Social Interaction in Language Teacher Education

A data-led examination of the interactions that take place in language teacher education Combining corpus linguistics and discourse analysis, this book draws on a range of spoken and written data collected from a variety of contexts. It explores interaction in pre- and in-service education programmes and analyses the spoken and written interactions of teachers with varying levels of experience who are adopting a range of modes of interaction. Both face-to-face and online modes of computer-mediated communication are explored. In doing so, the book provides examples of how data can be approached and used to uncover social-interactional themes and issues, in relation to language teacher education and as a micro-context of social interaction in general. With coverage of both theory and practice, this book is a key resource for educators and postgraduate students, in areas such as second language teacher education, TESOL, cross-cultural communication, sociology, philology, as well as discourse analysts. Key features - Provides insight into social interaction in the notoriously private world of language teacher education - Adopts empirical, corpus-based approaches to data analysis, bringing quantitative and qualitative dimensions to the data descriptions - Includes interactional tasks at the end of each chapter to consolidate understanding and encourage reflection - Draws on a number of modes of interaction including face-to-face lectures, tutorials, practice, feedback and online modes of computer-mediated communication, including blogs, discussion forums and chat Fiona Farr is Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics/TESOL at the University of Limerick. Angela Farrell is Course Director of the MA TESOL programme at the University of Limerick. Elaine Riordan is a lecturer in TESOL at the University of Limerick.

Fiona Farr has been Lecturer in English Language Teaching since 2002 and is currently also Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs in the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Limerick.