Managing Competing Voices in the Second Language Classroom

Abstract

Existing literature on classroom discourse has highlighted the relatively constrained nature of turn-taking in the classroom as compared with that in ordinary conversation. Less attention has been paid to understanding how problems intrinsic to the classroom turn-taking machinery are dealt with. Based on 30-hour videotaped data from nine adult classrooms teaching English as a second language, this conversation analytic study details how the “chaos” of competing voices in response to teacher elicitations is managed in situ. Findings of this study extend our current understanding of (classroom) turn-taking and constitute a potentially important resource for broadening and specifying language teacher education.

Acknowledgments

As always, I thank the ESL teachers and students for their generosity in letting my camera into their classroom space. Thanks also to Santoi Wagner for reading and offering helpful comments on an earlier version of this article. My grasp of the literature is clearer and my analysis cleaner because of the insights and expertise of the three anonymous reviewers. Finally, I am grateful to Paul Drew, an associate editor, for guiding the process with kindness and professionalism.