ABSTRACT
A teacher utilizes practitioner ethnography, in an attempt to make explicit an area of Higher Education (HE) teaching experience he regards as significant in classroom work. Using a notional mise-en-scene three positions are identified as loci for specific classroom realities, with movement between as necessary to engage in different activities. A feature of classroom work is that teacher and students project selves, mainly through their talk, in ways compatible with whatever reality they are jointly engaged with. This is teacher acknowledging the centrality of discourse in HE learning and engaging with discourse modelling as an expressive practice. A surprising outcome, partly occasioned by the Toulmin model, is the likelihood of some kind of self-implicating motivation giving ultimate backing to these expressive practices. The teacher’s immediate convictions about what is being pursued, their skill in timing, the choice of words and phrases used will all determine how successful each attempted move will be.
