• Part I. Teaching as Doing, Thinking and Interpreting: 1. The best laid plans: teacher's in-class decisions to depart from their lesson plans; 2. Hidden voices: insiders' perspectives on classroom interaction; 3. Teaching style: a way to understand instruction in language classrooms; Part II. Classroom Dynamics and Interaction: 4. In or out of the action zone: location as a feature of interaction in large ESL classes in Pakistan; 5. Reticence and anxiety in second language learning; 6. A window on the classroom: classroom events viewed from different angles; Part III. The Classroom and Beyond: 7. Socializing with the teachers and prior language learning experience: a diary study; 8. Sardo revisited: voice, faith, and multiple repeaters; 9. Language learning diaries as mirrors of students' cultural sensitivity; 10. I Want to Talk With Them, But I Don't Want Them to Hear; Part IV. Curricular Issues: 11. Curriculum renewal: an investigation into changes in learner and teacher behaviors in classrooms in the sultanate of Oman; 12. U.S. language minority students: voices from the junior high classroom; 13. Voices for improved learning: the ethnographer as co-agent of pedagogic change; 14. Registration and placement: learner response; Part V. Sociopolitical Perspectives: 15. Conflicting voices: language, classrooms, and bilingual education in Puno; 16. The functions of code-switching amongst high school teachers and students in KwaZulu and implications for teacher education; 17. Different languages, different practices: socialization of discourse competence in dual-language school classrooms in Hungary; Part VI. Implications for Teachers and Researchers: 18. Redefining the relationship between research and what teachers know; 19. The tapestry of diversity in our classrooms.

'None of the papers in this collection has been previously published elsewhere, which leads to a feeling of freshness about this collection, and a striking feature is the honesty with which some of the writers discuss the trials and tribulations of the naturalistic research process.' 'The book is also highly recommended for language teachers who wish to reflect on their own classrooms and gain affirmation of the important but often unrecognised work they do.' VATME Newsletter No 74, 1997