Influence of Co-membership on Teacher's Coauthoring on Student's Narratives

This paper examines the specific research question of how co-membership in discourse style and life experience influences teacher's coauthoring on student's narratives in the ESL teaching and learning context in the United States. As a case study,a specific student's classroom narratives are transcribed and analyzed. The research findings indicate that a shared discourse style and an overlap in life experience between the teacher and the student will exert positive influence on the teacher's coauthoring on the student's narratives. Above all,sharing the same discourse style makes it possible for the teacher to recognize the rhythm of the student's narratives,to detect the moments when the student needs interactional support and offer help,and to quickly notice a potential ending of the student's narrative and expand it with open-ended questions and comments. In addition,an overlap in life experience makes it possible for the teacher to go deep into the student's narratives by contributing specific and concrete thoughts rather than responding with superficial ideas.