Journal of Advances in Linguistics and English Teaching (JALET) Vol.
No.
July-December 2025 e-ISSN: 3089-9648 A Corpus-Based Analysis of Discourse Strategies Used by Primary Inclusive Schools Sofi Yunianti1*.
Idhoofiyatul Fatin2.
Ahmad Mahmudi3 1,2Universitas Muhammadiyah Surabaya.
Indonesia Corresponding AuthorAos Email: sofiyunianti@um-surabaya.
Article Info
ABSTRACT
Article history:
Teachers and studentsAo interactions play a crucial role in achieving learning Therefore, this study aims to find out how discourse strategies are used in a primary inclusive school.
Through the participation of a primary inclusive schoolAos teacher, a corpus of recorded data was constructed.
The discourse strategies were then identified and categorized based on the theory of Dornyei and Scott.
The result of the study revealed that, based on corpusanalysis, the teacher used only the More Communicative Potential strategy.
Within this category, the most frequently used strategy was a comprehension This was primarily applied because the teacherAos main purpose was to deliver the lesson clearly and coherently while ensuring students understood the material.
This study implied that it is essential for teachers to be aware of and apply appropriate discourse strategies to support effective classroom Received December 27th, 2025 Revised December 28th, 2025 Accepted December 30th, 2025 Keyword:
Corpus.
Discourse Strategies.
Primary Inclusive Schools.
Introduction Teacher-student interactions play a crucial role in the classroom environment.
Positive teacherstudent relationships influence the cognitive and motivational learning outcomes(Pennings & Hollenstein, 2.
The cognitive influence is reflected in how students feel comfortable asking questions to clarify their understanding and enhance their comprehension and facilitate deeper learning (Zeinstra et al.
, 2.
Meanwhile, motivational learning outcomes involve building studentsAo confidence, which are key factor in creating a positive learning atmosphere, especially for inclusive students (Nybye & Bruin, 2.
Considering the importance of teacher-student interactions for inclusive students, through effective interaction, teachers can fulfil studentsAo need for emotional security, such as showing empathy, giving encouragement, and listening attentively (Obrovsky et al.
, 2.
These enable inclusive students to feel accepted within the classroom community and encourage them to participate in the classroom.
In addition, because inclusive students often learn at a slower pace, positive teacher-student interaction is pivotal for motivating and supporting their learning through purposeful dialogue and feedback.
Therefore, it is useful for analyzing the conversation between the student and the teacher.
Teacher and student conversation in the classroom provides a meaningful context for analyzing discourse strategies, as classroom communication is not only about transferring knowledge but also about negotiating meaning, building relationships, and managing interaction.
Particularly in an inclusive classroom, discourse strategies are implemented to determine how effectively students with diverse needs understand and engage in the learning process.
Dornyei and Scott .
stated that discourse strategies consist of three categories: less communicative potential, medium communicative potential, and more communicative potential.
According to Dornyei and Scott .
, less communicative potential is used for communication breakdowns because the speaker unsuccessfully delivers the intended meaning.
This strategy is different from the more communicative potential because the more communicative potential category is the most effective Journal of Advances in Linguistics and English Teaching (JALET) Vol.
No.
July-December 2025 e-ISSN: 3089-9648 communication and interaction.
It happened because in this category, there is mutual understanding between the speakers and listeners.
Moreover, the medium communicative potential category happened because the speaker delivered the general idea, but the intended meaning is not clear.
These categories help to identify how the classroom language performance contributes to achieving the learning outcomes.
Several studies related to classroom conversation have been conducted in a classroom context.
For instance, the comparison of discourse patterns between novice and expert teachers in a junior high school EFL context (Tong et al.
, 2.
Similarly, there was learning interaction research about communication strategies in experiential language learning (Yang et al.
, 2.
Another study by Jyrvinen et al.
analyzed pre-service teacher interaction by comparing male and female teachers using the interaction analysis category system and acoustic analysis.
The finding revealed that male teachers tended to use direct speech, while females preferred indirect speech and delivered tolerant acoustic profile.
Furthermore, there was also a study about the important role of oral corrective feedback in the language learning classroom, which showed that low learner uptake and repair.
Elicitation, metalinguistic feedback, and explicit correction, though used less frequently, were more effective in promoting learner repair.
Although the results suggest that even expert teachers predominantly use recasts (Zhang et al.
, 2.
In addition, there was research that investigated the psychological impact of oral corrective feedback, which showed that the student received positive feedback rather than negative feedback (Hartono et al.
, 2.
Further study revealed that the multimodal conversation learning material on second language classroom influences the progression of task interaction (Rantala, 2.
Lastly, a study showed that the method of conversational analysis revealed that one-to-one interaction in secondary school classrooms provides insight into studentsAo processes and the accompanying teacher practices (Gosen et al.
, 2.
Based on the previous studies, there is limited research about the conversation analysis in inclusive schools.
Therefore, this study intends to fill the gap by analyzing the conversation between the teacher and the inclusive student to know deeply about the conversation analysis and student-teacher interaction.
This study focuses on how discourse strategy uses by teachers in inclusive schools by using corpus analysis.
Method This study applied qualitative analysis since it focuses on the individual experience and natural condition (Creswell, 2014.
Sugiyono, 2.
Moreover, this study used utterances as data.
Qualitative data are usually using transcript or textual form (Dornyei, 2.
This study used a sketch engine, which enables word frequency.
According to Stubbs .
, the frequency with which linguistic devices occur in a corpus reflects the communicative importance within a certain discourse structure.
Participant The subjects of this study were a shadow teacher and three inclusive students from one of the leading inclusive elementary schools.
This study chose the school because it is recognized for its strong commitment.
Moreover, this study chose the third grade because of the consideration of the linguistic development stage and social interaction maturity.
At this stage, the inclusive students of third grade have generally developed in basic literacy and oral communication skills because they can ask questions, express opinion and give feedback.
In social interaction maturity, they have already understood about peersAo relationships and are comfortable with their peers and teacher, but sometimes they still feel anxious, which makes it different from the upper grade, and makes it interesting to analyze.
Journal of Advances in Linguistics and English Teaching (JALET) Vol.
No.
July-December 2025 e-ISSN: 3089-9648 Data Collection After obtaining permission from the school, the data collection was carried out in several steps.
First, choosing the course theme.
Global warming is something strange for them, and they cannot explain it concretely.
Second, recording the conversation between the shadow teacher and three inclusive students.
Third, record the data, and the last step is transcribing the data.
After obtaining the data, the next step for analyzing the data is categorizing it based on discourse strategies.
This process was assisted by it helped by sketch engine to identify the frequency of word occurrences.
Then, the frequency data were used to determine which discourse strategy category each utterance belonged to.
Findings and Discussions Figure 1 shows the 50 most frequent words generated from sketch engine.
Table 1 displays the corpus collected from the global warming course theme.
The recorded duration was 90 minutes and consisted of 883 words.
Based on the data set, a total of 21 discourse strategies were identified.
Table 2 presents the type and frequency of discourse strategy categories (Dornyei & Scott, 1.
Figure 1.
Sketch engine result Table 1.
Features of the corpus collected Course Theme Minutes Words Global Warming Number of Discourse strategy Types Table 2.
Discourse strategies adapted from Donyei and ScottAos .
No.
Discourse strategies Less Communicative Potential Omission Total .
Percentage Medium Communicative Potential Use of Fillers Journal of Advances in Linguistics and English Teaching (JALET) Vol.
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July-December 2025
e-ISSN: 3089-9648
Use of all purpose-words Code switching More Communicative Potential Comprehension Check
Self-rephrasing Restructuring Retrieval Self Repair
Self-repetition Other repetition Total
47,6%
14,3%
The Most Commonly Used Discourse Based on the finding the occurrence of utterance only belongs to a more communicative potential category.
The teacher implemented this strategy because maintaining communication and interaction.
Among all the categories of more communicative potential, the comprehension check strategy is the most frequently used, with 10 occurrences, accounting for 47.
This indicates that teachers and students often clarify and confirm to ensure understanding, which is essential in an inclusive learning context.
The second most frequent strategy was self-repetition, which occurred 8 times, and the total frequency is 38.
It means that the repetition of an utterance seeks attention and response and emphasizes meaning.
Restructuring is the least common occurrence.
It appeared 3 time and the percentage is 14.
3 %.
Rephrasing and reorganizing utterances make the intention clearer, especially when facing communication Moreover.
Figure 1 presents the 50 most frequent words that appeared in the corpus collected from the data recording.
The most frequent words are AuwarmingAy.
AuglobalAy, and AugreenhouseAy.
Additionally, wh question and AudoAy indicates the teacher initiatively asked the student about the learning material.
The nouns AupencilAy and AuworksheetAy appear more than five times.
The presence of the studentAos name indicates interpersonal engagement because the teacher intends to attract the studentAos attention.
The Function of Discourse Strategies The comprehension check involves many discourse strategies.
It can be seen in the conversation below:
Teacher Student Teacher Student : Do you know the Jawa Post building? This is a greenhouse.
There are glasses, do you understand? : Yes.
I understand : Ok, do you really know how the building is? : Yes, it is tall The teacher checks the comprehension by using the words AuknowAy and Auunderstand,Ay and these words appear twice.
It means that the teacherAos purpose is to confirm whether the student It reflected that the function of this category is to ensure mutual understanding and to verify that the student follows the teacherAos intended meaning.
Based on the conversation above, in an inclusive classroom context, a comprehension check is important because this strategy bridges the communication misunderstanding.
Therefore, this strategy intends to demonstrate the sharing of understanding, especially in the classroom context.
Journal of Advances in Linguistics and English Teaching (JALET) Vol.
No.
July-December 2025 e-ISSN: 3089-9648 The second majority of discourse strategy types is self-repetition.
It is reflected on the conversation, as follows:
Teacher Student1 Teacher ---Teacher Student Teacher Student Teacher Teacher Student Teacher : Let's get the modules.
e, the worksheet, take the worksheet, take the Worksheet Zaki, sitting here now.
Take the pencil pencil.
Where's the pencil? Pencil.
: worksheet? : Where's the pencil? Pencil.
Pencil worksheet dong, already : this how much : zero coma two degrees Celsius : repeat : zero comma ehm two degree Causes Increase greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and artificial chemical gas : Please repeat again, boys : global warming process : common look at this, global warming process : Radiation : repeat.
repeat the radiation.
This is a greenhouse gas planting global The effect of the ice is melting, the extreme weather changes Based on the conversation above, the words AupencilAy and AuworksheetAy are repeated four times.
The main function of this strategy is to emphasize important information.
The teacher tries to get student attention with repetition.
The student also clarifies the repetition by asking again.
AuworksheetAy.
In the second conversation, the teacher asked the student to repeat the reading task and difficult words, such as Auglobal warmingAy and AuradiationAy.
It means that this strategy is useful when students are uncertain about the meaning of vocabulary and the intention of In an inclusive learning environment, repetition is helpful for students to follow the discussion, especially those with slower comprehension speed.
Teacher Student 1 eh there is no dust in there.
Please pay attention here.
Global warming is.
is the greenhouseA.
what is greenhouse? : Don't know The least frequent is the restructuring strategy.
The teacher tries to make the question clearer with a restructuring strategy.
At first, the teacher begins to have the student continue the definition of global warming.
Then, the teacher changes it by asking a question.
This strategy aims to reorganize or reformulate the utterance when the original structure fails to deliver meaning.
This strategy also has the function to actively monitor the utterance, because the speaker wants to make an effort by clarifying the studentsAo understanding.
The Communicative Potential of Discourse Strategies The result revealed that all identified belonged to a more communicative potential category.
This study contrasts with the findings from Shartiely and AnthonissenAos .
study, which reported that the medium communicative potential strategy was the highest because of the class size, grade, and the teaching subjects and materials.
This difference occurred because this study was conducted in an inclusive school, where the teacher gave more effort to grab studentsAo attention, and students were more encouraged to actively participate in the classroom.
Moreover, the strategy mainly focuses on checking the student understanding, especially maintaining the understanding of inclusive students.
Repetition and self-repair strategy enable students to follow a conversation, and the main purpose is to ensure student understanding.
Based on the findings, an inclusive classroom appeared more student-centered, as the study of Catherine P.
Blanco .
revealed that the interaction in an inclusive classroom is less communicative potential strategy Journal of Advances in Linguistics and English Teaching (JALET) Vol.
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July-December 2025 e-ISSN: 3089-9648 because there is less omission or code-switching, as student guided to sustain communication and Conclusions This study analyzed the use of discourse strategies in an inclusive school.
There are three inclusive students and a shadow teacher.
During a 90-minute discussion on the Global Warming The theory is based on Dornyei and Scott .
, who revealed that all discourse strategies identified in the corpus belonged to a more communicative potential category.
Comprehension check, self-repetition, and restructuring indicated a strong emphasis on maintaining communication, interaction, and understanding.
These findings emphasize that teacher-student interactions in inclusive schools are highly communicative, supportive, and student-centered.
means that the teacherAos discourse strategy is pivotal in building understanding, reducing miscommunication, and encouraging students to participate.
This further study suggests taking more than one course theme and a longer duration to explore the variability of discourse study.
References