(Nice to know that there's also someone working on a dissertation :-)
I find my project resembles yours Jacque in some ways... but in a very
different area: EFL (English as foreign languge). I also look at
teachers' differences in their classroom practices. I have classroom
data from 8 teachers in 7 different schools across a range of academic
and SES backgrounds.
ERF/IRF/IRE (variously described in the classroom discourse literature,
e.g., Sinclair & Coulthard, Mehan, Heap... and also those you mentioned...)
is a frequently used format in all my data... but the key difference
between the high SES and low SES classrooms (and teachers) is exactly
what you mentioned in your message: the personal touch of the high SES
teacher... they also use the IRF format in my data, but they use other
discourse formats as well whereas the low SES school teachers are more
restricted in their discourse practices...
Jay suggested you to ask the teachers about what they think of what
counts as teaching and learning Math, or how Math should be taught...
I think that would be very useful, but it might also be useful to look at
the institutional context and the curriculum as a whole, e.g., how Math
is tested in the school, what counts as "having covered the syllabus or
curriculum" in institutional terms, what do the parents expect? What
does the school principal/the school board expect?
There are procedures and policies which can constrain the way the teacher
teaches... apart from the teacher's own personal beliefs...
So, I agree with Jay's suggestion that language may serve
non-communicative functions and in school most of the time, it seems to
serve functions other than "authentic communication". I think 90% of my
classroom data bear evidence to that statement... but the tough part is:
why? certainly the teacher's beliefs count, but as Jay's message suggests,
the institution and the whole role of schooling in our socio-economic
structure in the society have almost biased the way teachers teach...
and yet individual teachers do make a difference (but with personal
sacrifice and bear the pressure/consequences of violating institutional
constraints, as can be seen in my data).
Traditional educational theories on the other hand, tend to put the focus
on the "individual teacher", e.g., teacher's beliefs, culture,
techniques, style, skills, etc... What I would like to suggest is...
yes, they are all there, but a teacher is under lots of institutional and
societal constraints, too... How a teacher runs a lesson is not
pre-determined by the context, but is affected by the constraints on her/
him and the avaiblability (or lack of it) of different kinds of resources.
What's more, a teacher lives in a lifeworld which shapes much of her/his
practices... this lifeworld or sociocultural context must also be taken
into consideration when we try to understand why different teachers teach
differently.
* * * *
Part of the reason why I feel I'm doing an uphill job is... the
atmosphere and climate in my home place and in ESL/EFL/L2 mainstream
theories (and those upheld by the authorities) is to focus on the individual
techniques and skills of teachers... teachers tend to be blamed for
teacher-fronted classrooms, for using IRF all the time, etc... yes,
... but... if I also want to discuss the reprodution of lifeworlds,
or social worlds... the institutional and societal constraints on teachers,
the word "reproduction" would probably give enough
reason to some of my fellow educators to label my work as
"marxist(-with-negative-connotations)"... and not to read it...
Anyway,...
Nice to have someone to share these thoughts with...
Angel