Discussing two preferences associated with question-answer sequences, this study examines student responses to teacher questions in primary school English-as-a-foreign-language classes. The paper starts out with a reconsideration of institutional context, with a focus on classroom context from a conversation analysis perspective. We then introduce two generic preferences related to question-answer sequences: the preference for progressivity and the preference for a selected recipient to speak. Turning to our analyses of 22 primary school English classes in Japan, we found that unlike mundane conversation and some other contexts of institutional interaction, the participants prioritised the preference for a selected student to respond over the preference for progressivity, although the co-existence of the two preferences appeared to be context-free.