Jet van Dam

Gastonderzoeker

ACLC      Amsterdam Centre for Language & Communication
                University of Amsterdam

Research Group Institutional Discourse

Research Interests

 

Classroom Discourse. My interest in formal discourse analysis was triggered  when I worked as a teacher trainer at the University, struggling to find a coherent framework to describe the intricate teaching strategies of experienced teachers. For my PhD (1993) I zoomed in on how (very different) learning cultures may be bootstrapped on the first day of school in two first English (EFL) lessons in a Dutch secondary school. Polanyi & Scha's Linguistic Discourse Model (1983)  provided some formal principles to articulate what I called ‘the classroom machine’: a metaphor to trace and model the multiple interruptions and frame breaks that classroom multiparty talk is prone to (see also Bannink & Van Dam 2006). 

 

Ecology of language acquisition. A UC-LOT cooperation project in collaboration with Claire Kramsch, Jonathan Leather, and Leo Van Lier addressed the tension between static models of Language Acquisition and the influence of environmental factors. This cooperation resulted in two Research Workshops in Amsterdam and Berkeley on integrated approaches to language acquisition and language socialization. A book on this subject, co-authored with Jonathan Leather appeared in 2002 (see also Ecola).

 

Leather, Jonathan & Jet van Dam (Eds)(2002) Ecology of Language Acquisition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins

Website Ecola (currently asleep..)

E-learning: UvA-ICTO projects. Currently Anne Bannink and myself collaborate on two learning environments for the UvA, entitled ‘Competences in Context’ (CIC) and 'Interactie in de klas' respectively. They show selected videotaped episodes from lectures and seminars taught by experienced and gifted professors for the benefit of their less experienced colleagues.

 

J.van Dam van Isselt (2009), Mixed genres in lecture room discourse. In Botma, Bert and Jacqueline van Kampen (eds.) Linguistics in the Netherlands 26, pp.39-50. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

CiC Demo

Anthropology of Education

Anthropology of Education. As a visiting scholar at the Stanford University School of Education (invited by Ray McDermott) I became increasingly interested in micro-ethnographic studies and anecdotal data. This resulted in lectures and publications on a longitudinal  school diary co-authored by two teenage girls in the 1970s. A chapter in Ecology of language acquisition (2002) is devoted to these data, and recently also a short informal sketch in Biografie Bulletin (2009).

 

Selected Publications

Discourse Structure; Classroom  Discourse

van Dam van Isselt, H.R.  (1993),  “ Her name is – uh dat weet ik niet”; Authenticity in the L2 classroom. PhD dissertation, University of Amsterdam.

Bannink, A. & Van Dam, J. (2006),  A dynamic discourse approach to classroom research.  Linguistics & Education, 17(3), 283-301.

van Dam van Isselt, Jet (1995) Participant structure and the online production of discourse context. In: den Dikken, M. & K. Hengeveld (Eds.) Linguistics in the Netherlands 12 (pp. 61-73). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

van Dam van Isselt, H.R. (1995) Where's the lesson in all this talk? Structural features of classroom floors.In: Huls, E. & J. Klatter-Folmer (Eds.) Artikelen van de Tweede Sociolinguuistische Conferentie (pp 125-138). Delft:Eburon.  

van Dam van Isselt, H.R.(1998) Stemmen in de klas: structurele dimensies van sprekersrollen. Toegepaste Taalwetenschap in Artikelen, 58, 193-201. 

Language acquisition in context

 

Leather, J. & J. Van Dam (Eds.) (2003). Ecology of  Language Acquisition. Amsterdam: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Leather, J.  & J. Van Dam (2003). Towards an ecology of language acquisition. In: Ecology of Language  Acquisition (chapter 1,  pp. 1-31). Amsterdam: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

van Dam, J. (2002). Ritual, face andplay in a first English lesson: bootstrapping a classroom culture. In: Kramsch, C. (Ed.), Language Acquisition, Language Socialization: Ecological Perspectives (pp. 237-266). London: Continuum Publishers.

 

Teacher Education

Bannink, A. & Van Dam, J. (2007) Premature closure and guided reinvention: A case study in a web based environment, Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, vol.13, 6, 565-586.

Bannink, A. & Van Dam, J. (2007), Bootstrapping reflection on classroom conversations, Evaluation and Research in Education, 20(2), 81-100.

 

Anthropology of Education

van Dam, J. (2003). Language acquisition behind the scenes: Collusion and play in educational settings. In:  Leather, J. & J. Van Dam (Eds.)(2003), Ecology of  Language Acquisition (pp. 203-221).

 

Selected Lectures

 

van Dam van Isselt, H.R. (2004) Secret codes and collusive footings: what counts as acquisition data in educational settings?  Language Ecology: an Interdisciplinary Symposium (UC-Berkeley)

A Dynamic Discourse Approach to Classroom Research

Bootstrapping Reflection on Classroom Conversations

Secret Codes and Collusive Footings...