This study investigated the extent to which preschool teachers and children (ages 4-6) used literal and inferential language within the context of whole-group instruction in four kindergarten classrooms in Hong Kong. A total of 20 sessions of videotaped classroom observations of linguistic interactions between teachers and children were…

Within current educational discourse, dialogic pedagogy is diametrically opposed to "teaching to the test", especially the high-stakes standardised test. While dialogic pedagogy is about critical thinking, authenticity and freedom, test preparation evokes all that is narrow, instrumental and cynical in education. In this paper, we argue…

This study explores the concept of link-making in relation to communicative strategies applied in the teaching and studying of biological evolution. The analysis focused on video recordings of 11 lessons on biological evolution conducted in a Swedish 9th grade class of students aged 15 years. It reveals how the teacher and students connected…

This study examined how classroom discourse evolved in a gifted class and compared it with a non-gifted class at the same year level. The following features of classroom discourse were examined: Initiation-Response-Follow up (IRF) patterns, teacher and student questions, and teacher revoicing. To conduct the study, audiorecordings of classroom…

We contend that the classroom-discourse routine of IRE/F (teacher initiation, student response, teacher evaluation/follow-up) is a genre of argumentation that is both collaborative and implicit because teachers and students cooperate during IRE/F exchanges not only to make and mirror knowledge claims but also to suppress justification for those…

We theorize about ambiguity in mathematical communication and define a certain subset of ambiguous language usage as imprecise. For us, imprecision in classroom mathematics discourse hinders in-the-moment communication because the instance of imprecision is likely to create inconsistent interpretations of the same statement among individuals. We…

Naming all the tragedies in the world is, sadly, an impossible task. When and how do teachers talk about tragic events in the classroom? This is a question every teacher has grappled with. Classrooms are beautiful, peaceful havens for students. And yet, students do not exist solely within these classrooms. Schools exist in the context of a world…

Nowadays, most universities have policies for internationalization, and in such policies, attention is increasingly given to internationalization as an aspect of students' learning. However, there have so far been limited efforts to study how such student-centered internationalization can be carried out in practice. This article explores linkages…

This essay emerges from my position as a new trainee teacher, entering my first school, a school as unique and also as typical as any. What struck me was the complexity of the school's culture (and counter-cultures). Language was revealed as a site of resistance, a clash between staff and pupils at the point of instruction; a reluctance to read or…

This article is about language corrections in Israeli Hebrew-speaking primary classrooms. The ideological significance of language corrections, particularly within the highly contested context of Israeli society and Modern Hebrew, underlies the current study. Teachers in Israeli, Hebrew-speaking classes were found to frequently correct not only…

This study explores language choice patterns during group work of bilingual pupils (Turkish-Dutch) in two mainstream primary schools in Flanders (Belgium). In each school, a group of four children performed eight different tasks, related to different subjects of the curriculum. During task performance, they were exceptionally invited to use their…

Lecturing is widely considered to be a passive, teacher-centred teaching method that fails to foster learning, yet it remains the most feasible method of teaching among higher institutions. Some modern lectures, aligned with recommendations from published guidelines on effective lecturing, are less didactic and more interactive than others, but…

Social motivations of young adolescents are strongly influenced by differing levels of social achievement goals, which in turn are affected by a number of factors. Specifying these factors, especially those effective on achievement, can help improve conditions for learning. A thorough approach would include a generalisable pattern of behaviour to…

The paper aims to explore the dental English for Specific Purposes (ESP) students' perceptions of the ESP material and its influence on their English proficiency in the dentistry department of a Saudi Arabian university. The study adopts a qualitative technique of semi-structured interviews to elicit the views of 12 purposively chosen…

This article uses a classroom experience to exemplify ways in which students as social beings learn English as a foreign language in Colombia and how the teacher uses "trans[cultura]linguación". This is a process of making meaning during English-learning tasks while comparing specific linguistic variations as students learn about both…