This volume brings together a multidisciplinary perspective of recent work, both theoretical and empirical, on the use of language for communicating in the classroom. Among the contributors are psychologists, educators, linguists, sociologists and anthropologists. The research reported here focuses on the spontaneous communication of school-age children and their teachers in a variety of classroom settings. It presents how different perspectives on the language used by teachers and students, when taken together, are an affirmation of the essential role of multidisciplinary approaches to the study of language and education.