Describes the Human Communication Research Centre Dialogue Database. The database consists of over 700 transcribed and coded dialogues from pairs of speakers aged from 7-14. The speakers are recorded over 2 years while tackling cooperative problem-solving tasks, and the same pairs of speakers are recorded over 2 years tackling 10 different…

This article argues that "triadic dialogue" (Lemke, 1990), much criticized in the past, has an important role to play in L2 learning and that its effectiveness should be judged in accordance with the particular pedagogical goals that it is made to serve. Drawing on three recent studies of L2 classrooms in a variety of instructional settings, the…