Higher Education

, Volume 54, Issue 6, pp 853–866 | Cite as

Researching and developing interdisciplinary teaching: towards a conceptual framework for classroom communication

Original Paper
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Abstract

Calls for teaching and learning that cross subject boundaries have been making themselves heard in recent Higher Education literature in different national contexts. Communication is pivotal in any such learning encounter: it is in the process of negotiating meaning across disciplines that its rewards and challenges lie. And yet, the question of what characterises interdisciplinary classroom communication in the sector is little researched and little understood. How such interaction differs from that in the monodisciplinary university classroom is under-theorised. Adapting Applied Linguistic theory in Intercultural Communicative Competence (Byram, M. (1997). Teaching and assessing intercultural communicative competence. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.) and drawing on a taxonomy of academic disciplines (Becher, T., & Trowler, P. R (2001). Academic tribes and territories.Buckingham: Society for Research in Higher Education/Open University Press.), the article proposes a model of Communicative Competence as a conceptual tool to shape thinking in developing and researching interdisciplinary teaching and learning in the university classroom.

Keywords

Applied linguistics Classroom communication Intercultural communicative competence Interdisciplinary Teaching and learning 
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Notes

Acknowledgements

Thanks are due to the many students whose comments have helped to shape our interdisciplinary teaching over the years; to the University of Manchester’s Curriculum Innovation Unit for their support of such interdisciplinary teaching and learning initiatives; and to the staff team, especially Julia McMorrow, Isobel Braidman, Susana Lorenzo and Caroline Bowsher.

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2006

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.University of ManchesterManchesterUK

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