This study explores the field of ESL (English as a Second Language) classroom learning within a
formal learning institution. Influenced by the sociocultural theory in SLA (Second Language
Acquisition) the book sheds light on the question that has been boggling the minds of language
practitioners and researchers: Why is ESL classroom talk the way it is? Based on a case study
of a school in an ESL community it argues persuasively that classroom talk may be linked in
important ways to an operative sociocultural structure of ESL pedagogy over and above the
classroom at the institutional level. The book examines issues which have here-to-fore been
avoided by writers and researchers in current SLA writings and classroom studies. It confronts
complex and complicated contextual and research methodological issues to make visible what has
up to now been that elusive structure behind the oral practices in language classrooms.
Research methods are drawn from language education and several disciplines within linguistics
and the social sciences. Emerging from a multidisciplinary methodological framework are a
number of surprising revelations about the meanings and functions of ESL classroom talk.
