When the tokens talk: IRE and the position of acknowledgement tokens in teacher-student talk-in-interaction

In classroom settings, students` competence is regularly evaluated through a default practice named Initiation-Response-Feedback (IRF) or Initiation-Response-Evaluation (IRE). In the feedback or evaluation turn, the teacher normally uses acknowledgement tokens (such as uhm, yeah, okay). These tokens perform an active role of maintaining listenership as well as helping the speakers to buy the necessary time to prepare the right answers or expressions, especially in 'response' (R) turns. The aim of this paper is to study how the 'acknowledgement tokens' are placed within the framework of teacher-nominated IRF sequences and to explore the recognizable pattern of 'okay' responses within an IRF framework. The findings suggest an interesting distribution of these tokens, especially with the classifications of 'strong acknowledgement tokens' (such as: yeah or okay) and 'passive recipiency tokens' (such as: uhm, uhhm, or hmm). Moreover, the findings suggest that the usage of 'ok' responses invites further talk as well as an imminent closure. The findings of this study could be used to create a learner-friendly and inclusive classroom.