This study is an ethnographically-influenced investigation into the ways teachers and
students co-construct language classroom culture. Classroom culture is viewed as comprising
classroom discourse and action. The everyday interactional discoursal practices and actions
of teachers and students are cultural practices which on the one hand represent and reflect the
culture of the classroom, and on the other make, maintain and develop this culture.
Data is drawn from two multilingual and multicultural Secondary One English language
classrooms in the same school in Singapore. These classrooms were selected because one is
composed of supposedly more competent language learners than the other. This lends to the
study a comparative dimension where data from one classroom is matched against data from
the other, allowing for an exploration of similarities and differences that facilitate data
interpretation and analysis.
To describe and understand the coming about of classroom culture, a range of data was
collected and analysed:
•
non-participant observation audio-recordings of 28 lessons, as well as field notes on the
physical organisation of the classrooms, non-verbal features of teacher-student
interaction, and both pedagogic and non-pedagogic events that occurred during lessons
•
interviews with the two teachers, their students, the Principal and key staff
• student questionnaires
•
supplementary documentary data in the form of the school diary, school yearbook, and
photographs of the two classrooms
•
descriptions of the social context of the school (including field notes of daily morning
assemblies and weekly school assemblies)
Data analysis was qualitative, and focused chiefly on classroom observations. Analysis was
data driven, and through a process of progressive focusing, led to detailed descriptions of
observations and recordings of episodes where teachers:
•
explicitly install systems of behaviour (classroom procedure);
•
practice discipline and control (classroom management);
•
issue procedural instructions
Attention was also given to student questioning behaviour which emerged as a research
interest. Interpretation and explanation of observed patterns of classroom discourse and
action are proposed using analytical tools such as participant structures, and participant role
relationships.
Research findings indicate that both English language classrooms share similar cultural
traits, and that these traits mirror the macro social contexts, i.e. the culture in the general
education system and that in Singapore society. More interesting and unexpected however,
are findings that point at the differences between these microcultures. It appears that the
striking differences in microcultures are attributable to the different roles played by the
teachers in their attention to classroom procedure, classroom management, and procedural
instructions. Teacher differences seem to encourage student questions in one class, and to
deter them in the other. In exploring the relationship between classroom interaction and the
evolving classroom microculture, this study captures an insider's view of how in one class
there is the socialisation of academic success, and in the other, there is the socialisation of
failure.
Conclusions are drawn from the study for further research into classroom culture in general
and student questioning behaviour in particular. Recommendations are made for pre-service
and in-service teacher training which aim at improving the ways in which the education
system in Singapore serves society.
