During recent years there has been a considerable amount of interest in the nature and type of teacher talk in English as a second language classrooms. This interest has focused on the learner in the process of second language acquisition and the effect that teacher talk has on the development of interlanguage. This thesis concerns itself with the teacher as the arbiter of classroom interaction responsible for the structuring of lessons and the systems utilised including questioning, responding and, what we shall call, sign posting. The research subjects for this work are distinct in that they are all experienced teachers of English as a second language from a non English speaking background. The purpose of the work is, therefore, to examine, on a broad ethnographic basis, the organising machinery of classroom lessons conducted by teachers whose professional experience and techniques may be influenced in their implementation by their own level of interlanguage. The work takes as its starting point a perspective that attempts to eschew procedures of formal rationality and avoids the construction of any form of systems model. The basic principle to be examined is how a group of teachers of English as a second language from a non English speaking background, approach the process of the structuring of classroom interaction and, by extension, learning. This thesis is not concerned with teacher effectiveness and does not attempt to make any observations regarding learning outcomes for students being taught by native or non native speakers of the target language.