EJAL Article template Focus on ELT Journal (FELT) Vol 2 Issue 1, 2020 ISSN: 2687-5381  Contact: connieau@gantep.edu.tr Non-critical Analysis of EFL Classroom Discourse in a Speaking Course through Bowers’ model aHong Yu Connie Au and b Filiz Yalçın Tılfarlıoğlu a Instructor, Gaziantep University, Gaziantep, Turkey connieau@gantep.edu.tr b Assoc. Prof. Dr., Gaziantep University, Gaziantep, Turkey, fyalcin@gantep.edu.tr To cite this article: Au, H.Y.C. & Yalçın Tırfanoğlu, F. (2020). Non-critical analysis of EFL classroom discourse in a speaking course through Bowers’ model. Focus on ELT Journal (FELT), 2(1), 48-59. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2020.00020 ABSTRACT This is a descriptive quantitative and qualitative study of speaking classroom discourse. This study aimed to discuss an authentic spoken discourse of an EFL class by employing Bowers’ model (1980) to examine various teaching functions and how they enhanced the speaking opportunities for students. In this article, the concept of Bowers’ model was first discussed and how it was of a vital significance to classroom interaction in an EFL class and the efficiency and effectiveness of the various patterns of discourse. Besides, the distribution of teacher-talk and student-talk was investigated and who had a higher degree of control over the discourse in the class was highlighted. It also examined the structure of interactions and how the teacher managed the conversation and turn- taking. The article included how teachers understood their language affected the role in the classroom as well as how learners were aware of when and where they had to engage in the speaking process. Moreover, the article also investigated the functions in a speaking class and how different teacher acts were used in urging learners to participate in classroom discussions. The last section was a conclusion to summarize the main ideas discussed in the article. Keywords: discourse Bowers’ model speaking non-critical analysis Received : 12 May 2020 Revised : 7 June 2020 Accepted : 11 June 2020 Published : 22 June 2020 Introduction Language is a means of communication in everyday life. People use language either in spoken or written form to communicate and interact with others. The communication pattern seems very natural and becomes an indispensable and natural part of our daily routine. To study language in use in communication, Cook (1989) states that sentence and utterance are two potential contents in language studies. Sentences are used to study language about how language rules operate while utterances are used to study language in use for communication. When language in use comes to the classroom, the communication pattern turns to very unique. According to Walsh (2006), communication in the classroom is unique as the linguistic form uses are often simultaneously the aim of the lesson and the means of achieving those aims. In other words, the language in the teaching and learning process is to achieve the goal of the lesson. Hence, classroom language is the language that teachers and students use to communicate with each other in the classroom context. For instance, in a classroom, teachers mailto:connieau@gantep.edu.tr https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2020.00020 http://www.orcid.org/0000-0003-3681-1510 http://www.orcid.org/0000-0002-0683-6218 Au, H.Y.C. & Yalçın Tılfarlıoğlu, F. / Focus on ELT Journal, 2020 49 Focus on ELT Journal (FELT) generally have an important role as he or she can control the classroom and can change the whole course by teaching and communicating with the students in different ways. Discourse Analysis (DA) is one of the alternatives that can be used to explain the language phenomenon. According to Yule and Brown (1983), DA which is known as ‘analysis of language in use’, studies the relationship between language and context in which it is used (Yule & Brown, p.1). Cook (1989 & 1990) states that DA can be categorized into two major kinds in language teaching, that is, spoken and written discourse. DA aids teachers in understanding how people use language in reality. DA also helps them to plan and design teaching materials to engage students in different learning tasks and hence to reach the learning goals in the target language. By analyzing the function of using language, DA examines language concerning its purpose and function in the process of interaction among people. In other words, discourse is a linguistic unit beyond sentences which is used to communicate in the social context (Dijk, 1997, p.1). The typical issue of discourse analysis is the analysis of classroom discourse. Studying classroom transcripts and assigning utterances into different categories is the way to analyze a classroom discourse. According to Sinclair and Coulthard (1992), a traditional pattern in classroom discourse is IRF, also known as Initiation, Respond, and Feedback. Teachers determine the interaction pattern and when students need to participate in classroom communication. Questioning patterns have also been studied by many classroom researchers to show teachers exert control over the interaction and only as a means of eliciting information. IRF interaction pattern is appealing to most of the teachers as to control the flow of the lesson, the amount of participation by individual students or pair or group work. In contrast to the IRF interaction pattern, many alternatives like Flint’s model, Flanders’ model, and Bowers’ model are also developed and used to study the classroom discourse. In a classroom learning and teaching, a large amount of time is spent on speaking and listening. Speaking plays a crucial part in the process of learner development. However, speaking is regarded as one of the most important and the most challenging skills for both students and teachers (Brown & Yule, 2001). Many EFL students complain that they could not speak fluently and accurately in English, especially when they communicate with native speakers (Shumin, 1997). For learners, speaking involves more active participation from the learner, autonomy, and confidence and it impels them to put all their acquired linguistic knowledge to use (Silva & Duarte, 2012). That is, speaking skills require active participation from in the second language classroom students where they will necessarily have to produce and expose their linguistic competence to others (Silva & Duarte, 2012). Speaking indeed accelerates the acquisition of target language and improves the level of oral proficiency. Meanwhile, the most crucial for educators is to develop students’ abilities in various productive skills while using English, and thus students can communicate in class as well as outside the class. Over the years, there has been an increasing research interest in the language used in the speaking classes. The spoken discourse students and the teacher and among students themselves is very crucial for language learning as it contextualizes learning experiences while actively participating in classroom discourse engages learners in the learning process (Domalewska, 2015). The analyzed spoken classroom discourse “can provide valuable insights into discourse structure and dynamics, and provide pedagogical applications” (McCarthy, p.19). Au, H.Y.C. & Yalçın Tılfarlıoğlu, F. / Focus on ELT Journal, 2020 50 Focus on ELT Journal (FELT) Given the tradition of assessing spoken discourse utilizing Sinclair and Coulthard’s (1992) model, it is hardly surprising that role-play has been the most widely used elicitation technique in the collection of spoken learner data. In the field of EFL classrooms, the Bowers’ model was rarely employed to assess the speaking opportunities in an EFL classroom interaction. Due to the lack of research in this register from a native speaker perspective, it is hoped that this study will contribute to our understanding of how target language is used in enhancing oral proficiency through role-play in EFL classes and gain insight into how various teaching functions affect teaching and learning goals. Literature Review Discourse Analysis Discourse Analysis (DA) is the aspect of linguistics which concerned with build-up meaning in larger communicative, rather than grammatical units (Cook, 1989). It studies a meaning in the text, paragraph, and conversation, rather than in a single sentence (McCarthy, 1991). In other words, it aims to extend the meaning above a sentence level (Gee, 2014). In a traditional language classroom, a great amount of time is spent on teaching pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary and while these remain the basis of foreign language knowledge. However, DA can focus on the skills needed to put this knowledge into action and to achieve successful communication (Cook, 1989; Gee, 2014; Paltridge, 2012; Widdowson, 2007). It can provide insights for foreign language teachers into problems and processes of language use and language learning (Cook, 1989). According to Cook (1989), Discourse Analysis can be categorized into two major categories in language teaching, known as the spoken discourse and the written discourse. Spoken discourse is verbal records of the communicative act that processed become written transcription (Brown & Yule, 1983). That means the discourse works with an audiotape or tape recording in a speech event in spoken discourse, and then transcribe the utterance of the speaker into text. Spoken discourse is possibly the form of discourse that poses a great problem in terms of analysis (Nurpahmi, 2017). Unlike written discourse, spoken discourse can be affected by many factors that can influence the way people speak or use the spoken discourse like the speech events (Nurpahmi, 2017). Examples of spoken discourse are teacher-student discourse, interviews, and lessons. Written discourse is reproduction in printed materials of discourse. According to Brown and Yule (1983), written discourse is “a text reaches beyond the reproduction in printed material in some further printed form” (p. 9). In other words, written discourse is in printed form and the context can be differing in genres. Within the context of EFL teaching, discourse analysis can be defined as “how stretches of language, considered in their full textual, social, and psychological context, become meaningful and unified for their users” (Cook, 1990, p. 3). Based on the definition of Cook (1990), Olshtain and Celce-Murcia (2001, p.714) summarized discourse point of view in teaching into three main concepts:  The main focus of language teaching is communication  Context is of importance in shaping communication  Meanings are exchanged dynamically in a speech event Au, H.Y.C. & Yalçın Tılfarlıoğlu, F. / Focus on ELT Journal, 2020 51 Focus on ELT Journal (FELT) Classroom Discourse Classroom discourse is an approach to analyze discourse involving teachers and students as the participants in the class (Cazden, 2001). Teacher’s control of the interaction is one of the significant classroom discourse features. Many teachers tend to limit speaking opportunities for their students and prevent them from developing conversations and dialogues. Hence, many kinds of researches have pointed out that there are unequal roles of participants in classroom communication with the teacher managing the conversation and turn-taking. When the teacher teaches in teacher-centered fashion, it may lead to limited learning. There will be limited natural interaction and fluency practices take place in class (Sert, 2015). Hence, it is very crucial to provide students with opportunities for communicating orally, then learning becomes more meaningful and more effective. According to Keith and Morrow (1981), speaking is an activity to produce utterances in oral communication (p.70). There are usually two or more people involving in the speaking process. The participants in speaking are both hearers and speakers. In the process of communication, both speaker and hearer are producing in the process of enacting their discourse. They know what they are talking about as they have established the context of shared knowledge and the assumption that the actual language they produce keys into. When communication comes in a speaking course, students should know how to interact and communicate at the right time (Cazden, 2001). And they should know why they are drilled with the same utterance several times. Drilling does not only help them to improve their pronunciation but also they need these words and utterances to engage in the dialogue. Hence, it can see that classroom interaction plays an important role in classroom discourse (Sert, 2015). In a language class, the teacher acts upon the class to cause students’ reactions. Yet, the reaction from students in turn informs and modifies the next action of the teacher. The class reaction becomes an action, evoking a reaction in the teacher, which influences his or her subsequent action (Malamah-Thomas, 1996). For example, Initiate- Respond- Evaluate (IRF) interaction pattern is commonly utilized by teachers to decide the teaching content and topics, and to plan the amount of engagement by individual students, or in pairs. Generally, teachers start with a discussion topic, usually posing a question. The move starts of exchange, the teacher as a leader (Nurpahmi, 2017). Subsequently, students as the followers are expected to give responses that correspond to the teacher’s initiation (Nurpahmi, 2017). After that, teachers evaluate the responses, he or she gives praises or feedback to the student’s response (Nurpahmi, 2017). According to Alexander (2006), the IRF pattern is regarded as a ‘monologic discourse pattern’, in which teachers decide the discussion topics and turn-taking. Teachers also limit the time for responses according to the lesson plan as well as to control the pacing and direction of the discussion. In a traditional classroom, teachers are usually the ones who have more teacher- talking time and dominate classroom discussions Unlike the traditional classroom, interactive role-play is always used as a means of classroom interaction in an EFL classroom (Poliden, 2016). Every student is responsible for their role in the turn-taking in the conversation. They have to listen carefully to the teacher and one another and then interpret their responses and correspond to the role play. At this stage, students need to utilize the knowledge they have learned before. Teachers here as a facilitator may help elicit the answers from students rather than interrupting them (Poliden, 2016). Au, H.Y.C. & Yalçın Tılfarlıoğlu, F. / Focus on ELT Journal, 2020 52 Focus on ELT Journal (FELT) Besides, changing the interaction patterns can also help achieve the lesson aims. Different interactive patterns supported the aims of different tasks (Sert, 2015). For instance, the whole class discussion was very effective to elicit the ideas with concept questions. Whereas learners worked in pairs was very productive for the speaking task in role-play. Non-Critical Discourse Analysis Non-critical discourse analysis is the study concerned with the description of a text’s formal characteristics. While Halliday (1985) notes that a text should be considered as a semantic unit instead of a grammatical one (i.e. grammar is a sentence level consideration), one can understand the meanings of a text through the grammar realization within the text. On the other hand, Hoey (1994), Winter (1994), and Coulthard (1994) exemplify non-critical descriptive discourse approaches to the analysis of written texts. They emphasize on the vocabulary, grammar in the texts, and how these relate to the cohesion and the realization of micro or macrostructures of the text. Another non-critical approach is Genre Analysis, where the conventions common to texts of a similar type, for instance, medical reports, as described. Conceptual Framework Bowers’ model (1980) was developed for the analysis of spoken classroom discourse. Bowers’ analysis is concerned with characterizing patterns of classroom discourse and investigating the efficiency and effectiveness of the various patterns of discourse (Wallace, 1991). Bowers expands the Bellack moves from four to seven as follows: (1) Responding; (2) Sociating (i.e. concerned with maintaining relationships); (3) Organizing; (4) Directing (i.e. any act which encourages a non-verbal activity as an integral part of the learning task); (5) Presenting (information, ideas, etc.); (6) Evaluating; (7) Eliciting (Wallace, p.154). He applies these categories both to ‘teacher talk’ and ‘pupil talk’. He also takes note of when the target language (TL) is used (Wallace, p.154). Bowers (1980) identifies seven categories of ‘move’ from his classroom language data, and ‘move’ is the smallest unit in his system of description (Wallace, p. 154). Bowers collected the foreign language classroom data, developed seven categories of verbal behaviour the establishment or maintenance of interpersonal relationships in the language classroom, and distinguished among the different definitions of the teaching functions To implement this system of description in this study, every utterance in a lesson has to be coded according to the relevant category, a further note made as to whether it occurs in L1 or target language (TL). Table 1 describes the different teacher acts in the process of a speaking class (Wallace, p.154). Au, H.Y.C. & Yalçın Tılfarlıoğlu, F. / Focus on ELT Journal, 2020 53 Focus on ELT Journal (FELT) Table 1. Categories of Bowers’ model Category Description Responding Any act directly sought by the utterance of another speaker, such as answering a question Sociating Any act not contributing directly to the teacher or learning task, but rather to the establishment or maintenance of interpersonal relationships Organizing Any act that serves to structure the learning task or environment without contributing to the teaching or learning task itself Directing Any act that serves to structure the learning task or environment without contributing to the teaching or learning task itself Presenting Any act presenting information of direct relevance to the learning task Evaluating Any act that rates another verbal act positively or negatively Eliciting Any act designed to produce a verbal response from another person According to Bowers’ model (1980), an interactive transaction begins with an elicitation. The teacher prepares the students for the elicitation and attempts to elicit information from one or more learners and this usually takes the form of a question (Poliden, 2016). If there is no reply from students after elicitation, the teacher may proceed to another phase, the mediating phase to make sure the understanding of students. Elicitation usually comes after a nomination. The functions of the teacher are checking, promoting, clueing, repeating, or rephrasing the elicitation and nominating if the learners are not willing to answer (Poliden, 2016). Then, the teacher enters the evaluation phase after a reply is given. In this phase, the teachers deal with checking, repeating, assessing, commenting, and establishing continuity. The teachers here may prompt repeatedly or having a question rephrased, prompt again or further clues are provided (Poliden, 2016). Previous Studies Numerous classroom spoken discourse studies have been conducted with the use of Sinclair and Coulthard’s (1992) model (Emzir & Harahap, 2015; White, 2003). In the study of Emzir and Harahap (2015), they have investigated an English classroom discourse in a high school. The research results revealed that a great amount of teacher-talking time was spent in the class yet they could not achieve the lesson goal. On the other hand, White (2003) has also conducted a study on classroom discourse with the application of Sinclair and Coulthard’s (1992) model. The results of the study pointed out that many problems have occurred in applying the model. Only initiate and feedback patterns (IF pattern) were found and no response was observed in this study. Yet, a greater teacher awareness was observed in teacher feedback, teacher eliciting, and teacher evaluation. Despite the wide use of Sinclair and Coulthard’s model (1992), few of them have dealt with Bowers’ approach in the field of discourse analysis. Only two studies have also investigated similar classroom discourse on EFL classroom discourse of a speaking class by using Bowers’ model (Poliden, 2016; Nur, 2012). Au, H.Y.C. & Yalçın Tılfarlıoğlu, F. / Focus on ELT Journal, 2020 54 Focus on ELT Journal (FELT) Poliden (2016) studied the teaching functions of teachers in a language class. He employed Bowers’ model to examine the effectiveness of teaching functions. The finding showed that eliciting was found to be mostly used teaching function by the English. He concluded that the teaching functions of teachers follow certain patterns that engage the students in classroom activities or discussions. Nur (2012) examined the use of Bowers’ model and the types of movement and acts of classroom discourse in a speaking class. The study focused on the interaction between teachers and students. The results showed that teachers realize the importance of their language and how it affects students’ interaction and learning opportunities in the class. As mentioned above, there has been a lack of researches investigating classroom spoken discourse with the use of Bowers’ model in international EFL context. Hence, it is necessary for further research at this level. This necessity motived the action research of the present study. More specifically, this study aimed to investigate how such an analysis can be helpful in understanding classroom communication and this research aimed to answer the following research questions: 1) What is the distribution of L1 and Target Language (TL)in beginner EFL class? 2) What is the distribution of teacher-talk time and student-talk time in beginner EFL class? 3) How are the patterns of teacher-student interaction in beginner EFL lesson? 4) What is the most popular function in a speaking classroom discourse through Bowers’ model? Methods Research Design This study is a descriptive qualitative and quantitative study of speaking classroom discourse to determine the functions of classroom discourse. The data was taken from a beginner level speaking class of the CELTA course. In this study, Bowers’ model (1980) was employed to investigate teaching functions and how they maximize communication opportunities for students. Also, the model was employed to see how the participant of the classroom activities was aware of when and where they have to take turns, how is an interaction between student and teacher were also observed. A speaking lesson was chosen for this study as it is in nature compared with other skills and to show how successful language learning depends on classroom communication. The classroom discourse of this study was obtained from a speaking lesson of the CELTA course. In this study, Bowers’ model of DA will be applied to a transcribed recording of a beginner speaking lesson. Participants This study was conducted among six EFL Adult learners at a language center in Istanbul. There are three males and three females. The age of the participants ranged from 38-51 years. The English proficiency level of the sample group was A1 (Beginner). The participants were enrolled in a free language class offered by a language center. A convenience sampling method was used because A1 learners were not fluent in speaking abilities and could better demonstrate Au, H.Y.C. & Yalçın Tılfarlıoğlu, F. / Focus on ELT Journal, 2020 55 Focus on ELT Journal (FELT) the process and improvement in speaking. The class was run by a native female speaker. The duration of the lesson was 60 minutes. Data Collection Tool The model of Bowers was employed to determine the teaching functions. Bowers proposed 7 categories of verbal interaction namely 1) sociating, 2) eliciting, 3) evaluating, 4) responding, 5) directing, 6) organizing, 7) presenting. Data Collection Procedure The data (video) was taken from a beginner level speaking class of the CELTA course. The data collection followed a qualitative and quantitative perspective that uses a mixed method of data collection, the data collection techniques included structured classroom observation, transcriptions. The following steps were taken in acquiring the data, the first step was through structured observation and numerical data was generated from the observations. The researcher was taking notes for certain categories while observing the class. Classroom discourse was analyzed in a 30-second time interval. The data has been transcribed and used for analysis. The data were classified into the following categories: L1 and target language, teacher and student- talk time, the interaction patterns. The classroom discourse was first analyzed in terms of L1 or target language (TL) and the distribution of L1 and target language was calculated. Then, the data were also analyzed in terms of teacher-student talk time and different interaction patterns and hence the frequencies of teacher-talk and student-talk as well as the interaction patterns were also counted. Finally, the classroom talk was transcribed and analyzed using Bowers’ model (eliciting, evaluating, responding, organizing, sociating, presenting, and directing). Data Analysis The results of the collected data then analyzed by using descriptive data. The data were analyzed through the following steps: 1. By categorizing Bower’s system into different functions, each function analyzed based on the nature of data. 2. Summarized the statistics and analyzed the finding by presenting tables. 3. Drawing a conclusion based on the finding. Research Findings Results for Research Question 1. What is the distribution of L1 and Target Language in beginner EFL class? Research question 1 intends to find out the distribution of L1 and Target Language. Based on the analysis the results revealed that all languages used in the classroom are target language (100%). Students do not speak in their mother tongue (0%). Results for Research Question 2. What is the distribution of Student talking time and teacher talking time in beginner EFL class? The second research question assessed the distribution of student talking time and teacher talking time. According to the results, findings revealed that student talking time was a bit more Au, H.Y.C. & Yalçın Tılfarlıoğlu, F. / Focus on ELT Journal, 2020 56 Focus on ELT Journal (FELT) than the teacher talking time. Normally, teachers highly dominate the class time to achieve lesson objectives. However, in this case, out of 676 times of spoken frequencies, 317 times are spoken by the teacher were recorded. This showed that students have more opportunities to speak in class. teacher talk time takes only 46.95% of lesson time. Student talk almost takes 53.05% of the lesson time and which most time is taken by chorus repetition. Also, according to the data, it indicates that chorus repetition was the dominant teaching method. The following Table 2 shows some examples of chorus repetition in the speaking class: Table 2. Examples of chorus repetition Results for Research Question 3. How are the patterns of teacher-student interaction in beginner EFL lesson? Research question 3 aimed to examine the interaction patterns between students and the teacher. Through classroom observation and transcription analysis, it could see that there are different types of interaction patterns in the lesson. According to the results, most of the interaction was found between the teacher and the whole class, which accounts for 68.7% of class time. Then it followed by the interaction between students in pairs and individual students and teacher, which accounts for 28.71% and 2.58 % of the class time respectively. Based on the analysis of the findings, it showed that the teacher has a crucial role in leading classroom interaction pattern. This suggested that the teacher takes overwhelming interaction patterns between the teacher and the whole class. This also implied that the teacher is the facilitator in the speaking class. Results for Research Question 4 What is the most popular function in a speaking classroom discourse through Bowers’ model? Bowers’ model was employed to analyze the most popular teaching functions in a speaking class. The finding showed the mostly used teaching functions in a beginner speaking class and revealed its importance in enhancing speaking opportunities for students. The results are presented and analyzed as Figure 1: T: He’s got a temperature. (point another picture) Eliciting (TL) Sts: Toothache. Responding (TL) T: Toothache. Eliciting (TL) Sts: Toothache. Responding (TL) T: Toothache…hmm…(pointing another picture) Eliciting (TL) Sts: Stomachache. Responding (TL) Au, H.Y.C. & Yalçın Tılfarlıoğlu, F. / Focus on ELT Journal, 2020 57 Focus on ELT Journal (FELT) Figure 1. The functions of the English teacher using Bowers’ categories Based on the findings shown in Figure 1, the dominant teaching function used is eliciting which accounts for 32.84%. Eliciting is used in engaging students in classroom activities or discussions. Then it followed by evaluating (12.54%), organizing (6.61%), presenting (6.04%), sociating (0.57%), and directing (0.34%). Apart from eliciting and evaluating, according to Johnson (1985), directing is considered as controlling and it empowers the teacher to plan, adjust, set targets, or control behavior. As indicated in Table 3 and 4, some utterances serve more than two functions, usually evaluating and eliciting. Table 3. Evaluating and sociating at the end of lesson. Table 4. An example of utterances serves more than two functions. In this case, the teacher starts her lesson with eliciting before presenting the lesson to the class (Table 3.) and ends her lesson by evaluating and sociating (Table 4). Also, as indicated in the data, classroom interaction is dominated by eliciting followed by a response from students and then evaluating. Initiating communication depends on asking questions. Eliciting is very effective to engage students in class and build up a rapport with the learners. Besides, the findings also pointed out that the teacher interacts with students through praising students’ performance when she evaluates the performance. It is very important in a language classroom to create a friendly environment in teaching-learning process. Discussion & Conclusion In this study, the spoken discourse of an EFL speaking class was transcribed and then analyzed using Bowers’ model. Based on the results of the analysis, it is clear and obvious that the Bowers’ model has a great importance in understanding classroom interaction. The teacher is the control as well as the facilitator of the classroom discourse. This further gave support to the T: They won the game. Yes. Okay. Thank you very much. Evaluating (TL) St: Thank you. Sociating (TL) T: Thank you. Sociating (TL) T: Cough. Very good. Neida. Very good. She’s got a cough. Presenting (TL) Evaluating (TL) Eliciting (TL) Au, H.Y.C. & Yalçın Tılfarlıoğlu, F. / Focus on ELT Journal, 2020 58 Focus on ELT Journal (FELT) study of Emzir and Harahap (2015) in which the teacher had a more dominant role in classroom discourse. Yet, this study revealed that the lesson aim was reached without limiting the speaking opportunities of students. This also somehow contradicted the results of Emzir and Harahap (2015) suggesting teacher talk-time was higher than that of student talk-time. In this study, it was found that eliciting is the most popular teaching function employed by the teachers in the class to facilitate communication among students and the teacher. Findings of this study corroborated that of Poliden (2016) which found out that eliciting was the most used teaching function in classroom discourse. Meanwhile, in this present study, it revealed that teachers usually use evaluating and sociating to end the class. Depending on the classroom lesson and activities, organizing and presenting are interchangeably used in the classroom. Interestingly, responding is not a teaching function in this case. Responding is not used by the teacher as students do not ask any questions to their teacher. This is associated with the reluctance of willingness in asking questions among EFL students. White (2003) similarly claimed that the pattern of response was hardly observed in the lesson, only IF pattern could be found. In this current study, a classroom interaction pattern can be observed. The teacher starts the lesson with questions and then the teacher organizes and directs class activities and students give response. It can see that evaluating students’ activities was the last function of the teacher in an interactive process. Moreover, the findings were also consistent with the study conducted by Nur (2012) that teachers realize the importance of their language and how it affects students’ interaction and learning opportunities in the class Not surprisingly, in this study, students can produce a short dialogue based on the chunks and phrases they have learned at the end of the lesson. Students can communicate with each other in a short role play as they are engaged in plenty of choral repetition and drilling. The inputs they have taken during the lesson become the output. Students are given many opportunities to practice their accuracy and fluency. Unlike the study of Emzir and Harahap (2015) and White (2003), their lesson aims could not be achieved as well as many problems were occurred while applying the model. In this study, this suggested that Bowers’ model is a very useful tool to analyze and understand the structure of interactions in a real spoken discourse. At the same time, it provides important insights for teachers. It enables teachers to reflect their output after lessons to reduce and balance their teacher talking time (McAleesse, 2011). Moreover, the analysis of this classroom discourse proves that eliciting is the most frequent teaching function in involving students in classroom activities or discussion. It is concluded that teachers follow certain patterns to engage the students in learning tasks. Since responding was found to be the least teaching functions, a teacher can plan his or her lesson with more challenging tasks to facilitate learners’ critical thinking skills and to enhance interaction patterns in the class. The teacher provides authentic language input and classroom materials in the observed lesson. Students are given opportunities in speaking and are engaged in cooperative activities such as choral repetition and short dialogue. The frequencies of student talk time reveal that students are given plenty of opportunities to practice the target language. The diversified interaction patterns can also give learners a chance to use the language and interact with other learners. This suggests that more speaking opportunities such as role-plays and interviews can be implemented in the class to enhance speaking abilities. Most frequently with a positive comment or feedback supported by teachers. This implies that positive feedback could help to build a positive learning environment and rapport with learners. Au, H.Y.C. & Yalçın Tılfarlıoğlu, F. / Focus on ELT Journal, 2020 59 Focus on ELT Journal (FELT) Despite positive findings of the study, the present study has some limitations. First, the time of the study was short as it only takes an hour. Had the study extended a longer class time, more detailed and clear classroom discourse patterns might have been obtained. Second, the participants were chosen based on convenience sampling. In the future study, a random sampling method consisting of different proficiency groups could be employed to see whether interaction patterns vary in different groups. Also, future studies might include a larger scale of samples for more accurate results. Disclosure Statement No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. References Alexander, R. (2006). Towards dialogic teaching: Rethinking classroom talk, (3rd ed.). 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