Transactional and Interactional Features of

Student Cultures

Discussing possible answers to the question raised by Holliday at the end of student groups chapter of his book

Appropriate Methodology and Social Context in the context of Tishreen University

By Ola Sayed Ahmed15 March 2015

The Question

"List features of the student cultures with which you are familiar under the headings transactional and interactional. How far can these features be connected with the culture of your country or region, or with local classroom or institutional conditions which have little to do with national culture, or with aspects of student culture which may be common to students internationally?"

(Holliday.1994 .p.68).2

3

Student Cultures & transaction and Interaction

"Student cultures are semi-autonomous and, cannot be controlled easily or directly. They raise in relation to structural conditions in the larger society and the way in which these conditions are mediated by both the experience of schooling and the lived experience of youth in their own communities." (Ogbu. 2008.p.242). These two types of experience are referred to by Holliday (1994 .p.64) as Transaction and interaction. He argues that groups of classroom culture "may have covert, interactional agendas other than the transactional participation in lessons"

4

How to Answer ?

I’ll be reflecting on four years of my experience as a student in the English Literature Department in Tishreen University. Lattakia, Syria. From 2010-2014.

5

Features I noticed

1. Taking notes2. Place of sitting3. Lecture breaks

6

Taking NotesTaking notes? Taking notes is a learning strategy that is popular in almost all

educational institutions around the world. Taking notes in Tishreen University?It usually has pure transactional ends but in Tishreen university it also

has interactional ends for students who can take the best notes usually sell them to shops outside university to be sold for students who can't take notes properly or to those who can't or don't want to attend lectures. Thus, a student who sells his notes is not only a student but also a businessman conducting his work within the classroom and selling it to the highest price outside the university. Teachers often express their resentment about this process saying that those students are not selling their own information and that the students who are buying the notes "are buying their failure" as Dr.Ahmad Al-Issa (2015) says, because some information might be written in a wrong way, the thing that happened actually many times when a huge number of students answered an exam question wrongly because the information needed for that question was written wrong in the sold notes. Because of this, student taking notes try their best to remain unnoticed.

7

Taking Notes

8

Taking NotesWhy is this happening?The reasons behind this behavior of the students selling the notes and the

ones buying them can vary a lot. Selling their notes, the students are actually getting benefits from many directions first, selling the notes requires extra attention and immediate revision and study which actually account for the fact that most of these students are top students, second, they are getting money for studying harder which is a great motivation.

Another point is that most of the subjects taught in the English department do not have textbooks or references and if a textbook is available most teachers do not stick to it. Besides even if a teacher sticks to the textbook, most students prefer the didactic instruction to reading the book.

Consequently, students feel more secure buying these notes knowing that everything required exists inside them, no matter how much teachers warn them from buying such notes.

This process is not exclusive to the English department it's quite popular in other departments within Tishreen University and even in other universities such as Damascus University.

9

Place of sittingDoes the student’s position in classroom say something bout

him/her?The choice a student takes as where to sit in a spacious

auditorium says a lot about the student. Tagliacolloab (2010. et all) has conducted a research among school students (around 450 students ) regarding the relationship between the student's position in classroom and his/her motivation to learning. He reached the conclusion that "Students' motivation for learning determines concomitantly students' seat choice and school performance. This effect explains why seat position is associated with school performance. Therefore, we suggest that displacing student to a frontal seat position in the classroom to improve learning performance is probably not a desirable alternative; instead, the teacher should consider raising the students' motivation".

10

Place of sittingAre there any factors that may play a role in the student’s

decision regarding his/her position in the classroom?The decision the student takes to sit in the front or in the

back rows has to do with many interactional factors such as time of coming, the place where the student's friends are sitting, his relationship with the teacher and how confident the student feels about his/her information in a certain subject. James Black, director of the Center for Academic Achievement at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, Pa says “If students aren’t feeling that confident, they don’t need to sit up front and feel stressed the whole time. Maybe sit halfway back and make sure to make eye contact with the professor. Then you can gain more confidence and start to move up to the front.”

11

Place of sitting

Place of sitting in Tishreen University?During the four years I spent as a student my

friends frequently expressed that the more they are interested in a topic, the more they tend to sit in the frontal rows and away from their friends in order to stay focused and get more involved. Most of the students in the English Literature Department in Tishreen university tend to avoid sitting in the first 3-4 rows regardless of the vacancy of the seats.

12

Place of sitting

13

Place of sittingWhy?Some of them do that in order to be able to chat, eat or have some fun time

during the long lectures, while others prefer that because they attend for the sole purpose of socializing and making friends.

The former group has both transactional and interactional purposes whereas the later one has only interactional purpose. Thus, the auditorium- from the point of view of some students- is a social club where he/she sits where more opportunities of socializing are available. Having no transactional purposes in a place that requires them is not only seen inside the classroom. For example, some employees in Tishreen university are paid for coming to the workplace only so they don't have any transactional purposes. This behavior is also seen frequently outside the Syrian educational institutes. The reason behind this gap between purpose of some transaction-specific places and the function they offer could be a common policy of work in the culture of society where those who have transactional purposes have to cope with the presence of those who don't by sitting in the front, specifying which desk in an office is for transactional purposes and distributing students in school classrooms according to their motivation.

14

On the other hand, students who have both transactional and interactional purposes might be influenced by the educational culture of the institute where lectures run for more than two hours in auditoriums where the traditional seating arrangement doesn't allow individual monitoring from the teacher and students get bored. It's important to notice that some of those student alternate between having transactional purpose and not having one at all according to their relationship with the teacher of the subject.

Place of sitting

15

Lecture BreaksDo students like breaks? Are they a waste of lecture

time?The answer was almost always "Yes" to teachers'

question "Do you need a break?" Not all teachers in Tishreen University implemented breaks in lectures, but those who did was more loved and respected by students. Breaks have important transactional ends that WilliamA.Anderson and ByronHarrison (1985. P.3) talk about in the conclusion of their research "Lecture breaks can serve to revitalize, stimulate interest, and improve concentration during classroom presentations. Students noted that breaks during the lecture helped to solve the problems of monotony, noise, and excessive material coverage".

16

Lecture BreaksAnything special about lecture breaks in

Tishreen University?However, breaks in Tishreen university have

more than the transactional purpose that WilliamA.Anderson and ByronHarrison (1985. P.3) talked about they also have the interactional purpose of offering an opportunity for students who are tired or are not attending for transactional purposes to go out. Many students express their relief when the students who usually make noise are allowed to get out.

17

Why?This behavior might be influenced by the national culture

where education is available for all and students attend for a variety of motivations. It could also be influenced by the policy of the institution where students from other departments can attend any lecture. Those students don't have the least transactional purpose. They usually attend in other departments of their specialties in order to find a date or have fun with their school friends. It's also important to state that it is influenced to a great extent by the decision of the teacher and his/her preference of giving a break instead of asking those students to get out.

Lecture Breaks

18

Conclusion

The previous features discussed about the student cultures in the English Literature Department in Tishreen University are affected by many factors outside and inside the classroom and cannot be attributed to one factor. These factors operate with each other and result together in a certain form of student or teacher behavior in the classroom which best suits the present situation at least from the classroom participants' point of view.

19

BIBLIOGRAPHYAl-Issa, Ahmad. [DrAhmadAlIssa]. (2015, March 6) بأنفسهم رسوبهم ""يشترون

Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/229023970490910/photos/a.582413271818643.1073741825.229023970490910/855211301205504/?type=1

Anderson, William A, and Byron Harrison. 'Lecture Break'. JOURNAL OF

AGRONOMIC EDUCATION 14.2 (1985): 3. Web. 9 Mar. 2015. Retrieved from https://www.agronomy.org/files/publications/jnrlse/pdfs/jnr014/014-02-0105.pdf

Holliday, Adrian. Appropriate methodology and social context. Cambridge

University Press, 1994. 68.Mastrine, Julie. 'Does Where You Sit In The Classroom Say A Lot About You?'. USA

today college 2012. Web. 11 Mar. 2015. Retrieved from http://college.usatoday.com/2012/01/05/does-where-you-sit-in-class-say-a-lot-about-you/

Ogbu, John U., ed. Minority status, oppositional culture and schooling. Routledge, 2008. 242.

Tagliacolloab, Victor Alberto, Gilson Luiz Volpatoac, and Alfredo Pereira Junior. "Association of student position in classroom and school performance." Educational Research 1.6 (2010): 198-201.

20Ola Sayed Ahmed