This study explores the field of ESL English as a Second Language classroom learning within a formal learning institution. Influenced by the sociocultural theory in SLA Second Language Acquisition the book sheds light on the question that has been boggling the minds of language practitioners and researchers Why is ESL classroom talk the way it is Based on a case study of a school in an ESL community it argues persuasively that classroom talk may be linked in important ways to an operative sociocultural structure of ESL pedagogy over and above the classroom at the institutional level. The book examines issues which have heretofore been avoided by writers and researchers in current SLA writings and classroom studies.