CONCEPTUALISING CLASSROOM INTERACTIONAL COMPETENCE

This article offers a preliminary conceptualisation of classroom interactional competence (CIC). Placing interaction at the centre of language learning, the paper considers the various practices available to both teachers and learners to enhance CIC and to produce classrooms which are more dialogic, more engaged and more focused on participation. Using a conversation analytic informed methodology, data extracts are presented to highlight specific features of CIC, relating to the ways in which space for learning is created and learner contributions ‘shaped’. I suggest that better understandings of these practices offer an alternative approach to enhancing learning and learning opportunity and highlight the need for a movement away from classroom decisions which are essentially materials -and methodology- based towards ones which are centred on spoken interaction.