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 teacherstudent 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.