An investigation into explicit positive assessment use in Turkish language classroom discourse

Studies analyzing the classroom interaction with Conversation Analysis method to improve training processes reveal significant results. Classroom interaction is shaped by teacher-student and student-student interactions. These interactions are critical in learner-centered teaching practices where knowledge is structured by the learner in understanding and comprehension processes. Classroom interaction is an important data source especially in language teaching classes where the language is used both as a purpose and tool. Conversation analysis is one of the most appropriate methods in the studies examining the interaction in the classroom. Lacking of a study examining the functionality of the processes such as preparation, text processing and evaluation in the learning practices of the Turkish lessons leads to an obscurity on how the learning and teaching process take place in the classes. In Turkish lessons, where teachers are expected to follow and evaluate students at every stage of the process, observing the interaction in the classroom impartially and without intervention provides a clear view of the effect of the assessment on the students and the teaching process. With this study, Turkish lessons of a 7th grade class were recorded for 6 weeks. The teacher was found to use the initiation-response-feedback/evaluation effectively and made "explicit positive assessment" by using the words "aferin" and "güzel" in their interactions. In these sections, the words "aferin" and "güzel", the elements of the explicit positive assessment, were used in sustaining the activity / pointing out the transition to the next order and closing the interaction. Keywords: conversation anaysis, Turkish teaching, mother tongue education, classroom interaction, explicit positive assessment.