. Tom (an agent) provides a case in point. After asking the learners about activities one might do in Italy, Rin says "olive catching" ocassioning this response from Tom.
As shown in Figure 2, Tom's immediate reaction to Rin's answer is a wincing facial expression in which he raises his eyebrows while squinting his eyelids and begins tilting his head to the right (Figure 3).
Tom then leans back while giving a slight nod. Like the fuzzy assessment being projected, Tom's displayed reaction so far seems to indicate a) his orientation to some problematic aspect of the learner's turn as evidenced by his wince and lack of immediate positive assessment and b) his subtle nodding which by contrast could indicate approval or acceptance of the answer. Tom then gives the assessment "basically" which he follows by repeating yes three times. "Basically" as an assessment is fuzzy because it creates the implicature that Rin's response was mostly correct and therefore partially incorrect or problematic.
This sort of gray zone orientation to Rin's answer is further evidenced by the fact that Tom goes on to first approve by repeating both the spoken component of Rin's turn "olive catching" and a similar grasping gesture (Fig. 7), but then begins to add an increment to this possibly complete TCU with the word "or" which is spoken with a continuing intonation, further projecting the provision of an alternative answer.
Tom then subtly refines his gesture by grasping not with his whole hand but a pinching motion with only his index finger and thumb as he says "picking”, which is followed with "olive picking" and a repetition of the same pinching gesture (Fig. 10-11). Tom's turns here provide a more natural formulation of the learner's answer while at the same time gesturally illustrating a subtle difference between the words "picking" (done with the fingers) and "catching" (done with the whole hand).
Not right or wrong
This signals to the learner that they are mostly right, but also somewhat wrong.
Preference organization would suggest that Tom's lack of positive assessment directly after Rin's answer might project negative assessment (see Schegloff, 2006, p. 67, on 'compromised contiguity'). However, the sideward head motions and subtle nods work to mitigate this somewhat. It seems clear that Tom is not on the way towards a negative assessment but at the same time probably not a positive one either. The verbal component of the assessment "basically" captures the middling polarity of Tom's stance towards the answer, signaling to the learner that they are mostly right but, by implication, also somewhat wrong. Tom therefore sets up a basis for a teachable moment where the teacher can provide a better alternative formulation which was afforded by the Co-Operative transformation (Goodwin, 2018) of the learner's gestures.
These kinds of assessment sequences that do not neatly conform to typical right/wrong, positive/negative binaries are something I would like to tease apart further in the TGG data going forward.
References
Goodwin, C. (2018). Co-operative action. Cambridge University Press.
Mehan, H. (1979). Learning lessons: Social organization in the classroom. Harvard
University Press.
Schegloff, E. A. (2007). Sequence organization in interaction: A primer in conversation
analysis I (Vol. 1). Cambridge university press
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