Its the new year and time for a thorough spring clean. On the surface it seemed like an onorous task however after 4 years of study, I have a much clearer idea of what is important and what is not. On that basis alone I am able to dispose of a host of journal articles that now bear little or no relevance to my studies and furthermore, reassess the material that continues to have a degree of validity. The real difficulties now reside in breadth and depth of my analysis. The data represent something in the region of 10 hrs (out of a total of 24hrs) of transcribed and translated interaction. Each of the extracts (a total in excess of 70) is related to multiple semotic fields and are therefore dense and complicated. The task then is to devise an appropraite strategy for analysis and discriminating between social actions (at the level of micro-ethnography) and the detailed mechanisms of interaction (at the level of pure Conversation Analysis). In these terms, the data is to be understood in terms of coherent social actions and procedures. Once a series of patterns have been identified there is then the possibility to assess a select number of episodes in the fine detail associated with CA. A long and tortuous process.

Amongst the journal articles that I considered appropriate to read was a significant one written by my supervisor Alan Firth and his partner, Johannes Wagner. Irrespective of specifics of the journal topic, Second Language Acquisition the assessment of research methodology draws many similarities with my critique of International Development . What Firth indicates is that SLA is understood and researched in terms of a single dominant (Chomskian) paradigm which is foundational in nature. SLA has been significantly influenced by notions of social psychology and individual cognition. Within this context, English is understood in terms of an ‘ideal’, where native speakers pass on their knowledge to the learner. Language is passed between teacher and learner and progress is percieved quantifiable and linear; similar to the progress from Third World poverty to modernity. In contrast, Firth and Wagner use CA to illustrate the fact that this representation is not in fact an accurate reflection of the ways in which speakers interact within social reality. In summary, SLA research is heavily biased towards a single paradigm and needs to include a post structuralist perspective in order to provide a more comprehensive understanding of Acquistion.

By concidence, I later read a paper by London (1993), regarding the failure of education development projects in the Third World (in this case Trinidad). The paper once again notes the issue of Development paradigm, in this case a rational approach to a project typically demanded by the World Bank as the principal funder. The failed projects didnt recognise the difficulties associated with the social realities on the ground. In conclusion, the paper recommended a movement to an interactive (adaptable) paradigm capable of capturing and/or accommodating changes to a project plan.

Finally, a review of the paper written by the London group and the critique of education provision. In the face of advances in media/communication and globalisation, the standard perceptions of knowledge and learning have changed. Uniformity has become an increasingly redundant notion to be replaced by local identity and globalisation. Common standards have receded in parellel with centralised authority, the danger is that the space will be filled not by cosmopolitan notions of tolerance (for difference) but co-opted and constrained by the dead hand of neo-liberalism and the demands of the market. In this context (withdrawal of central authority) and consistent with the ideas of Foucault, knowledge will be comprehended in terms of dominant discourses. According to the London Group then education and pedagogy should be organised such that students are provided with intellectual tools to understand and critique discourses (design and desemmination) as a means of making informed decisions between the availble discourses. Make sense to me