Understanding the Dynamics of Classroom Communication

Conversational participants in the classroom are not ordinary conversationalists, but conversationalists in a pedagogical multiparty community. A different speech exchange system may produce different problems and different opportunities of sequential organisation when we shift our attention from ordinary conversation to a different speech-exchange system. Understanding the Dynamics of Classroom Communication provides much-needed descriptions of communication within language classrooms, which acknowledge the importance of what teachers and students bring to the class environment, as well as what actually occurs during face-to-face communication within the classroom. Using authentic, naturally-occurring data, this book offers new insights into the sequencing of patterns of interaction that occur between individuals engaged in dynamic co-participation beyond the properties of individual learner language. In the final chapter, some implications for Second Language Acquisition are also discussed.