The Relationship between the Teacher’s Action Zone and Students’ Turn-Taking Behaviour

Abstract

This study investigates the relationship between the teacher’s action zone and students’ turn taking behaviour. The advanced concept of the teacher’s action zone adds to previous discussions of the teacher proximity from students in classroom interaction the component of turn allocation principles and behaviour during instruction. Essentially, it is based on the following hypothesis: learners turn-taking behaviour and participation is affected by the amount of turns they receive from teachers; target students in the teachers’action zone are relatively near in position to the teacher, high-achieving, belong to one gender, and presumably active ones; if the teacher is easy-going with the target students, he will allow them to initiate and self-select speaking turns as well as interrupt or correct other students’ answer.85 first and second year middle school students and teachers, from two schools in Bazoul and Jijel, were the focus of our classroom observation and questionnaires. The students’ questionnaire identified learners’ actual and preferred seating arrangements as well as their perceptions of and participation in the English session. To find out whether teachers are aware of their action zones and the inequalities they may create, a teacher questionnaire and classroom observation have been adopted as techniques to collect data.Results obtained from the study show thatteachers unconsciously deal with the students who are in their action zone; referring to the ones who are near or proximate in their seating to them, the ones who are high achievers (proficient), and the ones who are high output generators (active); besides, another bias is related to thebiological nature (gender) of the teacher and students i.e., teachers allocated more turns to students from the opposite gender to them. On the other hand, the behaviour of students in taking turns is mainly affected by the teacher action zone, in which some students are said to be target students and they are frequently assigned to take turns; however, others are marginalized or they are out of the teacher’s action zone.