Interactional Meaning-Making in Classroom Discourse: A Conversation Analytical Study of Islamic Education

Abstract

Background: This research uses conversation analysis (CA) to explore interactional meaning-making in Islamic education classrooms, defining learning as an interactional and social achievement rather than knowledge transmission. This study identifies sequential discourse organization, examines IRF sequences during conceptual difficulties, investigates repair practices, and analyzes student participation. Methodology: This qualitative CA study analyzed four audio-recorded classroom sessions at a state Islamic junior secondary school in Manado, Indonesia, involving three teachers across Fiqh, Qur’an–Hadith, and Aqidah Akhlak. The transcribed corpus comprised approximately 80 minutes of interaction across Grade IX and X, conducted primarily in Bahasa Indonesia, including question–answer sequences, discussions, and student presentations. Findings: Classroom discourse was generally organized through Initiation-Response-Feedback (IRF) sequences functioning as a consistent participation framework. Sequences extended through requests for clarification, reformulation, and contrastive questions when students hesitated or showed partial understanding. Repair practices, initiated by teachers or performed independently by students, served as a key mechanism for minimizing misunderstanding and aligning epistemic perspectives. Student contributions expanded locally following teacher prompts without implying general development of interactional competence. Conclusion: These findings support meaning-making as an interactional accomplishment mediated through Bahasa Indonesia in subject-matter classrooms, with implications for interactional competence and academic oral literacy-focused discourse-based pedagogy. Originality: Few Conversation Analysis studies have examined subject-matter classrooms in Islamic education, where religious content is negotiated in a turn-by-turn manner. Specifically, how third-turn design calibrates doctrinal precision, how repair trajectories unfold when the trouble source is doctrinal rather than linguistic, and how textual authority (Qur’an, Hadith) warrants expanded participation remain unaddressed. This study addresses that this gap by showing how IRF, repair, and participation operate when the object of talk is religious rather than general curricular knowledge.