Page 123 - Silence in Intercultural Communication

110 Silence in Intercultural Communication

Table 5.4 Number and length of turns in Curriculum and Examinations (Total)

Participant No. of classes Total number Total turn Average no. of Average turn
included of turns length turns per class length
Tadashi 3 41 92 13.7 2.2
Kylie 3 212 980 70.7 4.6
Tamara 2 124 262 62.0 2.1
Linda 2 38 104 19.0 2.7
Christine 1 13 64 13.0 4.9
Average 35.7 3.3

the sessions had comparatively more teacher-talk compared with the tutorials for
Teaching as a Profession. The teacher-centredness of this class was noted by Ta-
dashi, the lecturer (Mr. Fuller) himself and a peer student, who expressed the
following:

(4) [Interview: Kylie]
He’s got a lot of knowledge and I think he finds it hard to condense it into
something so small - he just ends up talking most of the time. But it’s good. I
mean I don’t mind. And usually he lets us talk if we have anything to say or
questions to ask.

There was a considerable amount of discussion and talk in this class, as indicated
in the comment above. However, when student participation in this Curriculum
and Examinations class is examined for the number of turns, it is again evident
that Tadashi is one of the two students with the lowest participation rate, as can be
seen in Table 5.4. For this class, contribution from all the students was included as
the speech of all participants was captured clearly by the video recording.
It should be noted that in the cases of other students with low participation
rates, Christine attended only 40%, and Linda 50%, of the video-recorded class
time. Additionally, only Tadashi and Kylie attended the last session, in which Ta-
dashi took 11 turns. This means that his average of 13.7 turns per class is higher
than his real average when everyone attended the class.
Although students generally produced short turns with an average of 3.3 sec-
onds, when students’ longest turns are examined individually, Tadashi’s longest
turn was 6 seconds while Kylie’s was 33, Tamara’s 39, Linda’s 12 and Christine’s 18.
In the follow-up interview, Mr. Fuller did not mention Tadashi’s silence but
instead gave generally positive comments about him:

(5) [Interview: Mr. Fuller]
I personally - I warm to him as a personality. He’s a positive person. He
approaches his tasks and learning with some enthusiasm. He seems to be