Language Culture and Curriculum
Editor and Book Reviews Editor: Eoghan Mac Aogain (St Patrick's College)
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Volume: 11 Number: 1 Page: 28–46
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Idea Piling: Verbal Interaction in Elementary Japanese Language Arts
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Izumi Dotera
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More than one hundred question-and-answer sequences in Japanese elementary language arts reading classes were analysed with the aim of defining more closely what interactional competence might mean in such
a setting. The findings of the analysis are as follows. First, the topics of exchanges are not strictly limited to the text which is being focused on and are often extended to personal information or reactions
only loosely related to the text. Second, the teacher's participatory control is relatively weak and spontaneous self-selection is almost always accepted. Third, the phase of instructional climax has a
common interactional pattern, which I have called Idea Piling, in which the teacher avoids direct evaluation and creates a 'pile' of pending ideas produced by the students. The teacher gives priority in
managing classroom interaction to turn allocation, specifically a norm of the 'participation of as many pupils as possible', rather than topic control. These findings indicate that the interactional competence
required of the Japanese pupils in these reading classes involves a willingness to participate actively rather than the skill of displaying academic knowledge described by Mehan (1979).
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