Appropriate methodologies for investigating classroom discourse

Prof. Steve Walsh
Newcastle University and The University of Hong Kong

Abstract:
The classroom as a site of institutional interaction has been the source of much attention and empirical study. Researchers have struggled for more than forty years in an attempt to capture what is ‘really happening’ in classroom interaction. As Kumaravadivelu (1999:454) observes, classrooms are the ‘crucible where the prime elements of education all mix together’; understanding the interactional processes which come together in that crucible is central to any serious educational research. Latterly, more and more corpora of classroom interaction have emerged and these have been studied in dierent ways, both quantitative and qualitative. In this talk, I evaluate the various approaches to studying corpora of classroom interaction, including conversation analysis, interaction analysis, discourse analysis, critical discourse analysis and corpus linguistics. Drawing on empirical classroom interaction data, I will assess the relative merits and shortcomings of the various approaches and look at the ways in which our understandings can dier according to which approach we adopt. I will also scope out the usefulness of combined approaches to analysis so as to appraise which combinations optimise our understanding for educational goals.