THE ENGLISH OF ADOLESCENTS IN THREE CLASSROOM SETTINGS

Abstract

The aim of this study is to determine the manner in which adolescent students in a Singapore school communicate in three different classroom settings: with their peers during a group discussion; with their peers in the same group but in the presence of the teacher; and with the class in an individual oral presentation. These three settings provide a variation in the formality of the situations, ranging from the casual and informal talk strictly among classmates to a slightly more formal interaction with the teacher joining the group at some point of their discussion, and to the even more formal "one-woman show" during which all the attention is focused on the individual speaker. The three settings also provide the opportunity for observing the different modes of spoken discourse a multi-party dialogue or conversation among interactants of equal status; a multi-party dialogue among students but with a figure of authority (thee teacher who ranks higher in status than the students); and a monologue by a student addressing all the other students and the teacher in the class . Communication in the classroom during the group discussion and the oral presentation entails the use of language. The local context of the study makes it necessary to observe and analyse the language used by the adolescent students in Singapore. The diglossic nature of Singapore English provides the opportunity to study the extent of focus on Singapore Colloquial English, the Low variety normally used for informal settings; or on Singapore Standard English, the High variety for formal settings. Pupils showed some differences in their linguistic behaviour in terms of the styles they used for each setting: they showed a general tendency to point towards the Low variety by using more features distinctive of Singapore Colloquial English in the dialogues among their peers, shifting more to the High variety by using more features distinctive of the Singapore Standard English during the dialogue discussion in the presence of the teacher and during the monologue presentation. The analysis of the data also found that pupils differed in the manner by which the two modes of spoken discourse, dialogue and monologue, are characterised: the types of repairs or repetitions and even the functions of repetitions made during the dialogues differed from those made during the monologue. The study concludes that adolescent students are aware of the subtle changes in classroom settings and they do generally make a concerted effort to adjust their language according to the formality of the situation, but there are some adolescents who use language to express their group identity. The implications of the study for the language teacher in particular would be to help students develop more confidence in their use of English for oral communication activities in the classroom, and to strive for a higher standard of academic discourse which will help them communicate better in their adult years.