From dialogue to multilogue: a different view on participation in the English foreign‐language classroom

Drawing on the methodological framework of conversational analysis, this paper explores aspects of the participation structure of teacher‐fronted plenary interaction in the English foreign‐language classroom. The analysis is demonstrated along six transcribed sequences of video‐recorded interactions of adolescent English‐language learners in a German secondary classroom (‘Hauptschule’). The data were collected over a period of two years. The focus of this article is on teacher–student interaction in whole‐class settings, which can be seen as a basic participation framework of language teaching and a starting point for other settings like pair or group work activities. In order to describe such a framework of participation, I will argue for a slightly different understanding of it that evolves into the term ‘multilogue’; that is, pedagogical intended face‐to‐face interaction including more than two participants.

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