Affiliation without aligning in teacher-student talk: Participants' ordering of knowledge in going beyond regular curriculum

Abstract

When new material is added to classrooms, there is interest in knowing what changes this brings to the teaching-learning process. In an extra-hours science and mathematics learning project in India, observations were conducted to study how teachers and students interact when they enact the new material that show new ways of problem-solving or new knowledge. Teachers and students may not articulate through regular interviews their perceptions about the new learning experiences but these can be identified in classroom interactions. Alignment and disalignment are constructs in conversation analysis that help identify speakers' intention to cooperate or not support others' utterances. Through analysis of sequences of general moves by the teacher and stances evidenced in the interactions between teacher and students, it is possible to investigate the stances towards new knowledge in the classroom. This paper adds to the understanding of how teachers and students demonstrate subtle and specific differences with given learning material. These findings have implications for designing material as well as teacher education for introducing new material.