ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses principle of contingency, which as a synthesis of conversation analysis and sociocultural theory. For conversation analysts, contingency is what we experience and manage on a daily basis. Each moment in a pedagogical encounter can present simultaneous happenings, point to an unexpected direction, or propose an illusion worth sustaining. Much of managing contingency in the classroom then involves managing multiparty turn-taking. Observe this from an adult ESL classroom: the teacher is eliciting the understanding of the noun produce. While conversation analysis offers both the visions and tools to appreciate the nature of contingency in great interactional details, sociocultural theory directs our attention to what that means for learning. By bringing together a theory of social interaction on the one hand and one of learning and development on the other, as such, we are empowered to discover and create with greater efficacy moments where the teacher plays off, and builds on, the children's responses.
