In this article, we extend previous work with respect to interrater reliability measure of computer-mediated conferencing and suggest coding categories relevant to problem-based learning. Calculating interrater reliability agreement by using a Transcript Reliability Cleaning Percentage (TRCP) approach is simple for academics with limited…

This critical discourse analysis focuses on neoliberal discursive representations of the community college mission. The community college's role in reproducing social inequality is explained as a neoliberal discursive project in which meanings of education are reconstituted to secure the interests of the powerful. As such, the community college…

This article analyses the Integrated Quality Management System (IQMS), an agreement reached in 2003 between the South African Education Department and the major teacher organisations in the country by using discourse analysis. The IQMS was scheduled to be implemented in public schools in 2004. Three discursive tensions are identified and…

There is now widely recognized support for classroom-based formative teacher assessment of student performance as a pedagogically desirable approach to assessment which is capable of promoting learning. However, the highly localized and socially co-constructed nature of this type of assessment has raised conceptual and research issues that…

Culture can be thought of a set of shared practices, beliefs, and values that are transmitted across generations through language [Bruner, J. (1990). "Acts of meaning". Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press]. Teaching is one way that culture is transmitted, but forms of teaching vary across cultures and across activity settings within…

This article examines some of the ways graduate students engage in interactive writing in online university courses as a means of discussion. In particular, I present data from course transcripts that suggest that discursive interaction in an asynchronous, text-based, online course may be uniquely suited to fostering higher-order thinking and…

This article presents a qualitative case study of a seven-year-old Mexican American student and his family. Using Critical Discourse Analysis, we examine both the child's emergent ideas about language, as expressed in bilingual literature discussions, and his parents' ideological discourses about the use of a minority language in public schools.…

One of the advantages of having students work in pairs on language-related tasks is that teachers and researchers can listen to what the students say as they carry out their assigned tasks. What they say offers insights into the students' beliefs about the target language they are learning and using, and reflects the cognitive processes they use…

This article describes the discourses working-class students at a university in Britain have about learning. The discourses include ideas about who is a good student, education as an investment, and marking. Students incorporate, in part, both neo-liberal and neo-conservative economic and political views into their perceptions of who should…

This article investigates the effect of 2 language-in-use factors on the introduction and maintenance of referents in instructive discourse. These factors, implemented as conditions in an instructive production task, were the assumed visual identity for the reader of the objects or referents to be referred to in the instructions (visually same vs.…

This article introduces a new analytical approach to the study of identity options offered in foreign and second language textbooks. This approach, grounded in poststructuralist theory and critical discourse analysis, is applied to 2 popular beginning Russian textbooks. Two sets of identity options are examined in the study: imagined learners…

This article compares ordinary conversational topics and targeted second language (L2) forms for their effectiveness in building and maintaining classroom discourse cohesion. In this study, 16 learners participated in 2 lessons, 1 with teacher turns determined by a grammatical object of instruction, and the other with turns determined by…

When the seminal article on the organization of turn-taking by Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson (1974) was published 30 years ago, I started learning English as a foreign language. In addition to being a learner of the English language for many years, I was also trained in the traditions of Conversation Analysis (CA) and linguistic anthropology…

One can ask four questions about genre validity across cultures. Does a certain form or configuration occur in the culture in question? Is it acceptable? If acceptable, is it in practice preferred? Is it recommended by prescriptive authorities? This paper reports the results of an attempt to answer these questions empirically by testing the…

Highlights identified patterns of pupil perception observed during an experimental study concerning 10-year-olds who were supporting one another in small groups of three as they were verbally preparing for an argumentative writing task. Exemplifies the perspective-taking strategies used by participants to assist each other and make themselves…