Classroom Interaction

A social interaction perspective on classroom interaction studies the mechanisms teachers and students use to conduct their classroom business. This article on classroom interaction first discusses the ways teachers and students have organized turn‐taking and the ways they use their turns at talk to engage in classroom activities. One particularly important format for these activities is the action sequences of teacher initiation, student response, and teacher evaluation of that response (the IRE sequence). Next it addresses two strands of classroom interaction research that particularly aim to relate classroom practices to larger societal issues such as modes of production (critical research) and ethnic and linguistic diversity (diversity research). Finally, the article contains a detailed discussion of recent research of learning in interaction

Designing for dialogue in place of teacher talk and student silence

Abstract Research in classrooms reveals that the institution of school is not an empty slate, but rather is characterized by peculiar patterns of interaction which tend to be short exchanges directed by the teacher. Language teachers who wish children to learn language by participating in extended meaningful conversation, then, must consciously resist institutionally defined ‘teacher talk’. In this paper we examine a case of extended conversation in a dual-language kindergarten for clues as to how the teacher and children were able to negotiate alternative ways of engaging each other in a conversation. The purpose of the paper is to reveal both challenges and approaches for teachers to design real-life conversations in a traditional school where rigid ‘teacher talk ’ dominates the classroom discourse. Key Words classroom discourse, dialogue, dual language, intersubjectivity, teacher tal