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Lookup NU author(s): Professor Paul SeedhouseORCiD
Recent communicative approaches have suggested that one goal of English language teaching should be to replicate ‘genuine’ or ‘natural’ rather than ‘typical’ or ‘traditional’ classroom communication. This article argues that such a goal is both paradoxical and unattainable, and that there are serious flaws in the assumptions underlying the communicative orthodoxy concerning ELT classroom interaction. It also argues that it would be more satisfactory to take an institutional discourse approach, where classroom discourse is regarded as an institutional variety of discourse, in which interactional elements correspond neatly to institutional goals.
Author(s): Seedhouse P
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: ELT Journal
Year: 1996
Volume: 50
Issue: 1
Pages: 16-24
Date deposited: 17/04/2008
ISSN (print): 0951-0893
ISSN (electronic): 1477-4526
Publisher: Oxford University Press
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/elt/50.1.16
DOI: 10.1093/elt/50.1.16
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