This article focuses on the use of display questions to construct positive identities in post observation feedback talk between in-service English language teachers and a supervisor. Using a linguistic ethnographic framework, microanalysis of dyadic feedback interaction is supplemented with ethnographic data gathered from participant perspective…

This paper aims to show how the Goffman frame perspective can be used in an analysis of school and education and how it can be combined, in such analysis, with the frame factor perspective. The latter emphasizes factors that are determined outside the teaching process, while the former stresses how actors organize their experiences and define…

There is a missing link between our understanding of teaching as high-level social phenomenon and teaching as a physiological phenomenon of brain activity. We suggest that the science of human interaction is the missing link. Using over one-million days of human-behavior data, we have discovered that "collective activenes" (CA), which indicates…

Studies of primary education within the UK have shown that small groups can feature within classrooms; however, equivalent research within secondary education remains scarce. Research has established effective group work approaches, yet secondary teachers may encounter difficulties employing approaches tied to parameters embedded within primary…

Much pedagogic research undertaken in geography and other disciplines relies on post-hoc methods such as surveys or interviews to investigate the student experience of higher education (often based on self-reports of behaviour). However, observation of students provides a far more direct route to obtain information about their behaviour, and there…

In this paper I focus on sequences of interaction among youth where the participants engage in classroom related activities (such as spelling, discussion of essays, etc.). My paper is based on interactional and ethnographic data collected among youth in two different leisure contexts. I discuss how the participants by employment of various…

The article addresses how farmers learn to appropriate the gaze of the "new farmer", by describing how farmers and advisers in the field discursively construct farmland under scrutiny for inclusion in government support schemes. Based on the findings, recommendations for successful agricultural extension are presented. The methodological…

The Developing Families Project-South Africa (DFP-SA) is a community-based model of education and training for the care, support and education of vulnerable children birth-to-three and their caregivers, guardians and families in rural and peri-urban townships. The approach fosters interactive learning among community members about early care and…

This paper discusses interactional patterns in classrooms in primary school in rural Tanzania, based on an ethnographic study on literacy practices. The paper argues that the official policy of Swahili-only in primary school, together with the huge gap between high expectations on educational outcome and lack of resources, have resulted in the…

Nine teacher educators in their first three years as tenure-track professors in an education faculty established a self-study group in 2006-2007. These professors met once a month to link their teaching and service to scholarship through the self-study of teacher education practices. In addition, members met in pairs or small groups to develop…

Much of this annual report of the Scottish Council for Research in Education consists of lists and reports, including names of officials, budget, titles of dissertations of Scottish university students, and titles of published articles relating to the Council. Two of these articles are included in the report. One describes methods of observing…

Recently, there is a growing interest in the automatic analysis of learner activity in web-based learning environments. The approach and system SIAM (System for Interaction Analysis by Machine learning) presented in this article aims at helping to establish a basis for the automatic analysis of interaction data by developing a data logging and…

Examines some characteristics of "Mm," in particular its variants, as a weak acknowledging token, a continuer, and a weak assessment within the Australian context. Findings indicate that the most common "Mm" is best characterized as an acknowledging object used to mark unproblematic receipt of the immediately prior talk and no…

This case study is an inquiry about feedback in the context of professional development. It tells the story of the feedback process between a teacher and his colleague as they work with a group of adolescent science students. The entire process is reported in a day-to-day description of the interaction between the two men: (1) "Beginning the…

Describes an approach to helping trainee teachers in England ask questions effectively in the English second language classroom. The approach is based on a method of categorizing questions intended to systematically show the main options and to lead naturally towards a consciousness-raising discussion of important aspects of teacher-student…