The Impromptu Thinking Underlying Teachers’ Revoicing of Students’ Utterances

Examination of Classroom Discourse and Post-Lesson Interviews Focusing on the Teacher’s Belief

Abstract

This study examined the impromptu thinking underpinning revoicing by a teacher. Classroom discourse of reading lessons conducted by an elementary school teacher whose lessons focused on discussion and interviews were qualitatively examined, focusing on her beliefs. We found that the teacher recognized student utterances from multiple viewpoints that changed according to the situation, and her viewpoints reflected the words used and the addressee when revoicing; she appeared to believe it important to listen to others and restate what students heard in their own words. This belief seemed to affect her impromptu thinking underpinning revoicing in three ways: she found the view for following discussions of students’ utterances and recognized them as an opportunity to increase reading comprehension; she found that students changed in the manner she wished and hoped for further change; and she listened to students’ utterances based on their viewpoints and reasoned their reading process. This suggests that for this teacher, revoicing was a strategy for orchestrating discussion, embodying her own beliefs, and managing the classroom.