The negotiation of knowledge in an adult English as a second language classroom

Abstract

This article examines how a linguistically based analysis of conversational structure can reveal the relationship between teachers and students in an adult English as a Second Language (ESL) classroom and how they negotiate their roles as knowers and knowledge providers at various stages of a teaching cycle. Recent research within an Interactional/Sociolinguistic paradigm (Gumperz, 1986) into the structure of classroom discourse has focussed on patterns of talk that challenge previous notions of student and teacher roles as unvarying across stages of the curriculum. Further work being done within an educational linguistic paradigm in Australia, as well as the United States, has identified that curriculum activity is structured into pedagogically distinct stages, each with characteristic discourse features. This study uses a functional linguistic analytical methodology, grounded within a social semiotic theory, in order to complement the perspectives of Interactional/Sociolinguistic studies into classroom discourse. In this article, a conversational structure analysis will be used to examine how knowledge is differentially negotiated between teachers and adult ESL students at various stages of a curriculum cycle.