ABSTRACT
The rules of classroom order are not universally the same. They vary between teachers and indeed between different parts of the lesson. The switch-signal terminates the preparation phase, and its rules are no longer in play. Instead, the pay attention rule is brought into play: pupils must stop talking, listen to and look at the teacher. Pupils know which rules are in play because they know which phase they are in, though they would describe a phase in terms of the activity of that phase. Phases—and their rules—are changed by switch-signals, which are usually verbal statements made by the teacher. All this constitutes part of teachers' and pupils' common-sense knowledge of classrooms, and it is on this basis that members can make some deviance-imputations which invoke unstated rules which are known to be in play at particular points of time in the lesson.
