Discursive engagement for intersubjectivity: Investigating the verbal–visual relationship of productive classroom talk in synchronous online lessons

Abstract

In synchronous online environments, lesson delivery is restricted mainly to verbal (oral or spoken interactions, e.g., speaking using microphones) and visual (e.g., sharing PowerPoint slides) modes. Considering that classroom talk and visual display are essential semiotic sources, we investigated the synergy created by the combination of productive classroom talk and visual prompts to understand how teachers interact with students in a fully online environment. Multiple sources of data from two teachers and their students (n = 54) were triangulated, including student questionnaires, classroom talk transcripts, and teachers' visual prompts. We used questionnaire results to understand students' perception of classroom discourse, visualizations to uncover patterns in classroom talk, and multimodal conversation analysis to delve into the discrepancies between teacher's and students' situation definitions when encountering visual prompts. We found that, to a certain extent, the teachers effectively used productive classroom talk, and the students were discursively engaged in online lessons. Further, teachers' strategic use of talk helped build intersubjectivity during online lessons. The results suggest that teachers can leave space for dialogues by attending to students' cognitive processes and using productive talk moves to invite elaboration and reasoning. Additionally, teachers can design constructive tasks while reducing direct instruction in online lessons.