ABSTRACT
Although much research in applied linguistics has focused on developing literacy skills across the disciplines, a limited emphasis has been placed on disciplinary-based classroom interaction in higher education, even though classroom interaction is a “central tool for teaching and learning” (Dippold, 2015, p. 12). To that end, this chapter presents partial findings of a larger ethnographic case study conducted over a four-year period in a second-year business course in Canada, a country which has increasing numbers of multilingual students. As group discussion is seen an integral part of students’ socialisation into business communication, the study focused on video-recorded footage of peer-led group discussion. The study examined peer participation through turn-taking sequences, and how the interaction facilitates students’ learning, communication, and social participation. Specifically, we analysed occasions of footing and frame shift (Goffman, 1974, 1981) to understand how students initiate, uptake, and respond to their peers for the purposes of generating a business communication assignment. Findings suggest the need for extending faculty’s understanding of dynamic interactions amongst students and to develop more explicit and inclusive models of plurilingual support for both Canadian students and mainstreamed multilingual students in disciplinary programmes.
