The present study explores the ways in which peers take up a teacher-like discourse to enforce normative uses of language in a classroom, effectively socializing one another to the institutional use of English which in turn signals class membership. Such an uptake of teacher-like discourses and practices can be characterized as subteaching…

This article reports on a multiple-case study designed to investigate factors influencing willingness to communicate (WTC) in the English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom in China. Four university students participated in this study; data were collected through semi-structured interviews, learning journals recorded by the students, and…

In this article, we examine the relationship between classroom talk, teacher-student roles and paradigms for literacy and learning in two ninth-grade English Language Arts classes. Our goal was to understand how these roles and practices socialized students into norms for academic language and literacy as they read and wrote poetry in preparation…

Both faculty and students at many colleges and universities report numerous incidents of disruptive and uncivil behaviour. However, studies show that faculty are often reluctant to confront these situations, or they feel ill-equipped to intervene. If the behaviour escalates, a disproportionate amount of time and effort can be spent trying to…

Pedagogical strategies are policies for a tutor to decide the next action when there are multiple actions available. When the content is controlled to be the same across experimental conditions, there has been little evidence that tutorial decisions have an impact on students' learning. In this paper, we applied Reinforcement Learning (RL) to…

Direct instruction, an approach that is becoming familiar to Queensland schools that have high Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations, has been gaining substantial political and popular support in the United States of America [USA], England and Australia. Recent examples include the No Child Left Behind policy in the USA, the British…

In this study, we examined the types and the frequencies of questions and explanations exchanged between four teachers and their students in fourth-grade mathematics classes, across two years. Specifically, we observed these classes for one week in two separate, consecutive years; in the first year, they all employed a traditional curriculum,…

This essay presents the theoretical framework and main results of a research on intercultural mediation which has been performed in eight multicultural classrooms of Italian secondary schools. Intercultural mediation is conceived as a form of dialogic communication which should empower empathic and equal relationships between the participants by…

This is an instrumental case study and consists of the description, analysis and interpretation of the teaching practices of a Spanish college instructor. The aim of this research project is to find answers to the following questions: What is the ratio of L1-L2 spoken in class? For what functions is each language used? And, are there…

Previous research on the effectiveness of clickers has found their use to be positively associated with exam scores but not without methodological issues that hinder the conclusions that can be drawn. To address these limitations, the current studies isolated the effects of clickers from the effects of questions presented with clickers. Study 1…

This paper reports on the work of a teacher-researcher collaborative group in the UK, who explored the idea of 'a dialogic approach' to classroom interaction and examined its relationship to use of the interactive whiteboard (IWB) in orchestrating classroom talk. We focus on how the co-inquiry process within this group led to the articulation of…

This article examines the role of language policies in mediating access and equity in education. By examining a range of research and case studies on language policies, the authors explore how educational language policies serve as a central gatekeeper to education itself, as well as to quality education that may fundamentally depend on language…

Poor results in Queensland Year Three NAPLAN Numeracy tests have provided a focus to critically review the classroom practices of lower primary mathematics teachers. This paper outlines how pedagogical content knowledge can be strengthened by emphasising conceptual understanding, by utilising dynamic classroom discourse, by an awareness of…

The multiliteracies approach to literacy education has become established as an accessible and effective paradigm for classroom practice in the 21st century. The Multiliteracies Classroom enlivens this theory with its vivid description of events in a real classroom. Teachers will identify with the lively transcripts of classroom interactions, and…

Academic success depends heavily on students' ability to acquire information, but expository texts are difficult to process and comprehend, particularly for students with language difficulties. Support can be provided through instructional discourse, the interactive adult-student conversations that scaffold comprehension and content learning. This…