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expectation for that particular question, the statement is categorized as student‟s
initiation.
c. The Role of Teacher-Student Interaction in EFL Class
Since Indonesian learners learn English as either second or foreign language in the classroom, teacher talk plays an important role in their target language
development. The use of target language as the means of communication in the classroom can improve students‟ language input Nunan, 1991. In terms of
acquisition, teacher talk is important because it is probably the major source of comprehensible target language input where the learner can receive and even
produce the target language. Therefore, more positive commenting and encouraging languages should be employed by teachers.
2. Adjacency Pairs in Teacher-Student Interactions
There are some important points that will be discussed in this part, they are: definition of adjacency pairs, definition of teacher-student interactions, the role
and the function of adjacency pairs in teacher-student interactions, the significance of adjacency pairs in teacher-student interactions, and theoretical
basis of adjacency pairs and teacher-student interactions.
a. Definitions of Adjacency Pairs
According to Sacks and Schegloff 1979, adjacency pair is a sequence of two utterances that follow one another. It is
„adjacent‟, and has two parts first pair part and second pair part. In line with that, Rymes 2008:55 states that adjacency
pair is a two part interactional sequence in which the first part e.g., a question produces the expectation for the second part e.g. an answer. Adjacency pairs
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also reflect how ordered speech is, regardless of the number of people that are in the conversation, and how this is achieved through turn-taking. Jovanovic, et al.,
2006:11 also state that “Adjacency pairs are minimal dialogic units which
consist of paired utterances such as question-answer or statement agreement ”.
The paired utterances are produced by different speakers. Utterances in an adjacency pair are ordered with the first part A-part, the initiative and the second
part B-part, the response. Overall, Wood and Kroger 2000 argued that, there are two types of possible responses to the first parts of adjacency pairs: preferred
and dispreferred. Preferred responses are those that are expected or conventional; and dispreferred responses are those that are not. They added, preferred refers to
the design features of utterances, not to individual dispositions e.g. personal wishes or expectations. For example, the preferred response to a question is an
answer, to an invitation an acceptance, and so on. Yet, dispreferred responses include excuses or justifications. For example, the refusal of an invitation for
dinner by saying “paused well, it‟d be great but we already promised to have
dinner with the children”. In terms of classroom discourse, these two types of possible responses might also occur in the conversation between a teacher and
students. A student might exp ress his disagreement on teacher‟s assessment. He
even might refuse teacher‟s invitation to take turn to read a text.
Another definition comes from Thornburry and Slade 2006, they say that adjacency pair is composed of two turns produced by different speakers which are
placed adjacently and where the second utterance is identified as related to the first. They added, adjacency pairs include such exchanges as question answer;
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complaint denial; offer accept; request grant; compliment rejection; challenge rejection, and instruct receipt.
In multiparty conversations, adjacency pairs do not impose a strict adjacency requirement, since a speaker has more opportunities to insert utterances
between two elements of an adjacency pair. For example, a suggestion can be followed by agreements or disagreements from multiple speakers.
Some typical adjacency pairs in English in U.S. proposed by Rymes 2008 are: Greeting Greeting; Question Answer; Invitation Acceptance; Assessment
Disagreement; Apology Acceptance; and Summons Acknowledgement. Thus, according to Rymes, all of these typical adjacency pairs take place in teacher-
student interactions in the classrooms day after day in predictable ways. The figure below will lead us to the example of the adjacency pairs:
Adjacency Pairs Type Example
GreetingGreeting Teacher : Good morning
Students : Good morning QuestionAnswer
Teacher : Is today Friday? Students : Yes
InvitationAcceptance Teacher : Would you like to read next?
Students : Sure. AssessmentDisagreement
Teacher : This is beautiful short today. Students : I thought it was creepy, actually.
ApologyAcknowledgement Student : I am sorry I‟m late.
Teacher : That‟s okay – we started late
today anyway. SummonsAcknowledgement Teacher : John?
John : Yes? Figure 3.
Rymes’ 2008 Typical adjacency pairs in U.S. classroom discourse
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Figure 3 above presents the examples of how adjacency pairs occur in the classroom interaction between teacher and student in U.S. context. The first part
of each utterance is followed by the second part in sequences. Richards and Schmidt 1983:131 define greeting
greeting in adjacency pairs as “closed sets, formulaic, and easily learned”. They also argue that these typical adjacency pair
forms are normally found in second language classroom instruction. Adjacency pairs typically have three characteristics Sacks and Schegloff, 1973: they consist
of two utterances; the utterances are adjacent, that is the first immediately follows the second; and different speakers produce each utterance.
According to Sacks and Schegloff 1973, the basic rule of adjacency pairs operation is to give the recognizable production of a first pair part. In addition,
Renkema 2004 considers adjacency pair as an important building block of conversation. She developed the sequence of the adjacency pair not only limited
on the two adjacent sequences of utterances. There are also other sequences that often occur and need to be acknowledged as important as well, such as three-part
sequences. The three-part structure can be seen in the example, „Can you open
the door please?‟, „Sure‟, „Thank you‟. The three-part structure is the response from the first speaker as a result of the act of the second speaker. The generosity
of the second speaker is appreciated. In here, the chains of adjacency pairs occurred.
From the above definitions, it can be concluded that adjacency pair is the sequence of utterances which can be formulated by teacher to manage the
students‟ response. It can help teacher to control over the classroom interaction since these sequences are automatic pairs. For example the summons from teacher
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