Abstract:

Abstract

This paper describes an analysis of social practice taking place between teachers and students within the classroom in a Tanzanian Secondary School. The aim of this contemporary study is to describe and explain classroom interaction with respect to existing role patterns and frame factors. The studied material consists primarily of collected data from classroom observations, with concentration on one class in form one and five single teachers. In addition to the observation method the investigation is also based on complementary informant study where five students within the observed class were interviewed.  An analysis consisting of categorisation, description, and explanation of the different variables of verbal and written communication is expected to yield information about the social practice within the Tanzanian classroom. Such information will aid in addressing a potential connection between pattern of roles and certain frame factors.

The results of the observations imply that the teacher has the most active role; the teaching was almost entirely based on the use of direct, reproductive, teacher-centered methods leaving diminutive room for student moves.  A notably high frequency of questions of a reproductive form, where students merely had to emulate the teacher, was discovered. Even though students were rarely addressed with questions of an open form, observations and interviews reveal students’ eager to break free from their constrained roles. What occurred to be a fixed pattern of steered activities turned out to be highly dynamical process. Considering relevant frame factors, there are reasons to believe that the Tanzanian classroom interaction is about to shift from a monologic to a dialogic classroom discourse; making this a highly interesting matter to investigate.