A social semiotic analysis of knowledge construction and games centred approaches to teaching

Background: Games centred approaches (GCA) such as TGfU, Game Sense, Tactical Games are widely promoted as alternatives to traditional forms of teaching games within physical education. These approaches are promoted on the basis of their capacity to engage students in meaningful and enjoyable physical activity and to promote problem-solving and decision-making. There is now a growing body of empirical research investigating the outcomes of such approaches in terms of tactical knowledge, enjoyment and motivation to play games, and a considerable theoretical literature that explains and develops models of practice. Questioning is promoted as a key learning strategy in negotiating tactical understandings and assisting students in decision-making. Examples of questioning sequences are frequently modelled in papers explaining how to teach games centred approaches. While there are considerable examples of how to teach games centred approaches there is a notable absence of research that investigates such approaches in the practice of actual lessons. Purpose: To argue for the value of a social semiotic approach for an analysis of lessons taught using a games centred approach. To demonstrate how a linguistically motivated social semiotic analysis provides the tools to test many of the assumptions and claims made for GCA by investigating practice in situ. In this paper this was illustrated through an analysis of the structure of questioning sequences as modeled in