Applying Global Perspectives on ELT Classroom Interaction to Current Issues in Language Teaching

Abstract

The classroom is a complex social setting that hosts a multitude of teaching and learning phenomena (e.g. Chaudron 1988; Leander 2002). Teachers spend many hours before lessons identifying learning objectives and designing classroom activities. These objectives and activities are realised and carried out in, and through, talk and interaction (e.g. Hall et al. 2011). That is to say, teachers and students co-construct an understanding of teaching and learning in situ, and these instances of co-construction may or may not be aligned with intended pedagogical objectives (Seedhouse 2001, 2004, 2010; van Lier 1988). Furthermore, educational roles and relationships shape how interaction unfolds, and institutional constraints, such as available resources and teacher–student ratios, challenge the type of talk that is possible (see Hall and Walsh 2002).