The Analysis Of Novice Science Teachers’ Classroom Discourse

Currently, argumentation as a core element of scientific literacy has been paid more attention in science education. In the classroom, science teachers guide the practice of argumentation through discourse which is an important way to enhance students’ quality of argumentation. Researches on how to promote the practice of classroom argumentation should turn to the analysis of science teachers’classroom discourse and focus on how to integrate the argumentation to guide the class activities. Three novice science teachers are chosen as the research participants since their teaching philosophy and skills are developing, and their classroom discourse is also to be diverse and skilled. From the perspective of argumentation, this study tries to analyze the characteristics of novice teachers’discourse and their teaching philosophy, and gives some suggestion on improving teachers’argumentative discourse, developing the habits and literacy of argumentations.Firstly, through the analysis of literature, this study presents a comprehensive review of relevant research about argumentation. Secondly, this study uses the framework of "argumentative discourse" and "non-argumentative discourse" to code the teachers’ discourse in order to present and analyze the characteristics of novice science teachers’ classroom discourse. Combining with interviews, this study tries to answer the following research questions:(1) In the conventional classroom, what is the category of novice science teachers’ discourse? (2) In the conventional classroom, what is the category of novice science teachers’ argumentative discourse? (3) In the conventional classroom, what are the factors that affect novice science teachers’ argumentative discourse? The answer for these questions finds out the characteristics of novice science teachers’ argumentative discourse. The outcome of this study will give some suggestions on how to improve the proportion of science teachers’ argumentative discourse and the quality of classroom argumentation.It finds that the majority of three novice science teachers’ discourse in their classrooms is non-argumentative discourse, and the proportion of three science teachers’argumentative discourse is at the similar level. "Making claims" has the highest percentage among all argumentative discourse from three novice science teachers. Following that is the number of "Making warrants". The percentages of "Justifying with evidence", "Reflecting on arguments", "Making rebuttals" are much less than the previous ones. Thus, three novice science teachers are accustomed to using "Making claims" and "Making warrants" to promote the classroom argumentation. However, three science teachers do not always encourage students to make rebuttals which shows the quality of classroom argumentation is not very high. Through the interviews, it shows that, three novice teachers prefer to teach lessons directly and want to take the initiative of classroom discourse in their own hands, while do not like to guide students in high-quality argument.The results show that novice science teachers should develop the understanding of argumentation. On the one hand, they should encourage students to combine the questions and evidence in order to make explanation and arguments. On the other hand, they are also supposed to promote students to make rebuttals and improve the quality of argumentation.