Locating agency in the classroom: A metaphor analysis of teacher talk in a college developmental reading class

Abstract

This study employed a metaphor analysis approach to investigate instructor language as it relates to the positioning of agency within a college developmental reading course context. Agency, or the socioculturally mediated potential to act, is a crucial part of self-regulated, self-efficacious learning and contributes to identity formation and affirmation. Understanding where agency is being positioned via classroom discourse can have important implications for the teaching and learning transaction, including the construction of students' implicit theories about their literacy practices and their roles as active learners. As a type of discourse analysis, metaphor analysis allows for an unobtrusive, highly ecologically valid method of determining the underlying conceptualisations about a given topic that are held by participants in discourse communities. The article concludes with pedagogical implications. IntroductionIn this article, we investigate instructor language use in a college developmental reading class as it relates to the positioning of agency -that is, where aspects of control are located -within the classroom context. We focus on the metaphorical language used by the instructor of the class and how that language can influence students' understanding of their role in the teaching and learning transaction, as well as their implicit theories of literacy practices. Specifically, we are looking at areas where the belief systems implicit in the instructor's language use run counter to the instructor's stated approach to literacy instruction. Through metaphor analysis we uncover the Discourse models (Gee 2005) implicitly in play in a college developmental reading class.Developmental reading curricula have existed in various forms in higher education in the United States for over a century (Stahl and King 2009). Recent analysis of ACT college entrance test outcomes has indicated that fewer than half of incoming college students in the US were prepared for the reading requirements of a typical first-year college course (ACT 2013), making college developmental reading courses a core aspect of how colleges provide academic support to struggling

Plunging into a world? A novel approach to undergraduates’ metaphors of reading

“…Focusing on metaphors, the present study addressed one aspect of individual understanding of academic reading. In contrast to earlier studies (Paulson & Armstrong, 2011;Paulson & Theado, 2015; for studies on other academic practices see Saban, Kocbeker & Saban, 2007;Wegner & Nückles, 2015a, 2015b, we identified a large variety of conceptual metaphors. Although we could cluster them into a few discernable groups, there is considerable intra-group variability, especially if one takes transitivity, that is, the amount of agency and impact, into account.…”

“…As mentioned above, metaphor use and recognition are important cognitive strategies because they allow to understand new or abstract concepts in terms of interactions with the physical world or bodily states, for instance as taking things up or immersing oneself into a book. Many studies analyzed those metaphors in terms of a few, often only two or three, underlying broad categories (Paulson & Armstrong, 2011;Paulson & Theado, 2015;Saban, Kocbeker & Saban, 2007;Wegner & Nückles, 2015a, 2015b) -such as learning as uptake of pre-existing ideas, learning as problem solving and learning as development of personality (Wegner & Nückles, 2016). However, people use many more metaphors than just these, and this variety is not only across persons (and groups such as different student groups or different disciplines and cultures), but may also arise within persons, for instance when talking to different others or in different situations or faced with different tasks.…”

Success is a puzzle: Sorting out the pieces with metaphor analysis

“…Following the methods of Paulson and Theado [11] we closely examined the participants' responses by breaking them down into individual metaphorical expressions. The metaphorical expressions were identified using source domain elements to describe features of the target domain.…”

Male and Female Lecturer’s Metaphorical Talks in University EFL Classrooms

“…While the first answer sounds quite normative (it is just to confirm CMT's idea of how a metaphor occurs naturally in daily communication), the second seems to go with a number of findings revealing positive contributions of metaphorical teacher talks towards the learning process in the EFL classroom. Thu (2019) found that teacher's metaphorical instructions help students improve their writing skills, and previously, Paulson and Theado (2015) discovered that teacher's metaphorical talks can make new and unfamiliar concepts more meaningful to students. The findings seem to imply that a metaphorical talk can be an effective tool that a teacher can use to facilitate skill and knowledge acquisition process in the classroom.…”

“…From here, it can simply be learnt that the EFL classroom does need metaphors, both as concepts or cognitive processes and linguistic expressions. In fact, as claimed by Paulson and Theado (2015), metaphors can make new and unfamiliar concepts more meaningful to learners; analogical reasoning through metaphors enhances students' motivation and knowledge acquisition; and students' critical thinking skill can become better through metaphors.…”