Discourse analysis and language teachers

The group discussions in week 5 clearly showed the importance of discourse analysis in
language learning and teaching. Today, I have come across an article on discourse analysis
by Demo (2001), and I think it is very useful for language teachers, especially L2 teachers
because we can use discourse analysis both as a research method and as a tool by
following a four-part process of Record-View-Transcribe-Analyze to investigate our own
teaching practices and to study interactions among our students, respectively.
- Record videotape one lesson (include all teacher’s questions and students’
responses).
- View the video, and think about the questions; also look for recurring pattern in the
questioning style and its effect on students’ responses.
- Transcribe the lesson: identify types of questions and students’ responses.
- Analyze the videotape and transcript: Why did we ask each question (open, closed)?
Were the questions effective in terms of reaching teaching goals? Did the questions
have effect on students’ opportunities to practice target language? Which questions
elicited the most discussion from the students?...
With the real classroom interaction, we can know how our teaching style affects students'
opportunities for speaking the target language. Then we can make some changes.
We can also use this process to study communication patterns, cross-cultural linguistic
patterns in student-student interactions during a pair work or small-group work: overlap,
interruptions... Teacher’s study of these helps students identify different communication
strategies as well as the potential for miscommunication in their interactions.

Brandl, K. (2008). Communicative language teaching in action: Putting principles to work.

New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Cowan, R. (2008). The teacher's grammar of English: A course book and reference guide.
New York: Cambridge University Press.
Demo, D. A. (2001). Discourse analysis for language teachers. (Generic). Retrieved from
http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/detail?accno=ED456672
Kettel, M. (1996). Teaching grammar: Rethinking the approach. TESOL in Context, 6(1), 13-
19.
Lightbown, P. M., & Spada, N. (2006). How languages are learned. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Nunan, D. (1998). Teaching grammar in context. ELT Journal, 52(2), 101-109.