In this article, the author discusses the influence of conversations in the shaping of a person's life. He shares how some of the voices he heard early in his life, specifically those of his mother and his local pastor, had a profound impact on his life. These were conversations that taught him the value of doing the best that he could and of the…

Teachers may resist the notion of teaching as a performance but his or her voice, gestures, and movement in the classroom can help or harm student attentiveness. Strong skills in voice and movement can help illuminate a teacher's questions and ideas for students, drawing attention to what matters, holding their attention through a long class, and…

In this article we present an instrument to be used by students and professors to evaluate classroom dialogue. We begin with an explanation of the classroom community of inquiry and why we value it as a pedagogical approach. We then describe our different reasons for evaluating classroom dialogue--including institutional, professional and…

The primary purpose of this study was to examine the effects of performance cues on beginning indoor rock climbers. A secondary purpose was to create a content analysis for the skill of indoor rock climbing. The utility of performance cues has been demonstrated from a pedagogical perspective in traditional physical activity settings. However, no…

Correction and repair as components of an instructional practice that facilitates learning have figured prominently in research on classroom-based second and foreign language learning. Recent studies incorporating a conversation analytic (CA) perspective on second language acquisition (SLA) have also focused on repair and correction. From a CA…

Research and practice in the use of electronic voting systems has developed over the last five years. Electronic voting systems, also known as personal response systems, audience response systems or classroom communication systems, use handsets to elicit responses from students as part of structured teaching sessions, typically lectures. The use…

Instructors of college/university writing classes commonly ask their students to "share their ideas" in groups. This paper aims to describe the sequential structures of a kind of talk typical to group work: students presenting "reports" about early written drafts. Specifically, the data analysis in this paper looks at how a student's report…

This paper is concerned with "match-mismatch" problems. In particular it seeks to match students' questioning to different modes of teaching in undergraduate chemistry. Kolb's theory of experiential learning is used to bridge between learners' questioning and teaching formats. Three case studies illuminate both sets of characteristics, the…

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) has consistently recognized communication as essential to reform-oriented mathematics teaching (NCTM 1991, 2000). In this article, the authors propose a strategic mix of univocal and dialogic discourse that, when used in conjunction with an "inductive model of teaching," can promote…

In this article, we examine the ways in which identities within a classroom are not given, but are formulated in and through the developing discourses, practices and ways of structuring interactional spaces for collective and individual activity. Using an interactional ethnographic approach, we explore how potentials for developing local…

This article discusses the usefulness of anecdotes as a technique to stimulate learners' interest and thus create a meaningful learning context in the second language classroom. It describes the pattern of an anecdote and how it should be formed as well as the different types of anecdotes. The article offers tips to successfully implement this…

This article examines the communication barriers and relationships between hearing and non-hearing college students in a classroom setting. Twelve college students, six female and six males, between 18 and 22 years of age took part in this ethnographic study during a sixteen week course in public speaking, conducted at the University of Colorado,…

The author reports on perceptions of East Asian international graduate students (EAGS) regarding active classroom participation, as revealed through two focus group interviews with 15 EAGS at a large Midwestern research university in the U.S. The findings indicate that most EAGS shared similar views with their university instructors and American…

The paper problematises student writing as social practice from the perspective of lecturers' discursive practices. The paper uses data from a major study at a higher learning institution in Tanzania to explore lecturers' discursive practices and familiarity with the university orders of discourse including English medium of instruction, in…

Africa's educational systems are undergoing a quiet revolution. As these systems move away from working exclusively in the old colonial languages, usually English or French, bilingual schools which use local indigenous languages are springing up in many regions of Africa. This paper points out the historical processes driving the bilingual…