Pedagogy of Appropriation: A Rhythmanalysis of a Flipped University ELT Classroom in China

There is little published information on rhythmic issues in the language teaching context, and the existing scholarship on ELT flipped classrooms suffers from a lack of robust theoretical scaffolding and qualitative interpretation. To address this gap, this study adopts a rhythmanalysis framework and an ethnographic approach to investigate rhythmic entanglement and pedagogical appropriation of a flipped ELT class in China. The findings indicate that the language classroom constitutes a polyrhythmic-entangled space. The rhythmic patterning at the initial stage of flipping was in a state of arrhythmia, mainly caused by a drastic change of teaching model and the strong impact of a traditional Chinese culture of learning. The teacher adopted two forms of rhythmanalytic therapy to rectify this disordered rhythm: implanting ideological and political education and embedding production-oriented activities. This research illustrates the importance of rhythmic exploration and the values of rhythmanalysis in ELT by illuminating the dynamic rhythm constellations and the antagonistic-unity relationships among various rhythms in a college English classroom. As the first study to employ rhythmanalysis in the Chinese college ELT context, it establishes a qualitative framework for detecting rhythmic influences on language classroom teaching and learning.