Classroom Discourse: Analysis of IRF Sequences and Patterns

This report provides an in-depth analysis of classroom discourse, focusing on the Initiation-Response-Follow-up (IRF) sequence as a key framework for understanding teacher-student interactions. The report explores different types of IRF sequences, including those identified by Van Lier and Sinclair and Coulthard, examining how they function in classroom settings to facilitate learning and discussion. The analysis includes a practical application of IRF patterns to a classroom video, illustrating how teachers use questions and feedback to guide student understanding and maintain classroom etiquette. The report emphasizes the significance of classroom discourse in developing critical thinking skills, fostering student engagement, and creating a supportive learning environment. It highlights the importance of teacher's role in initiating effective communication, providing feedback, and creating a collaborative classroom culture, ultimately aiming to enhance student confidence and learning outcomes. The report draws upon theoretical concepts, personal experiences, and video analysis to support its conclusions, offering valuable insights into the dynamics of classroom interaction.

Running head: ANALYSIS OF CLASSROOM DISCOURSE 1
Analysis of Classroom Discourse

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Table of Contents
Part 1................................................................................................................................................3
Types of IRF Sequences..............................................................................................................3
Van Lier...................................................................................................................................3
Sinclair and Coulthard.............................................................................................................5
Part 2................................................................................................................................................6
Analysis.......................................................................................................................................6
Part 3................................................................................................................................................7
References......................................................................................................................................11
Appendix........................................................................................................................................13

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Part 1
Types of IRF Sequences
The IRF pattern (Initiation, Response and Follow up) is identified as one of the primary
aspects identified in due course of analysing the classroom discourse program. It has specifically
looked forward to highlighting in great detail the variations existing within the stable response
adaptation process. The process looks forward to analysing the differences in pattern in
accordance to the contingencies existing within the classroom programs (Lee, 2007). According
to Cullen (2002), the primary significance of IRF system lies in the fact that the classroom
discourse process is found to return to the degree of attraction generated by the patterning
system. The IRF sequence pattern is identified to play a significant role in depicting the
preferable behavioural attributes taking place within the classroom discourse process.
Furthermore, the effectiveness of the IRF pattern within the system is found to be highly
significant. However, the most commonly used IRF pattern within a classroom program has been
identified to as depicting patterns in accordance to Initiation, Response and Feedback. Ho (2005)
stated that segregation among different types of IRF sequence is found to be identified in
accordance to the variations existing in between the movements made by I and R. The following
section enlightens on the different types of IRF sequences predominant within the context of a
classroom discourse analysis program:
Van Lier
The different types of IRF sequences identified by Van Lier are recitation, display,
precision and cognition. The recitation sequence results in students to repeat the wording that
that teacher has repeated and the overall time interval in between the two occurrences is
identified to be only a few seconds. In such a situation as the students are found to repeat

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whatever the teacher has recited, and the process does not require exhibition of any form of
effort or thinking on part of the students. In case of display sequence, however the students are
required to answer from their memory when a teacher is found to go ahead with asking them
questions. The memory recall that takes place within the process is identified to relate to the
follow-up move of the IRF sequence and thus go ahead with exhibition of the evaluation
function in great detail (Mackey et al., 2007). It is to be noted that the teacher and student
interaction that takes place within a classroom results in the emergence of a large number of IRF
sequences.
There are some IRF sequences identified within the context of Van Lier that requires
deeper processing. The cognition aspects seek to gain knowledge while precision goes ahead
with getting deeper insights into the questions that has been successfully asked in the cognition
stage. The difference in between cognition and precision is identified in the context as to how the
question has been presented by the teacher to the customer. Furthermore, the response thereby
shared by the student seems to be largely based out of the sequential pattern that the teacher has
taken into consideration. It is to be also noted that the differences existing among the IRF
sequences can largely be identified on the basis of how it has been successfully projected by the
teacher in the form of a question as well as how the student went ahead with answering it. The
answer provided by the student can be either a default response to the question thereby asked or
a differential answer, largely influenced circumstantial situation.
One of the striking features associated with the teacher student interaction lies in the
identification of the king of IRF sequence successfully projected by the statements thereby made.
It is of immense significance since there are many instances, wherein students are found to
provide a differential response instead of a default response based on the question thereby asked

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by the teacher (Li, 2013). In this regard, it is of immense significance for the analysis process to
stress relevant importance in considering the initiation and recitation stage of the process. Each
of the two stages are critical to help with the process looking forward to gain wider details on to
the sequence and pattern identification process based on teacher student interaction.
Sinclair and Coulthard
The IRF sequence recognised by Sinclair and Coulthard is identified to be the first
identified in the context of analysing classroom discourse program. It primarily analyses
sequence with the help of 4 level ranking scale, transaction, exchange, move and act. Each of the
levels identified within the sequence tends to highlight in great detail that classroom discourse is
highly structured and thereby tends to follow some specific and predictable patterns (Waring,
2011). Furthermore, the entire process is found to take place in accordance to two types of
exchange process, boundary and teaching. According to Walsh (2006), boundary exchanges
tends to identify the starting or end point of lesson and thereby its implementation is recognised
to undergo either framing or focussing move. The notable framing responses identified in this
regard comprises of acts denoted by words with extended pauses like okay, good or well. On the
other hand, the focussing moves goes ahead with providing comments that tends to summarise
the entire conversation and thus initiates with statements starting with we.
The teaching exchanges identified within the IRF pattern is primarily concerned with the
overall progress made in relation to a particular lesson (Waring, 2008). It is found to be largely
dependent on the intent of a teacher and thus its actualisation takes place through informing,
directing, eliciting and or checking. The classroom discourse analysis process as identified by
Sinclair and Coulthard goes ahead with identification of recurrent patterns followed by its
hierarchical arrangement. However, it fails too provide adequate description of the classroom

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discourse process identified to be collaborative in nature. Apart from discourse analysis process,
the application and usage scope of the IRF sequence has been identified to be highly significant.
It goes ahead with analysing in great detail identification of sequences in different approaches
like interaction analysis, conversation analysis, ecologically framed processes.
Part 2
The chosen video relates to the class where students are taught about the about English
subject. The education video illustrates a short segment of the classroom discussion and related
to IRF sequences. IRF refers to initiation, response and follow up. Further, it can be understood
as the process where either students or teacher initiate a question to get a response against it in
order to determine if the response is true or not. The video is a two and a half minutes
comprising of a teacher asking questions on how to draw a proper conclusion. There are
approximately 15 to 20 students seen in the video of age between 14 to 16. The teaching context
was in English and the students seem to be have a good command over the language. Clearly, it
was an English class with English as a major language.
The environment of the class is not chaotic as the teacher requests the students to raise
their hands before answering the questions. The students are given a chance to answer. As
identified from the video, the teacher initiated the question to the students and expected a
relevant answer from the students. In response to that, the students according to their knowledge
and understanding. The teacher responded nicely to the students, corrected them, appreciated and
gave feedback on the responses. She gave different scenarios to the student to make them
understand the topic well. In this video the teacher used directing to answer according to her
questions and be specific to the context. The teacher also acted as a facilitator to correct the

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students where they were wrong. This helped the teacher to maintain a classroom etiquette as the
students were asked to raise hands before answering randomly.
In the video it can be seen that, classroom seems to have the required modern facilities
for teaching the students (Drburwell, 2011). There are projectors, microphones and cameras to
record the classroom sessions. However, the teacher does not seem to use any kind of technology
to teach but rather had a good conversation with the students to get their opinion on the chosen
topic. She frequently used phrases and words to keep the class engaged in the discussion. The
teacher addressed each of the students by their names during the conversation and encouraged
the students to participate and discuss freely. This helped the passive learners’ attention to the
discussion in the class.
Since a classroom setup, can dramatically affect the habits of learning and attitude of
students, it is important to provide them with a comfortable, organised and stimulating classroom
environment. The physical layout of the class comprised of bookshelves, comfortable seating,
space for posters and important class notices. The students are wearing uniforms which may be
according to the school standards.
Part 3
A detailed analysis of the classroom discourse program with the help of sequential IRF
pattern analysis has gone ahead with providing deeper insights into the degree to which the
present teacher student learning process is effective. In this regard, valuable insights have been
successfully projected from theoretical concepts, personal experience as well as the analysis
conducted in the previous sections. According to Gavioli (2005), an effective classroom learning
and discussion process is identified to be largely focus on the process associated with

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development of critical thinking ability of the students. There has been a general misconception
identified in this regard that the degree of success is specifically found to depend on the ability of
the students to provide right answers. However, based on personal experiences it can be said that
the process can be considered to be successful if and only if it has been able to provide deeper
learning insights into the young minds of the students.
A classroom discourse process is primarily looked forward to as the process associated
with exchange of ideas and concepts among students and teachers. It also ensures that the
process is capable of helping students to successfully evaluate the skills associated with
mastering the knowledge gaining process from the verbal interaction that takes place with the
teacher (Walsh, 2006. Furthermore, based on the analysis thereby done in this paper in the
previous sections it can be largely said that it is critical to enhancing the thought process of
customers. Primarily, the teacher and student learning process is identified to be an effective
reflection on the content exchanged in between the individuals as well as their relative thoughts,
perception and ideas.
The learning process has also been identified to successfully develop a discourse
focussed classroom culture which is further critical to determining the overall benefits that the
students is likely to experience in the long run. Based on the analysis and personal experience, in
both the cases the learning process is identified to benefit the students significantly as well as
provide them with necessary skills and capabilities to gain confidence and proceed further. Such
effectiveness is identified to take place within the learning process due to the effective role
played by the teachers right from the initial stage of the classroom discourse. The consideration
of the materials that seeks to enrich the discourse along with the identification of the rationale
underlying its existence is identified to be highly significant (Waring, 2008). Furthermore, the

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benefits enjoyed by the students are also found to take place due to the fact that the process
associated with analysing the final outcome right at the initial stage is of immense significance. It
tends to specify in great detail the various ways that seems to benefit students significantly all
through the learning process.
The learning process under the strong influence of classroom discourse is identified to
have successfully develop a culture as well as spirit of competition as well as collaboration
among the students. According to Markee (2015), both competitive and collaborative thought
process of students has been identified to make them gain adequate confidence as well as
competency to climb up the ladder of success in their future career endeavours. It is mainly due
to the fact that the interaction and communication taking place within the classroom possess
immense capability in helping students to develop, nurture as well as enhance their listening
skills significantly. Based on the personal experience, it can be largely said that the students are
found to successfully understand true meaning of support as well as the process by which they
can communicate and coordinate to come up with innovative and challenging ideas.
Based on the classroom discourse process the overall learning and development process
of students is found to be largely dependent. It is mainly due to the fact that until and unless the
teacher develops a comfortable communication environment within the classroom, the student
will not come up with sharing their thoughts and ideas. In such a situation, the overall learning
effectiveness of the classroom discourse process goes in vain if the students have not
successfully gained the courage and confidence to go ahead with volunteer participation.
According to Kiemer, Gröschner, Pehmer and Seidel (2015), a striking aspect of classroom
discourse process is that it goes ahead with helping students to stress relevant importance in
developing individualised thoughts and concepts. Such outcome is found to be predominant

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mainly due to the fact that the learning process has facilitated teachers to motivate students to
freely participate in the classroom activities. This along with establishment of specific discourse
norms by teachers seeks to develop specific boundaries within which the overall discussion
taking place within the learning process is likely to take place. The final outcome of such teacher
student learning environment as identified from personal experience is that students are largely
capable of engaging themselves to classroom discussion, listening dealing with individualised
ideas as well as collaborative ones. It has also helped students to understand how a question can
be refrained from answering. In such a situation, the default pattern based sequential answers to
teacher’s action does not hold and relevance. The student provides a different and altered
response instead of providing a default reply.
The learning environment is also identified to provide a deeper understanding of the
expected roles that they are likely to experience in the future course of action. Therefore, the
student is largely able to gain the necessary details associated with how to proceed further in
their career progression. Such learning effectiveness is found to take place since the teachers
themselves in getting involved in role playing mode of teaching as a part of classroom discourse
program. Such actions undertaken by a teacher goes ahead with providing a deeper and
widespread knowledge gaining as well as understanding of the different roles that an individual
takes place. The final outcome or the process is thereby identified to be highly effective in
helping students, thereby stating in great detail the teacher student learning process is largely
effective.

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References
Cullen, R. (2002). Supportive teacher talk: The importance of the F‐move. ELT journal, 56(2),
117-127.
Gavioli, L. (2005). Exploring corpora for ESP learning (pp. 1-176). Amsterdam: John
Benjamins.
Ho, D. G. E. (2005). Why do teachers ask the questions they ask?. RELC journal, 36(3), 297-
310.
Kiemer, K., Gröschner, A., Pehmer, A. K., & Seidel, T. (2015). Effects of a classroom discourse
intervention on teachers' practice and students' motivation to learn mathematics and
science. Learning and instruction, 35, 94-103.
Lee, Y. A. (2007). Third turn position in teacher talk: Contingency and the work of
teaching. Journal of pragmatics, 39(6), 1204-1230.
Li, H. (2013). Student initiatives and missed learning opportunities in an IRF sequence: A single
case analysis. L2 Journal, 5(2).
Mackey, A., Al-Khalil, M., Atanassova, G., Hama, M., Logan-Terry, A., & Nakatsukasa, K.
(2007). Teachers' intentions and learners' perceptions about corrective feedback in the L2
classroom. International Journal of Innovation in Language Learning and
Teaching, 1(1), 129-152.
Markee, N. (2015). The handbook of classroom discourse and interaction. John Wiley & Sons.
Walsh, S. (2006). Investigating classroom discourse. Routledge.

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Waring, H. Z. (2008). Using explicit positive assessment in the language classroom: IRF,
feedback, and learning opportunities. The Modern Language Journal, 92(4), 577-594.
Waring, H. Z. (2011). Learner initiatives and learning opportunities in the language
classroom. Classroom Discourse, 2(2), 201-218.
Drburwell. (2011). IRF 1. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pl09C64YX0

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Appendix
Transcript
1 Teacher 00:00 Students can you tell me the conclusion that we can draw from the data
2 Teacher 00:01 what is the conclusion that can be drawn from the data?
The teacher looks at the class and asks the students to raise their hands to answer.
3 Teacher 00:05 I can see fewer hands. Ok Kayla you say. What is a conclusion?
4 00:08 you can draw track tails please okay so
5 Student 1 00:10 so I think conclusion should be like how/ deep the stream is. The steeper the
slope, the stream will be deep because the water is sliding.
6 Teacher 00:20 So Kayla said that different slop affects how deeper the slope is. But I need
something more specific.
7 Teacher 00:28 Kayla said it right but I needs something specific. That’s quite general for us.
8 Teacher 00:30 you can make the more specific that more good if the steep is slope.
The teacher looks at the class expecting specific answers from the students. The students raise
their hands.
9 Teacher 00:32 Shane can you make that more specific?
10 Student 2 00:33 The steeper the deeper the stream is.
11 Teacher 00:35 Good. The steeper the deeper the stream is.
12 Teacher 00:39 Okay. So that’s the first part of your conclusion.

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13 Teacher 00:41 You need to make be specific enough that it is specific enough.
14 Teacher 00:42 Okay.
15 00:44 Teacher ok but it just not says that there is
16 00:45 a relationship but then it explains what
17 00:47 relationship is. So the steeper the slope is, the more deep the stream is
18 00:50 what is the opposite side of that
19 00:52 Marissa
20 Student 3 00:53 the gentle the stream is the less the deep it is
21 00:59 Teacher Good. The more shallow. Good. The gentle the slope, the shallow the stream.
22 01:02 it's gonna be okay
23 01:05 now I want someone to take a step further
23 01:08 and use the word erosion.
24 01:11 so that should be the first part with what Shinees said and Marissa said.
25 01:14 the first part of your conclusion but
26 01:15 now I want someone to finish it with
27 01:17 another sentence that uses the word
28 01:21 erosion in there they uses the word erosion
29 01:26 Crun, can you do that for us

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The teacher interrupts the student and track run what he has written.
30 01:27 read if it has written a word erosion in it
Analysis
In the oral communications classroom, teachers foster the best practices to promote
leadership for the learners to build confidence among themselves. This is the reason why IRF
elements are required to be considered while conducting activities based on oral communication
in a classroom setting. In conducting analysis on the situations, there are can be different
observations depending upon the conversations between the teachers and students on any subject
matter. However, the conversation is expected to include the IRF elements that has occurred.
The first part reveals that the classroom conversation was regarding giving their opinions
on a certain topic. The teacher address the students by their name to make them more involved in
the task. This shows that the teacher to initiate the conversation and wanting to accept
suggestions and opinions of the students during the conversation. Addressing the students by
their names thus helped them to participate when in the conversation and discuss freely about
their opinions. As can be identified from the video, students actively participating and listening
to what the teacher was asking them. They raised their hands in response to the questions asked.
This shows that the class had active listeners who felt very motivated to share their opinions
without considering the fact that they might be correct or incorrect. Moreover, this helped the
passive learners also to pay attention to the discussion going in the class. When the teacher
addressed any random student like in the video the teacher asked Shinees and Marissa to answer
the questions, the students who might not be listening became attentive. For example, when the
students knew the answer, the raised their hands. The teacher randomly chosen few students to
answer ask about their opinions like what can be a correct sentence or the right use of word. The

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teacher nominated the students by the name helped them to participate more actively. Moreover,
the teacher had good control over the class and was able to share good bonding with students.
In the next step, the students were directed by the teacher as she applied her own strategy
of teaching the students. There can be teachers using their experience and efficiency to gain the
interest of the class.
In the next the teacher checked whether the students were ready to answer to the
questions asked. For instance, she used the words okay and did you understand. The frequent use
of checking words and phrases helps the teacher to keep control over the class. The teacher also
help the student to participate more actively by giving them cues so that they can answer more
confidently. For instance, the teacher was able to understand what the student has to say but
immediately corrected them by giving small hints of the answer. This helped the students to
explore more ideas.
In response part, it was identified that the learners gave both verbal and nonverbal
responses to the teacher. For instance, the students knew about the answer and they raised their
hands which shows it was a nonverbal communication with the teacher. In the follow-up part, the
teacher tried to sum up the different opinions of the students and the task was completed.