As social creatures, humans relate to one another in environments that are created through interactions with one another. Because these environments are created through one's communication and interaction, they may be called verbal environments. With a renewed interest among educators in children's self-perceptions and the development of social…

This discussion paper highlights a number of themes emerging from contemporary research into teaching with whole-class interactive technologies. Focusing particularly on the contributions to this special issue, the paper considers the significance of whole-class interactive technologies (primarily interactive whiteboards) with respect to the use…

Learning to conduct interactive classroom discussions is a high priority for becoming an effective teacher, and most teachers view conducting productive classroom discussions as a complex undertaking. Because the dynamics of facilitating classroom discussions are multifaceted and hard to analyze in real time, there is a growing interest in how…

An outcome of science education is that young people have the understandings and skills to participate in public debate and make informed decisions about science issues that influence their lives. Toulmin's argumentation skills are emerging as an effective strategy to enhance the quality of evidence based decision making in science classrooms. In…

This paper reports on developing research into the learning potential of extended talk, (i.e. either spoken monologue or an extended turn-in dialogue). Despite a widespread belief that the ability to speak at length is personally, socially and professionally empowering, relatively little research has been undertaken into ways in which extended…

This paper is principally about methodology. It first summarizes five issues in the emerging research agenda of conversation analysis-for-second language acquisition (CA-for-SLA), and develops empirically based analyses of classroom talk that occurs over several days and months to illustrate how a longitudinal learning behavior tracking (LBT)…

It is not unusual to find elaborate schemes for compelling and assessing class participation. Although participation can take many forms, in practice it is most synonymous with discussion, which, at its core, is about student engagement. But with what should the students be engaged? When we make class participation a requirement and assess it,…

This study examines effective ways for teachers to interact with students when they are working collaboratively. Through prolonged daily engagement with one class of students working in groups, the nature and experience of one teacher's interventions are documented using practitioner action research. Specifically, small-group dynamics and teacher…

This research examines predictors of uncivil classroom behavior. Uncivil behaviors are disrespectful and disruptive and may include carrying on conversations with others during class, leaving class early, talking on cell phones, etc. Data from a survey of undergraduate students revealed that students who possessed a consumerism orientation,…

Background: Research on teacher-student relationships has focused logically on classroom talk. Investigations of classroom talk range from broad consideration of the structures of such talk to a somewhat narrower focus on the interpersonal dimensions of such talk, and their consequences for student achievement and motivation. Purpose: This study…

The present paper reports on an approximate replication of Foster's (1998) study on the negotiation of meaning. Foster investigated the interactional adjustments produced by L2 English learners working on different types of language learning tasks in a classroom setting. The replication study duplicates the methods of data collection and data…

Taking broadly sociocultural or sociolinguistic perspectives, the five contributions to this special issue investigate various aspects of the co-construction of knowledge, as this is manifested in K-16 classrooms in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. While the authors of these papers address different educational settings, student…

Classroom discourse is structured by socially accepted ways in which knowledge is presented and by established procedures for carrying out educational activities. However, the underlying linguistic and social ground rules are usually implicit, for students as well as for teachers. The implicitness of these ground rules has been attributed to…

This paper uses methods from conversation analysis to investigate a well-documented practice from mundane conversation (self-initiated self-repair) as it is accomplished during the interactions of one adult learner of English. The interactions took place during her classroom talk-in-interaction over the course of 18 months. The research describes…

This article aims to share with teacher-educators a pedagogical proposal which we have applied in the past year. This investigation analyzes issues linked to critical pedagogy using movies connected to educational themes and readings based on critical pedagogy. We have used this study to generate class discussions in order to analyze educational…