Investigating Characteristics of a Dialogic Discourse Pattern in Japanese Academic English Classrooms

This article investigates the dialogic aspects of discourse in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) classrooms. A more dialogic pattern of classroom discourse indicates that many participants, for example, students as well as the teacher, are involved in generating the whole classroom discourse. For the purpose of determining the level of dialogicality in academic English classes, twenty four lessons of four different teachers were audioand video-recorded for an entire academic year. The classroom discourse was transcribed and the level of dialogicality was coded based on principles suggested by Nystrand (2003). The principles cover the authenticity of the questions asked by the teacher and the occurrence of uptake. Accordingly, different modes of classroom discourse are observed in each of these classes which are monologic, recitation, and occasionally dialogic. The cases analyzed in this article reveal that it is not just the type of the questions that can lead to establishment of a dialogic mode, but there are some other teacher moves which can be either facilitative or interruptive. These moves are identified and labeled as encouraging student’s participation (ESP) and discouraging student’s participation (DSP). It is argued that these moves can influence the formation of ground rules and consequently the establishment of a dialogic mode.


Introduction
Despite the fact that various modern teaching methods and techniques, such as Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) and Task Based Language Teaching (TBLT) have stressed the importance of communication in language learning (see Hall, 2011), "there is growing evidence that, in communicative classes, interactions may, in fact, not be very communicative after all" (Nunan, 1987, p. 144).In the words of Kumaravadivelu (1993), "Even teachers who are committed to Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) can fail to create opportunities for genuine interaction in their classrooms" (p.13).Sert & Seedhouse (2011) write that "a great amount of instructed language learning around the world is still undertaken through traditional ways of teaching dominated by teacher-fronted interaction and controlled by the asymmetrical nature of turn distribution" (p.3).
For this reason, apart from different methods and techniques employed to facilitate language teaching, we still need to scrutinize classroom discourse to explore the role of language on creating an interactive context.Classroom discourse analyses can contribute to the field of language teaching and learning by investigating the question as to what type of teacher move might lead to the desired influence on the students' participation.As many recent studies have pointed out, "[i]n the L2 classroom, the quality of talk is of high significance in that language is not only the means through which learning is mediated but also an indispensable aspect of the pedagogical goal in itself" (Xu, 2012, p. 113).A highly interactive classroom discourse can help the students to be more engaged and thus participate more often in forming the whole classroom discourse."Cooperative learning provides teachers with many opportunities to model appropriate helping behaviors that students, in turn, will model and use in their interactions with each other to facilitate discussion and learning" (Gillies, Ashman, & Terwel, 2008, p. 260).
In recent years, several studies on classroom discourse have asserted that the recitation form of discourse has been the default type of most of the classes that they have investigated (e.g., Hardman, Smith, & Wall, 2003;Hargreaves et al., 2003;Myhill, 2006).In order to make a classroom more interactive, the discourse needs to become more dialogic.Socio-cultural theory posits that learning and development are achieved partly through dialogue, and that "education is enacted" through the interactions between teachers and learners (Rojas-Drummond, Torreblanca, Pedraza, Vélez, & Guzmán, 2013, p. 20).Bakhtin (e.g., 1984) has made a distinction between monologic and dialogic discourse.A "monologic discourse" is most commonly in the form of controlled "recitation" in which students express their recall of assigned information, while in a more dialogic form of discourse, interaction plays an important role and information is transferred more dynamically.Bakhtin's ideas can help English teachers become more aware of the "ideological nature" of their teaching and therefore it can assist them in establishing a more interactive communication with their students (Hall, Vitanova, & Marchenkova, 2005, p. 6).Furthermore, the teachers can take more influential measures and intervene at the right moments in order to scaffold students' learning by establishing a dialogic mode of interaction.
In this study, the aim is to describe the linguistic aspects of the interaction in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) classes in Japan in order to characterize the potential dialogic instances present in the discourse.This study seeks to answer to the questions: What characteristics of a dialogic discourse are present in Japanese EAP classrooms?What types of teacher moves are influential in creating a dialogic mode?

Background
Given consideration to Halliday & Vygotsky's theory of language learning, Wells (2004) argues that it is in the conversation that the child not only can learn a "language" but also can learn "through language" (p.51).He defines discourse as being both "process" and "product" similar to "saying" and "what is being said" as they are both dependent on each other (Wells, 2004, p. 107).In this view "understanding" is considered to be under constant change and is extended through "participation in a particular activity" (Wells, 2004, p. 108).Accordingly, as he posits: "[K]nowledge construction and theory development most frequently occur in the context of a problem of some significance and take the form of a dialogue in which solutions are proposed and responded to with additions and extensions or objections and counter-proposals from others" (Wells, 2004, p. 51).

Bakhtin's Concepts of Internally Persuasive Discourse vs. Authoritative Discourse
Bakhtin's insights on the dialogicality of language and thought have shed some light on the classroom discourse analyses.Hall (2005) interprets Bakhtin's concepts in the following way: "Authoritative discourse is language or discourse imposed on a person-but for one to really accept, acquire and own a language or discourse, it has to become an internally persuasive discourse, hybridized and populated with one's own voices, styles, meanings, and intentions" (p.93).
According to Hall (2005) there is a need for forming "heteroglossia" in English language classrooms so that the students will have a chance to internalize the language and utilize it as a tool for "constructing their own preferred worlds, preferred identities and preferred voices".This need can only be fulfilled by creating a space for internally persuasive dialogue.Mercer & Dawes (2008) mention that there is a need for adjusting some of the typical "ground rules" in order to create a more "symmetrical" classroom discourse in which the students' role is more eminent.According to them, some of these common implicit ground rules are:

•
Only a teacher can nominate who should speak.
• Only a teacher may ask a question without seeking permission.
• Only a teacher can evaluate a comment made by a participant.

•
Pupils should try to provide answers to teachers' questions which are as relevant and brief as possible (p.3).

Identifying Dialogic Discourse Pattern
The notion of dialogic teaching and learning has its roots in Socratic method of teaching.Given the role of internally persuasive dialogue in constructing social identities, the more dialogic type of the discourse can further open a space for the learners' cognitive development as well.Xu (2012) writes: "Recent deployment of dialogue as a model for teaching and learning has been inspired by Vygotsky's sociocultural theory of learning and Bakhtin's writing on the inherent dialogicality of language and thinking, both highlighting the social foundations of learning, the mediating role of language both in cognitive development and in identity formation, and the link between individual and social" (p.111).
In order to be able to identify characteristics of a dialogic discourse pattern I have drawn upon the theoretical framework suggested by Nystrand (see Nystrand, 2003;1997)   chers' these first was to g and reading tasks throughout the academic year.The classes were held twice a week and thus there were totally about twenty-eight lessons in each semester.The lessons in the middle of the semesters were usually chosen for recording.The reason was that the students and the teachers could have enough time to know each other and the objectives of the course.The teachers' pseudonyms are chosen as Mako, Jack, Kevin, & Nicole.All the student's names are also pseudonyms.
All the teachers who agreed to participate in this research were teaching Academic English courses, but the levels varied.Three were Intermediate (Mako, Nicole, & Kevin) and one Advanced (Jack) classes.However, as the levels of the classes were not similar, two other advanced classes taught by Mako & Kevin were added to the data.Mako & Kevin's advanced classes were recorded twice in the first semester of the academic year 2015-2016.To reduce the tension of camera's presence on the participants, the video recording was not used in the beginning.The first three lessons of Jack's advanced, Mako's intermediate, Nicole's intermediate and Kevin's intermediate as well as the first two lessons of Mako's advanced and Kevin's advanced were only audio-recorded, using two voice recorders.In the rest of their classes, beside the voice recorders, a camera was also used for video-recording.In sum, twenty 90-minute lessons were recorded in the first year of recording and four lessons were recorded in the second year.All four teachers have had more than eight years of experience in English language teaching and they were all in their 40s.In regard to their nationalities, Mako, Kevin, Nicole, & Jack are respectively Japanese, British, American and Canadian.They are all teaching at the same department to undergraduate students.None of these teachers had been informed about the details of my research so that my presence would not influence their discourse pattern.The students were all freshman, and there were usually around twenty to twenty five students present in each lesson.
After transcribing a total of 24 classes, the model proposed by Nystrand (2003) has been the basis for coding the degree of dialogicality in the classroom discourse.The discourse was analyzed in terms of authenticity, uptake, and wait-time for all the questions raised.The amount of talk in each turn is also calculated and shown in the form of the number of words spoken by each speaker as it is considered an influencing factor on recognizing the dialogicality level of the discourse.(see Appendix A, for the conventions used in the transcription) All the questions asked by the teachers and students are coded based on the principals adapted from Nystrand (2003) and the depicted charts display the dialogicality level of the questions asked in each class (see table 1).In this model, authenticity and uptake are considered the main notions for assigning the values of dialogicality level.
Authenticity refers to the questions that have no "prespecified" answer.Authentic questions provide students with the opportunity to contribute to the flow of the discourse by putting their own thoughts into words.Therefore, the more authentic questions are assigned higher values.
Uptake is recognized when the teacher follows what a student has said and asks further questions about it.In this sense, the students' ideas might influence the whole theme of the conversation and it shows teacher's attention to their responses."Uptake is important because it recognizes and envelops the importance of the student contribution" (Nystrand, 2003 p. 146).In this model, the presence of uptake makes the questions to be marked as a higher value.A question has to "incorporate a previous answer" by the student to be qualified as an uptake (Nystrand, 2003, p. 146).
In the present study, the repetition and clarification of the questions are not coded, since they could be considered as one cluster of questions unless the teacher intentionally waits for a response.Questions that do not give rise to any response are assigned a -1 value.In this framework, having "authentic questions" and "uptakes" are considered to be the main signs of "dialogic bids".Dialogic bids, then, can provide the appropriate setting for establishing a "dialogic spell" which is characterized by student initiations, extended turns as well as the absence of the teacher's test questions (Nystrand, 2003, p. 151).In order to represent some samples of the analyses, the first three excerpts in the research questions and the findings section indicate more details of the analyses (tables 2, 3 and 4).In some studies of classroom discourse, Initiation-Response-Feedback (IRF) pattern has been suggested as being the common feature of moves made by the speakers in a classroom setting (see Sinclair & Coulthard, 1975).
Here, I have also specified the IRF moves to see how they are distributed in the discourse.
Having analyzed the questions from a dialogic perspective, I looked deeper into the turns taken by the teachers and students in order to see how the dialogicality level of the discourse in each class influenced the discourse mode and also how the students acted in response to the teacher's moves.For the purpose of more detailed analysis of the interaction pattern, previously discussed principles by Alexander ( 2008) are taken into account.

Research Question 1: What Characteristics of A Dialogic Discourse Are Present in Japanese EAP Classrooms?
Based on the observation of 24 lessons of Academic Communication (AC) courses and the coding of the questions asked both by the teachers and the students, I noticed that some features of dialogic discourse are present in the types of questions asked in some lessons.For instance, the charts (figure 2) depict the coding of questions asked in the first thirty minutes of each class.These samples are taken from the first recorded lessons of each class.
The first lesson of Mako's intermediate class starts with a greeting and eliciting students' ideas in the classroom.Next, she provides opportunities for some students to talk on the different topics they had chosen before.After that, there is a group-work on the topic of nutrition which is followed by group presentations and classroom discussion.
Jack's first lesson is about the robots and they watch a video-clip about them for about three minutes, then, the rest of the lesson the teacher tries to elicit responses from the students and have discussions about a Japanese robot mentioned in the video-clip.
Kevin's intermediate class starts with the teacher's explanation of questionnaires and asking the students to fill the questionnaires.During the rest of the lesson, he describes "units of meaning" and makes the students practice intonation and the stress patterns of different sentences.
In the case of Nicole, the topic of the lesson is "stress and health", in this lesson, she regularly assigns different exercises and elicits responses from the students.ijel.ccsenet.
Note.The ho the questions students'.
As can be classes com occur in m is consider using a "f classroom to be very In almost initiations, much impa the chart, there were questions innovation to his inter she asks qu reason wh respectivel

Resear Contexts?
In this sec The first excerpt (table 2) clearly shows that the teacher's questions are mostly non-authentic, and except for turn 13, no other sign of uptake can be found.There are many instances of questions that do not receive any response from the students, as in turns 11, 13, 19 and 21.One reason for this might be the fact that Jack keeps changing the questions, for example, he starts off by asking "what kind of jobs could Pepper do", then he asks "what do you think Pepper wouldn't be used in that way?" and finally he asks "how do you feel when you see Pepper?"(Turn 11).
Another reason for the students' silence might be that he tends to seek a "prespecified" response by asking questions rather than providing a chance for creating dialogue.As a result of this, the students would not feel comfortable responding until they are sure about an answer.Take, for instance, when he asks "what do people usually do for companionship?" (Turn 19), he directs the students to the correct answer "pets" by adding "They don't usually buy robots what do they usually do if they are alone?"Then, as soon as he receives the correct answer, he turns to a lengthy teacher turn (turn 21).For establishing a dialogic mode, it's also important to ask a genuine uptake which makes sense for all the participants.In turn 13, at first, Jack tries to come up with a more authentic uptake "why would you want to feel happy?", but he realizes that it is not a good follow-up question.He changes, then, to a non-authentic question about the video, "Who might be able to use some robot like Pepper?" In this excerpt, the students' responses are relatively short compared to the teacher's statements (turns 11, 21, 19).A possible explanation for the teacher's longer turns may be Jack's tendency to comment on the students responses by explaining his own view or experience, for example, when he says "we have an image in the west that we always have-, there is always a cat lady somewhere that everyone knows …" (turn 21).For the Japanese students, the teacher's long explanations can imply that the students are supposed to listen carefully rather than making an active participation.This can be a possible reason for his lack of success in eliciting an answer at the end of his monologue in turn 21, and eventually he has to nominate a student.For all these reasons, this conversation can be considered an instance of recitation form, which lacks the characteristics of a dialogic spell, such as student initiations and extended student turns.In addition, almost all of the teacher's questions are non-authentic (e.g., turn 15: "What's that called that when you have somebody with you and they make you feel happy?").In the second excerpt from Jack's class (table 3) he asks more authentic questions (e.g., turn 35: What do you think?Do you think it's going to be-it would be popular and then forgotten?What do you feel?).He also waits longer (e.g., more than 10 seconds at the end of turn 35) in order to elicit an answer from the students, which at last turns out to be successful in eliciting a response.Since the student's voice is very low and hesitant he repeats the question to elicit a clear response from the student.Subsequently, he asks an additional question of "why" (turn 39) to have the student explain more about her idea.This is a reasonable case of an "uptake" and we can see that the student responds with a longer turn (turn 40).Although it is not clear what she exactly says, it seems that she manages to utter a whole sentence.However, in the next turn, Jack does not continue in this way and turns back into a monologic explanation.He also does not insist on eliciting the student's response when he asks the next questions (turn 41).
This conversation undoubtedly had the potential to turn into a dialogic spell as it starts with an authentic question (turn 35) followed by a "why" question as an uptake (turn 39).Considering the advanced level of this class, the students have the essential confidence and fluency level to express their ideas.However, in Jack's other lessons as well, there are many instances indicating that after a few IRF moves he tends to turn into lengthy teacher turns, overlooking the students' potential opportunity for turn-taking.As an example, in turn 35, after explaining his personal experience in Korea, he asks the question "what do you think," but he does not provide thinking time for the students to respond and he gives answer to his own question and then carries on expressing his own view by saying, "Oh this is a robot by the way, Pepper, they are going to sell…" Later also in turn 41, there are some other instances in which he does not wait for the students' responses by giving answer to his own questions instantly.In the case of Mako's class, there are more turns taken by the students (table 4).In this excerpt, teacher turns tend to be shorter (turns 73, 75, 77, 81, 83, 87, 89, 91, 93, 95 and 97) accompanied with moves to create dialogic mode.The questions used in the turns 73 and 79 are comparable to those used by Jack in his second excerpt as they are also about the content of the lesson i.e., non-authentic questions.The same as Jack, Mako asks quite a number of different questions in a single turn (79), for example, "why do you think that she chooses one?What's the psychology?Have you ever had this kind of experience?"In fact, these question clusters by the teachers are usually meant to clarify the meaning; however, it seems that if there is no coherence among them, they might conversely become rather confusing for the students.
Despite this, in the next turns, Mako provides adequate support for the students to speak.This is shown in turn 81, when she encourages the student to say her response in English and provides designedly incomplete units (DIU) to assist the student in producing the correct form (turn 83).DIUs are usually used by the teachers to elicit a "self-correction", "repetition", "extension" or "continuation of an action in progress" (Koshik, 2002).Additionally, in order to provide repair, she does not explicitly correct the student's mistake.Instead, she incorporates recast not to impede the progress of the dialogue (turn 85).Having modeled giving an answer, she leads the conversation to elicit students' personal experiences.The fact that she provides opportunities to involve the students in the dialogue both before and after the turn 85 is evidence for this turn being a model rather than expression of the personal views.
In addition, it can be noticed that the word "right?" occurs four different times in this turn which seems to work for drawing the students' attention as she is modeling.Here, not only authentic questions (e.g., turns 85, 89, 93) and uptakes (e.g., turns 77,79,85,87,89,93,95) are employed to facilitate the flow of the dialogic mode, but also Mako shows genuine interest in what the student is saying, using expressions such as "oh, yes?" and "impossible, impossible!" Additionally, the teacher provides a space for many students to participate without nominating them, which is a sign for being "reciprocal" and "collective" (Alexander, 2008).For these reasons, this dialogue could be considered a sample of a dialogic spell.The second excerpt (table 5) from Mako's advanced class is on the topic of smoking.In order for the students to get prepared for the class discussion, she asks them to work in groups and practice a task called "four corners." In this task, the students are asked to stand and discuss at the four different corners of the class based on their views on the topic (i.e., whether they strongly agree, agree, not sure and disagree).As it is shown in the table, there is no question asked about the content and the teacher only tries to encourage the students to take an active role in the discussion, for example, when she says "Anyone wants to start?Volunteer?Who wants to start?" (turn 5), "go on" (turn 9) and "someone else" (turn 13).Giving the freedom to choose when and how to get engaged in the discussion helps the students become autonomous and less dependent on the teacher.Furthermore, the potential teacher initiation/feedback turns that she remains silent (turns 7 and 11) are clear evidence of developing students' autonomy.In this task, it is noticeable that the students make very long statements and voluntarily contribute to the progress of the discussion.T: So, go ahead.Anyone wants to start?Volunteer?Who wants to start?This is strongly agree, agree.Shall we start from someone over here?Ok. 6. S1 (a boy): I think smoking should not be banned, because the tobacco tax is one of the <importance> income of the government and the smoker should to smoke by their <will>.So we cannot stop, you don't smoke, I don't say.That's because I think so. 7.
T: 0 8. S2 (a girl): I agree <with> his point.* for me <I work at a café and they have> some <rules> for smoker.So that's * * because there are few places outside and a lot of smokers, so * banning smoking is really big.* * 9.
T: Go on.10.S3 (a girl): I think <not> smoking-I mean smokers-it is bad for smokers, but also it is bad for non-smokers, because the smoke * * get cancer.And also if, even if, it is <divided> in a cafe, it is going outside <of the room>.We can smell tobacco.I really hate that smells of tobacco (laughs).11.T: 0 12. S4 (a girl): smoking is the cause of cancer and maybe some of worry about that, that if their family, one of their family, like father, have a cancer because of smoking, their family is sad.So, it is not good.Having considered all Mako's recorded classes, it seems that many students feel comfortable expressing their ideas without being nominated.The next excerpt (table 6) from the same lesson of Mako's class illustrates how she facilitates the establishment of the dialogic mode in a whole-class discussion more spontaneously.In other words, in this excerpt, unlike the previous one, the participants turn into dialogic mode without much preparation time beforehand.In this part of the lesson, the topic of the discussion has changed to "different types of pollution" and the teacher is eliciting the students' ideas about it.An evident feature of this dialogue is the fact that a number of different students participate without being nominated (turns 44, 46, 50, 52, 54).
Additionally, it is the students' responses that seem to be influencing the content of the conversation, especially at the end of the excerpt where she asks about a famous fish market in Tokyo that has been moved to a new place (turn 62).As it was also mentioned earlier, this clearly demonstrates the teacher's interest in hearing the students' ideas on an authentic topic.Further evidence that confirms teacher's orientation toward establishing a dialogic mode is the use of L1 both by the teacher and the students for the purpose of facilitating the communicative aspect of the discussion (turns 56, 58 and 61).The following excerpt is taken from Kevin's Intermediate class (table 7).As it was shown in the charts (see figure .2), there is no occurrence of dialogic bids in his class.The main reason for this could be the fact that in his classes he repeatedly nominates many students to check their understanding, pronunciation or idea, therefore, there is not much chance provided for the authentic dialogue and uptake.The main characteristics of his classes are providing equal opportunity for almost all the students (turns 121, 123, 125, 125, 127 and 129) and providing scaffolding for the less competent students (turns 137, 139 and 141).It is noteworthy that he starts from very easy structures of the language so that the students can practice producing them.However, where the focus of a lesson is practicing pronunciation (e.g., the intonation and stress pattern) or grammatical structures, it is very probable that the recitation mode would be prevalent.Therefore, the next excerpt (table 8) is chosen from the second semester of the same class to observe how their discourse unfolds as they discuss a more authentic topic.Earlier to the second excerpt of Kevin's class (table 8), he provides preparation time for the students to discuss in their groups about a movie that they have watched in the class.The students are asked to answer the questions: "Did you like the film?Yes or no?Why yes or no?".The excerpt begins with the teacher nominating the first student and continues by the teacher's authentic uptake "why" (turn 78).As it was also seen in the previous excerpt, he provides frequent opportunities for several students by calling their names (turns 76, 82, and 86).Yet, after some IRF moves which seem to have the potential to generate a genuine dialogic spell, the dialogue is interrupted by the provision of pronunciation repair by the teacher (turns 88, 90 and 92).The last student's turns (turns 93 and 95) indicate that she can finally produce the correct form that is expected by the teacher.However, by this time the mode of the discourse has completely turned into the recitation mode.As the lower proficiency level of the students might be the cause for these incomplete dialogic spells, in excerpt 8 (table 9) a sample of Kevin's advanced class is chosen for the further analyses.Excerpt 8 is selected from Kevin's advanced class.In this lesson, the topic is "social and technological innovation."Similar to the previous samples of Kevin's classes, also in this excerpt he nominates several students by their names (turns 69, 71, 73, 75 and 77).In other words, there is not much evidence of the students voluntarily expressing their ideas, but rather they are accustomed to being nominated by the teacher.
Another evident feature of this excerpt is the explicit positive assessment (EPA) provided by the teacher (turn 73).EPA refers to the teacher's approving comments on the students' performance e.g., saying good, very good and excellent (see Waring, 2008).It seems that the EPA provided here interrupts the dialogic mode rather than sustaining it.The reason could be that EPA marks the completion of the student's attempt.It has been argued that by asking for the reason and exploring the students' ideas teachers can, instead, prioritize the progressivity of the interaction.According to Waring (2008), "EPA specifically delivers the news of "case closed"-no further discussion warranted." A plausible motive for the Kevin's inclination to EPA could be due to the fact the he concentrates more on the correct answer rather than the interaction.This also seems to be the case in turns 75 to 81, where he nominates several students to finally arrive at the correct response which he has in his mind.In spite of this nominating technique being very effective for involving many students, it does not lead to the emergence of dialogic spells, as the teacher turns to a monologue after a student reaches the correct answer (e.g., turns 75 and 81).
Table 9. Excerpt 8, Kevin's advanced class: recitation 69.T: … So what does a CEO stand for?CEO? Sorry that's wrong.Am I right, I'm trying to remember how to spell because I have to spell so is that correct Chou? 70.S1: Yes.71.T: So CEO *? Anybody Kyoko?72.S2: Chief Executive Officer.73.T: Well done, Very good, excellent, CEO and it means company president-company president Shacho.Okay so that's one concrete example CEO's and what's the other concrete example Kenichi?74.S3: Sport teams replace their coaches.75.T: Coaches yes so sports coaches and the idea here...This is very actually this is very American, the top people in America are usually changed very easy but actually in Japan they are not changed very easily it's quite difficult to change.The reason why Aguirre was changed, Rio you remember why was Aguirre changed.He was the coach the manager of Japanese man's soccer team but he was changed.Why? Do you know?76.S4: I don't know.77.T: You don't know, Miho do you know, you forgotten.Haruna.78.S5: He manipulated.79.T: He manipulated what?80. S5: The game scores.81.T: Yeah he was alleged, he was accused of manipulating a match or maybe not one maybe several matches.Where, which country?Does anybody know?Yuka do you know.Okay he was, he was accused of manipulating some matches in Spain when he was a manager in Spain.Not when he was in Japan but he had to go back to Spain to face the judges in Spain.So the Japanese football authorities said okay we don't want you now go please.And so they said to Aguirre go, now of course they have the man whose name I can never pronounce, impossible to pronounce… As the chart for the Nicole's class (figure 2) shows there are many questions asked by her which did not invoke any answer from the students (coded as -1 in the chart).It might be due to the different functions of the questions that they are meant to fulfill.For example, these rhetorical questions asked by the teacher might serve functions such as raising the student's curiosity and drawing their attention.Nevertheless, everyone agrees on the importance of questions in encouraging the students to participate in the generation of the classroom discourse.Yaqubi (2013) points out that "questions provide a potential space for teachers to examine if they systematically create opportunities for learning to emerge" (p.110).
The excerpt from Nicole's class (table 9) begins with the teacher asking the students about how they feel.Then, she tries to explore the student's ideas by asking "why."The discourse, however, turns into a monologic mode with a very long teacher turn (turn 33).This incidence clearly shows that pedagogical trajectory followed by the teacher can easily influence the mode of the classroom discourse.With a view to explore the aspects of the teacher moves that result in monologic spells, the more detailed observation of her long turn (turn 33) can be more revealing.This turn begins with the teacher's explanation about her own personal experience in teaching to school students.This move appears to work as a model for the students to become familiar with the content which is about "feelings."There are two times when she provides the opportunity for the students to respond by waiting for a few seconds after the questions ("Do you know?What's butterflies?.... butterflies?"And "Do we have any positive emotions?Positive feelings?Connected to stress?....NO?!NO?!Anything?").Despite her attempts, there is no response from the students, thereby she carries on speaking and giving answers to her own questions.The reoccurrence of these moves by the teacher can result in the establishment of unwritten ground rules that can impede the students' future contributions.Little bit?! Don't worry.No stress.So feelings, emotions-emotions connected-connected to stress.You can have-you can be anxious, you can be worried, you can be scared.You are not scared anymore?So maybe these are negative emotions (pointing at the board).Do we have any positive emotions?Positive feelings?Connected to stress?.... NO?! NO?! Anything?** Maybe not happiness connected to stress, but how about excited?Excited.Do you feel excited with stress?Never?! I do.The first class in April when I came here, the very first class.I was a little stressed on first day.* Anxious worried, scared of the students.Always a little bit stressed.Will they-are they good students?Will they like me?Will they listen to me? Can I teach them well?A little bit stressed.I was also excited, excited to meet the students.So sometimes a little stress, good stress, we say, maybe can cause excitement and energy, but if we have-how about the preview?"Which is good stress?"We have good stress and bad stress.Right?So good stress can make us excited and give us energy and we can work more.Bad stress, too much stress can become bad stress to feelings and body conditions.Ok? Ok look at the pictures.Look at the three pictures make your group four people.Make your group four people and look at the pictures.One two three four pictures.

Discussion and Concluding Remarks
In order to find out the reason for the Japanese students' silence in EAP classes, we must go beyond cultural factors and probe more into the classroom discourse.Careful examination of the classroom discourse reveals that if some particular characteristics are present in the teacher's discourse, even with Japanese students, dialogical spells are not unattainable.Mercer & Littleton (2007) maintain that "[t]he close study of the dialogues between teachers and students can help the planning of activities to ensure that opportunities are provided for teachers and students to construct knowledge and understanding together" (p.5).Having observed different AC lessons in this research, distinctive levels of dialogicality have been observed.In other words, the classes could be placed on a continuum based on the type of discourse generated.
As previously discussed, Alexander (2008) considered a dialogic discourse as being collective, reciprocal, supportive, cumulative and purposeful.On the one hand, some of the discourse patterns of the lessons, for example, the cases of Kevin & Nicole, do not follow the features suggested by Alexander (2008) and Nystrand (2003).These classes would be positioned on one side of the continuum as being a more monologic or lecture type discourse patterns.On the other hand, in some other lessons the interactions are more reciprocal and supportive regardless of the type of tasks implemented by the teacher, as in Mako's case.Therefore, they can be placed on the other dialogic side of the continuum.
The excerpts presented in this study were very small typical samples of the whole discourse generated by the teachers and the students during the entire academic year.In fact, there are many factors, such as the types of the tasks, teachers' individual differences and the content of the lessons, influencing the performance of the participants in the classroom events.However, all these influencing factors together can serve to create a discourse mode which could be more dialogic or monologic.The aim of this study is to investigate the characteristics of the teacher moves which potentially can result in each of these modes and also the students' reactions to these moves.In some parts, the verbal exchanges from the same class revealed that even the same teacher might occasionally elicit different reactions from the students by implementing particular moves (e.g., Jack's monologic vs. potentially dialogic excerpts and Nicole's excerpt).
In addition to the fact that there are numerous factors affecting the formation of the classroom discourse, most of all, the teacher's verbal moves play a crucial role in shaping the mode of the classroom discourse.On the other hand, the mode of the discourse goes hand in hand with the way questions are employed by the teachers.With regard to the features that give rise to the dialogic spells, it became evident that the type of questions asked by the teacher has a significant impact on the mode of the discourse.In the context of second language teaching many studies have considered the influence of teacher's questions in linguistics and cognitive development of the learners (e.g., Gibbons, 2003;Lee, 2006;Kim, 2010;Waring, 2012Waring, , 2013)).In this regard, Mercer & Dawes (2008) argue that "The professional skill in using questions lies in knowing why you are using them, and using different kinds of questions to achieve different ends" (p.3).
In the excerpts presented, there were some instances in which the teachers insisted on creating a dialogic mode of instruction in order to make the classroom discourse more interactive so that different voices could be heard.Making students involved in the discussions not only helps them be more confident in expressing their ideas but also makes them feel more responsible of their own learning.On top of that, improving speaking in a language cannot be achieved without having the chance to take the challenge of speaking in more spontaneous contexts.Concerning the role of dialogue, in classroom interaction, Rojas-Drummond (2013) comments: "Teachers can be made aware of the pivotal role played by the quality of their dialogic interactions with their students, as well as those occurring among peers.In addition, they can be encouraged to reflect on their own teaching practices, and how they can enrich them by incorporating effective dialogic styles of engagement" (p.20).
The dialogic nature of the discourse creates a more realistic context for learning new concepts, as in EAP classes the content is as much important as the language."When utterances are treated univocally, as in recitation, the focus is on the "accurate transmission of information"; when they are treated dialogically, as in open discussion, they are used as thinking devices" (Nystrand, 2003, p. 141;italics in original).In other words, the dialogic mode enhances learning content by providing the opportunity to use the language as a thinking device rather than merely for the knowledge transmission.The instances of Japanese Academic English classroom discourse in which dialogic modes were implemented revealed that, by asking questions, the teachers made an effort to establish a more genuine discussion instead of giving a lecture.Moreover, the occurrence of uptake and follow-up questions helped the students express their ideas more frequently.
However, we cannot claim that just by asking authentic questions and implementing uptake, a dialogic spell can be established.In short, by the analyses of the data gathered in this research I have tried to determine, beside authentic questions and uptakes, what types of teacher moves are influential in creating a dialogic mode.
We also need to consider the Japanese students' style of learning and their role in generating particular discourse patterns and to look into their reactions to the opportunities provided by the teacher.Nakane (2007) as one of the past studies which have dealt with Asian students states: "Discourse analysis of turn-by-turn management of talk as evidence of Asian students' silence is scarce in existing studies.Asian students are not always sitting in class in complete silence.It is important to examine what they actually do in the classroom when they have opportunities to speak, or when local peer students are speaking" (p.21).
It became apparent that when the Japanese students were provided with some assistance from the teacher, for example by the implementation of different techniques such as DIUs, scaffolded dialogue, parsing, encouraging statements and providing enough preparation time, together with the application of dialogic bids by the teacher, they felt confident enough to express their ideas and contribute to the classroom discourse.
Comparing the lessons revealed that the wait-time is more or less associated with the mode of the discourse.In Mako's class, as the students became more involved in the classroom dialogue (table 4, turns 85, 87, 89, 91, 93 and 97), there was not much wait-time needed for eliciting the responses.On the other hand, Jack and Kevin often had to nominate the students and wait much longer for receiving a response from a student (table 2, turns 11, 15, 19 and 21; table 3, turn 35; table 7, turns 121, 123, 127 and 129; table 8, turns 76, 82 and 86).Besides the student's wait-time, voluntarily participation, increased number of turns and longer turns were the signs of their higher willingness to communicate (WTC) in Mako's classes.This confirms the idea that even stereotypically quiet Japanese students can be assisted to engage in discourse through the dialogic mode if particular ground rules are present in the pedagogical context.Mercer & Dawes (2008) argue that there are peculiar ground-rules present in each class and thus the students might react differently to a similar question asked by two different teachers in accordance with those established ground rules (p.9).In the current data, as well, the established ground rules in each class seem to have a great influence on the students' WTC.Cao (2014) proposes that WTC is a "dynamic situational" concept which is influenced by three main dimensions; namely, "environmental", "individual" and "linguistic" (i.e., learner's linguistic proficiency).In this classification, the teacher's influence falls under the environmental category.She describes the teacher as a "prominent factor" whose "teaching style, involvement, participation and immediacy" are important (p.798).
As it was shown in this study, not all the teacher's authentic questions and uptakes resulted in the emergence of dialogic spells due to the students' low WTC levels.On the other hand, it is the teacher's both intentional and unintentional moves that end in the generation of particular ground rules in the class.In this study, these teacher's moves are suggested to be named as encouraging student's participation (ESP) moves.Careful examination of the selected excerpts revealed that the implementation of ESP moves by the teachers could facilitate the establishment of the dialogic mode.On the contrary, the moves that inhibited the emergence of the dialogic mode are described as discouraging student's participation (DSP) moves.It should be noted that the Figure 1.
Figure 2. Di plays the number o Nystrand (2003) What's happening in the pictures?Are they stressful?Or what kind of stressors are they?Are they big stress* stress?** look at the pictures group four people, turn around.(Pointing at the groups) with your group.Please discuss the four pictures what's happening, what is the stress?

Table 2 .
Excerpt 1, Jack's advanced class: recitation mode Oh maybe, recognizes the master's voice, sometimes they have voice recognition software, they can recognize, you know, the owner's voice, the master's voice.

What kind of tasks could it do? Tasks? What kind of jobs could Pepper do?...... didn't you hear
? (In a low voice) when you look at Pepper, Pepper look like it would do something violent or no!What

do you think Pepper, so Pepper wouldn't be used in that way? How Pepper might be used?.... How do you feel when you see Pepper? How do you feel when you see Pepper?
find Pepper useful, might find Pepper useful, because Pepper can make them feel happy.What's that called that when you have somebody with you and they make you feel happy?... What's it called?..

do people, what do people usually do for companionship?
Yeah company.It's a company or companionship, right?So you could feel from this robot maybe some companionship, we need companionship.Human beings are social animals, right?So we need to-, we cannot be alone.If we can have people maybe there are other ways to feel that.Well what They don't usually buy robots what

do they usually do if they are alone?.. What kind of companionship do they usually get
?...... some of you probably have one of these at home already probably you are usually with your parents or friends at your place.But

some people who live alone get this. Because they don't have anyone. What do they usually buy? Or have?
Pets yeah.Right.And some people prefer cats some people prefer dogs we have an image in the west that we always have-, there is always a cat lady somewhere that everyone knows.So there is always an old lady who is all alone and who has one cat and many cats and sometimes you can't have cats.You are not allowed to have them in buildings and so or dogs.People have animals for companion.We don't really need them, but we like them.Right?What purpose does the dog serve or the cat serve except makes us feel happy, gives us companionship.So a robot like Pepper could give companionship.That's one thing it can do.They mentioned some other, eem they mentioned some other things that robots could do in general.

What do you think? Do you think it's going to be-it would be popular and then forgotten? What do you feel? Is it a rad fad or scary? What do you think
Step on those things.That was really popular in Korea when I was there a few years ago.Everybody was doing.Every place you went that had video games and you could buy, now you don't even know.Don't even hear about it.Other fads, I don't know if you know Slinkies they look like a spring, a coil move like that (T showing it) in the 1960s that was a huge fad, huge they sold millions of those.So this woman asks in the video is it rad, a fad?Usually we say passing fad.Right now they have robots but next year probably not.It's passing.Or scary?Shouldn't you be afraid?She jokes and says that the robot will kill you in your sleep.Emm she is joking, you know.What do you think?Oh this is a robot by the way, Pepper, they are going to sell the robot it's available you can buy one so it would be about 2000 American dollars.<I forgot how to convert.>So 200,000 yen so anybody would be able to buy one.So I don't know how many-but do you think it's really-it's a rad?This robot do you think it's rad, a fad?Or-they should have said "sad".(Ss laughing) It doesn't feel right that there is only two words that rhyme and not three, but scary.Ok rad fad or scary.
?............ Ummm, good point.The robot is very interesting but probably would be lots of advances robots in the future so maybe this Pepper one.Would not last too long.Do you think many people would buy a 2000-dollar robot?Maybe it's a bit expensive!Unless it does some amazing things.A lot of people wouldn't buy it.I guess they have to prove or show that it can do.It can walk like a dog around the block.Do the dishes, you know, dress the children.Things like that.Protect your house.Maybe?! (Students laugh) Maybe, does anyone find Pepper scary?..No I don't think so.That's why I wanna show you this.Y N -1 Y

do you think that she chooses one, but hopes to eat the other? I mean why, sorry, why do you think that she chooses one
? She is going to choose one, but --* her real feeling is that she wants to order something else.What's the psychology?...

Have you ever had this kind of experience?
YEAH, she is dieting, she is on the diet.I think she wants to lose weight, so she is-she lets out her feeling she verbalizes her inner thought right?Usually you just say she can <resist>right?But the more-she has a strong feeling of eating Lasagna, she wants to eat Lasagna right?So just-she just says it, right?, out loud to the waiter *.Have you ever been on a diet?
13. T: Someone else? Yeah.14. S5 (a girl): *** cancer.Their family is sad.But my question is like don't you ** smoking if you want to ** because ** if you smoke, it can cause cancer and if your father smoking and you don't want your father to get cancer you just need to persuade him and it doesn't have to be illegal to smoke.

Table 6 .
Excerpt 5, Mako's advanced class: a dialogic spell 43.T: * <Minamata> disease is famous for.The cause was water pollution.Ok? 44.S1: Industrial pollution 45.T: Industrial pollution.Ok this is kind of industrial, but air pollution also.Right?Industrial pollution anyway,

Table 7 .
Excerpt 6, Kevin's intermediate class: recitation mode 121.T: Very nice.Really good lovely, so here is your break and this is your intonation here on * and there is a small rhythm stress here, very clear, very good.Now that's one way, Ayako has one way.Two groups "I was always very busy** be" but there is another way, so what

have you got? There is a-did you have this? Same one? You had the same?
Ok, let me ask Mariko, what

Who had something very different from this? Sekine you have something similar or different?... similar or different?
Ok that was-so you had a stress on late?School, late, university and play with friends, PLAY with friends.

Because Miho said the same and Aya did you like it? Why did you like it?.... Because.. 83
. S2: Because .........because *** 84.T: Yes it was a serious issue or serious event but it was a funny part of the film 85.S2: Right 86.T: That's true actually, it was a comedy and it was <of> serious at same time.

is this feeling? If we have this feeling what is this feeling? Which emotion makes this feeling? No? No? OK. "Anxious" do you feel anxious? "Worried" Worries. * Scared ok? Maybe if you have stress-anyone feeling anxious today? NO?!
Good! Anyone getting worried?(a S maybe raises hand)Yes.<You are worried about> test.Are you scared?