The Embodied Work of Teaching

The chapters in this volume build on a growing body of ethnomethodological conversation analytic research on teaching in order to enhance our empirical understandings of teaching as embodied, contingent and jointly achieved with students in the complex management of various courses of action and larger instructional projects. Together, the chapters document the embodied accomplishment of teaching by identifying specific resources that teachers use to manage instructional projects; demonstrate that teaching entails both alignment and affiliation work; and show the significance of using high-quality audiovisual data to document the sophisticated work of teaching. By providing analytic insight into the highly-specialized work of teaching, the studies make a significant contribution to a practice-based understanding of how the life of the classroom, as lived by its members, is accomplished.

Joan Kelly Hall is Professor of Applied Linguistics and Director of the Center for Research on English Language Learning and Teaching (CRELLT) at the Pennsylvania State University, USA. Her research centers on documenting the specialized interactional practices and actions of teaching-and-learning found in instructional settings. Her most recent book is Essentials of SLA for L2 Teachers: A Transdisciplinary Framework (2019, Routledge).

Stephen Daniel Looney is an Associate Teaching Professor in Applied Linguistics and Director of the International Teaching Assistant (ITA) Program in the Department of Applied Linguistics at the Pennsylvania State University, USA. His research takes a conversation analysis approach to analyzing teacher-student interaction in university STEM classrooms. He is an associate editor for the International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.