A Communication Accommodation Analysis of Teacher-Student Interaction in an ESL Classroom

Abstract

During interactions in the classroom, most teachers and students make a conscious effort to avoid common mistakes in speaking of English language and therefore adopt certain strategies to communicate effectively. The study aims to determine the communication strategies teachers and students adopt to adjust their communication during classroom interaction. The study applies the Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT') to analyse teacher-student interactions in an ESL classroom. Data were sampled from 360 recordings of classroom teaching from three English teachers in a Senior High School in the Agona East District in Ghana. It was revealed that strategies such as convergence and divergence were adopted by both teachers and students for a smooth discourse.