Abstract

Students in Hong Kong have learned discussion skills at the secondary school level in order to prepare for their college entrance examinations. However, in many of the student-led seminars and group discussions at the university level, it appears that they lack the conversational strategies and rely heavily only on a few discourse markers. This study will examine the use of “I think” among Hong Kong undergraduates through looking closely at the data collected in a group discussion activity in a university classroom. Conversation analysis, a rigorous and inductive spoken discourse analysis approach, will be used to study the data. Strengths and weaknesses of the CA application will be briefly discussed. The study will also explore some pedagogical implications that might provide some insights to English language teachers on teaching discussion skills.