coming to terms with awd & asi

Coming to terms with TDA & IIC | Gerry Munzing | April 1st, 2004

Hello all,

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to the recent discussion on the approaches to discourse analysis.   Right now, I'm working through TDA and IIC; thinking and searching for ways to clarify a focus for my assignments, so the talk about how to utilize the different approaches has definitely been useful.

Currently, I'm having a bit of a challenge in coming to terms with where TDA ends and IIC begins.   Any feedback, ideas, or further discussion regarding the stuff below would be most appreciated.     

As a teacher trainer, I'm thinking about looking at how teachers talk about (demonstration?) lessons after having taught them (in training?), but I'm still not sure what exactly to focus on.   Politeness and Face Saving sound interesting (I should get to that section in TDA soon), as does Hoey's article about Problem/Solution signaling in monologues (Advances in Written Text Analysis).

So, what I am thinking of doing for IIC seems to be more or less based on what I'm reading about in TDA (Conversation Analysis is essentially Discourse Analysis, right?). I'm not sure where I should begin. Should I do TDA first and then IIC? Should I focus primarily on written discourse for TDA or should I transcribe and analyze the data I've gathered for IIC instead?   The modules overlap in many ways and it's something of a challenge to find and define a focus in this ever-accumulating mass of information.  

I've read through almost all of the units in both modules and for IIC I've recorded one feedback session with moderate success, (meaning most of it is audible) so I have some potentially useful data to analyze (the second one I tried to record was unfortunately botched - aaarrgghh!!!). I plan to record more sessions in April and May, and at that time I hope to press both Record and Play at the same time. Some mistakes do cause regret!    

So, apart from looking more closely at the data I have collected and deciding what to do with it, at this point I feel like I need to do some specific research on my own and I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions of places to start. Specifically, does anyone know of any published work that focuses on analyzing how teachers talk about lessons, more so from a CA perspective rather than EOC?  

Many, many thanks in advance,

Gerry Munzing

P.S.   As soon as I have time, I plan to read through the first two sections in Voices From the Langauge Classroom, edited by Baily and Nunan.

Re: Coming to terms with TDA and IIC | Joe Alvaro | April 29th, 2004

Hi, Gerry,

I was just checking over some past mail and your subject line happened to catch my eye. My IIC assignment was sent yesterday (fingers crossed). The next module I am ordering is TDA since, as you say, they seem to overlap.

One thing I can tell you which was very helpful for me in doing my paper, and which I would recommend to anyone doing IIC, is an excellent little book by Amy Tsui called simply "English Conversation", (Oxford University Press 1994). It is very clear, readable and, most importantly, usable.

It's nice to have a break between modules, but sometimes I wonder if I am taking it too slow. Anyway, doing two heavy-duty modules at once must be quite a challenge for you, I'm sure. I'd like to hear if you (or anyone else) have anything to share regarding TDA. Since writing your letter, did you manage to sort out some focus &/or clear distinction between the two modules? Love to hear about it.

Best of luck with both.

Joe
Guangzhou, China

TDA & IIC | Gerry Munzing | May 5th, 2004

Hi Joe,

Congratulations on getting your IIC project done!    

I would have responded earlier, but I've been out of town lately.   It's the end of Golden Week vacation here in Japan and tomorrow it's back to the office.  

As for how things are going with IIC and TDA, I've pretty much decided to focus all of my energy on IIC because, as far as I know, it has to be done by the July 15th deadline. It's taking me a bit longer than I had hoped to find a focus for my project and this can be a bit frustrating at times, but it's definitely a fascinating module.

As I mentioned before, I recorded a lesson feedback session between myself and two other teachers after we had presented lessons at a development workshop. Keith has been kind enough to put me in touch with one of his colleagues at Aston who is working in the area of teacher education / training / development and her comments and suggestions have been extremely helpful. I think I'm really close to finding my focus. I know it's there, but it's still a bit out of reach. I hope that after some more research and reading in the right places I'll be able to get an outline down and then I'll be ready to move back into production mode.  

So, it looks like TDA is going to be left on the shelf for a while. Either I'll come back to it later this summer or fall, if I happen to find myself waiting for modules to arrive, or I'll end up taking the exam in December. I was thinking about taking it in July, but I waited too long and didn't register in time.

The following is purely a personal thought, but sometimes I wish I had done TDA before IIC because I think the practice with discourse analysis would be very helpful to have when one gets to conversation analysis.   However, as you know from having completed the module, there's much more to IIC than just CA.  

One thing that made reading TDA much easier for me was beforehand I had done the single module Grammar of Modern English. Thus, I had read Bloor and Bloor's The Functional Analysis of English. But again, this is only relates to Units 3 and 4 of TDA. There's a lot more in there!    

Also, many thanks for the tip about Amy Tsui's book. I'll try to get my hands on it.  

All the best,

Gerry
Fukuoka, Japan

 

Archive Categories