Why This Book Now?

Many potential readers picking up this volume will surely know the rich body of scholarship in the area of classroom discourse, (Cazden, 1988; Cole & Zuengler, 2007; Erickson, 1996; Green & Wallat, 1981; Hester & Francis, 2000; Mehan, 1979; Newman et al., 1989; Nystrand, 1997; Sinclair & Coulthard, 1975; Wells, 1999; among others) and may wonder why they might read yet another study of classroom discourse. Many of those same potential readers will also know that the bulk of the research on classrooms has focused on interaction between the classroom teacher and students. This research has made invaluable contributions to understanding the discourse structures of teacher-led classroom interaction and the relationships between language, teaching and learning. However, because of its focus on the teacher-student cohort interactions (but see Fisher, 1993, 1994; Markee, 2000; Ohta, 2001a, 2001b; among others), this research has not been able to show the turn-by-turn detail of students' interactions with one another and with the subject matter content nor how these interactions lead to learning over time. The lack of focus on learner-learner interaction and development over time has been, for the most part, because of technological limitations.

The vision behind the National Labsite for Adult ESOL (Reder et al., 2003) led technical innovations that allowed for the collection of almost four thousand hours of video recordings of adult ESOL classroom interaction. While some (including the researchers leading the projects) questioned the efficacy of such a massive data collection project (four consecutive years), the rewards are becoming evident as the research findings become public (Brillanceau, 2005; Harris, 2005; Hellermann, 2005b, 2007; Reder, 2005).

The philosophy behind the massive data collection is part of the foundation for the perspective on research and classroom language learning that is taken in this book.