Investigating participation level in Foreign Language Classrooms through the analysis of communicative discourse.

Abstract

Foreign language classes have not been sufficiently investigated probably due to the difficulty to find a method of analysis. Being Discourse Analysis the best way to study them in our opinion, we have developed CODAM, a model of Communicative Discourse Analysis based on discourse analysis presented by Sinclair and Coulthard (1975); on Conversation Analysis (Tsui, 1994) and on the tripartite conception of communication (Poyatos, 1994). From the speaker’s point of view, either teacher or learner, attending to the illocutionary force of their contributions to discourse we have elaborated a taxonomy of possible verbal or non verbal communicative acts present in the foreign language class. Applying CODAM we have been able not only to compare the extension of communicative discourse in each class, but also to investigate relevant aspects for learning as speakers participation during the teaching–learning process and particularly learners’ use of L2 within the L2 class.