| Summary: | This study is a linguistic ethnographic investigation of an English for Medical Purposes (EMP) class at one of the medical colleges in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It focuses on the characteristics of teacher talk, meaning-making processes and discursive shifts of identities in the classroom. Classroom interaction is a complex process. Research has shown that poor management of classroom interaction affects learning process in several ways. This includes ineffective/inappropriate instructions by the teacher, failure to engage in meaning-making, and problematic construction of teacher-student(s) and student(s)-student(s) identities and relationships. Criticizing, joking, questioning, responding to inflammatory comments and dismissing/clarifying weak ideas are a fev examples of discursive actions which can contribute to problematic classroom interactions if not carried out tactfully. These discursive actions are not an easy job especially in the context of Saudi Arabia where foreign language is used as the medium of instruction. This study employed an eclectic qualitative methodology which incorporates principles of Linguistic Ethnography. Data generation took place in the entire Semester One of the academic years 2017/2018. The semester began in September 2017 and ended in January 2018. Two data generation methods employed in this study are classroom observations and interviews with the teacher and the Altogether, 10 classroom observations were carried out. Informal chat with the teacher was carried out towards the end of each observation session to get further clari fication of what had happened during the observation. Towards the end of the data generation period, the teacher was invited to take part in a semi-structured interview to gauge his views on teacher talk, negotiation of meaning and identity construction in the EMP class. Also, group interviews with the students were carried to gauge their feedback of the overall classroom experience in that semester. Four group interviews were conducted with five members in a group. Altogether, 20 students were involved in this group interview. The teacher talk was found to be dominant in classroom interactions. The teacher talk had high frequency of self-repetition, paraphrasing, exaggerated pronunciation and slow rate of speech. The teacher modified his talk to ensure input comprehensibility and promote classroom interactions. In terms of negotiation of meaning, this study reveals that all class members involved in the typical forms and sequences of negotiation of meaning processes. Signs of clarification requests, confirmation requests and comprehension checks were common in the negotiation process. Moreover, attempt to deliver comprehensible input was evident when the students or the teacher modified utterances for comprehensibility to receivers. In terms of discursive identities, the teacher's and the students' identities were found to be fluid and multiple. The teacher mediated classroom discourses by constantly shifting relationships and identities along clines of power. The classroom discourse was influenced by the students' level of proficiency, familiarity of topic and type of task. This thesis argues that teacher talk still serves as a useful source for classroom input despite the buzz of learner-centered approach which demands reduced teacher talk in the classroom. The modification in teacher talk made it possible for students to negotiate the content of course and being able to construct and re-construct meaning. It is in the teacher talk and in the negotiation of meaning that the teacher and the students construct their desirable identities to engage in the learning process in an EMP classroom.
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