Interactional Characteristics of Contingency in Dyadic Teacher-Student Scaffolding Interactions: A Case of Iranian Novice and Experienced Language Teachers

Contingency has been claimed to be the central component of scaffolding. By contingency, a calibrated amount of help is provided for the learner. Different methods have been used to study contingency. In this study, contingency has been examined from the conversation analysis perspective in dyadic teacher-learner scaffolding interactions. To reach this aim, a convenience sample of Iranian novice and experienced English language teachers were studied in a non-governmental language institute in Tehran. Three novice and three experienced teachers were video-recorded for a 90-minute session each to yield a 9-hour corpus. After meeting official protocols, the recordings were transcribed using conversation analysis conventions. The results revealed differences between novice and experienced language teachers. Novice language teachers were less contingent towards their learners as they used more high-support moves like exposed corrections while the experienced language teachers used more low-support moves. Novice language teachers initiated more other-initiated-other-repair interactions but experienced language teachers initiated other-initiated-self-repairs. The claims of understanding were also treated differently in the scaffolding interactions. Novice language teachers treated claims of understanding as demonstrations and they did not follow them while experienced language teachers followed learners’ claims of understanding to ensure learning. Implications for language teachers and educators are then discussed.