Classroom explanatory discourse: A look at how teachers explain things to their students

In language teaching, explaining is a central part of any teacher's work, but one that perhaps has not received much attention. For both teacher and learner, trying to give effective explanations is difficult and although there has been a long tradition of research into classroom language of both teachers and students, there is little on when and how teachers explain. Based on a variety of recorded classroom data, this paper seeks to define and describe explanations and to suggest that teacher talk in the form of explanations can be a source of valuable language input for learners.