Some Issues in Analyzing Classroom Interaction: An Interview with Deborah Poole

Abstract

Some Issues in Analyzing Classroom Interaction: An Interview with Deborah Poole David Olsher University of California, Los Angeles PROFILE Deborah Poole is an Associate Professor in the departments of Linguistics & Oriental Languages and Rhetoric & Writing Studies at San Diego State Univer­ sity. She began researching the discourse of classrooms while earning her Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics at the University of Southern California and has studied both junior high school social studies classes and E S L classrooms at the university level. Her work on the junior high classes has focused on testing and test review activities, including the ways test performance affects the interactional differentia­ tion of students, and the view of knowledge which is constructed and displayed in testing events. Her work on E S L classrooms has explored the ways the talk of many E S L teachers in the U.S. is similar to the language used by middle class American caregivers. Her current interests include the interaction of speaking and writing in classroom literacy events, and classroom discourse patterns in non-En­ glish speaking environments. In the last several years she has also been actively involved in the area of intersegmental articulation (i.e., the continuity between segments of public high-school, adult school, community college, and state uni­ versity) as it affects the English language learners of California. INTRODUCTION This interview explores the research paradigms Dr. Poole has found useful in her research of classroom discourse as well as her insights into cross-cultural classroom interaction and the differences between L I and L 2 classrooms. Dr. Poole discusses her current interest in using the notion of the literacy event for understanding the interdependence of spoken language and written texts in class­ room discourse. Dr. Poole also discusses the need for close interactional study of E S L classrooms as well as non-English medium classrooms across a variety of cultures. INTERVIEW Olsher: You've done a lot of research in language classrooms and drawn on vari­ ous literature of classroom research, discourse analysis, and anthropology. Can you comment on the way you draw from various research paradigms? Issues in Applied Linguistics © Regents of the University of California ISSN 1050-4273 Vol. 7 No. 2 1996297-307