Conversation Analytic Perspectives on English Language Learning, Teaching and Testing in Global Contexts 9781788922890

Citation preview

Conversation Analytic Perspectives on English Language Learning, Teaching and Testing in Global Contexts

NEW PERSPECTIVES ON LANGUAGE AND EDUCATION Founding Editor: Viv Edwards, University of Reading, UK Series Editors: Phan Le Ha, University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, USA and Joel Windle, Monash University, Australia Two decades of research and development in language and literacy education have yielded a broad, multidisciplinary focus. Yet education systems face constant economic and technological change, with attendant issues of identity and power, community and culture. This series will feature critical and interpretive, disciplinary and multidisciplinary perspectives on teaching and learning, language and literacy in new times. All books in this series are externally peer-reviewed. Full details of all the books in this series and of all our other publications can be found on http://www.multilingual-matters.com, or by writing to Multilingual Matters, St Nicholas House, 31–34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK.

NEW PERSPECTIVES ON LANGUAGE AND EDUCATION: 63

Conversation Analytic Perspectives on English Language Learning, Teaching and Testing in Global Contexts Edited by

Hanh thi Nguyen and Taiane Malabarba

MULTILINGUAL MATTERS Bristol • Blue Ridge Summit

DOI https://doi.org/10.21832/NGUYEN2883 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Names: Nguyen, Hanh thi, 1972- editor. | Malabarba, Taiane, 1983- editor. Title: Conversation Analytic Perspectives on English Language Learning, Teaching and Testing in Global Contexts/Edited by Hanh thi Nguyen and Taiane Malabarba. Description: Bristol, UK; Blue Ridge Summit, PA: Multilingual Matters, 2019. | Series: New Perspectives on Language and Education: 63 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018046597| ISBN 9781788922883 (hbk : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781788922906 (epub) | ISBN 9781788922913 (kindle) Subjects: LCSH: English language—Learning and teaching—Foreign speakers. | English language—Spoken English—Ability testing. | English language—Discourse analysis. Classification: LCC PE1128.A2 C6895 2019 | DDC 428.0071—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018046597 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN-13: 978-1-78892-288-3 (hbk) Multilingual Matters UK: St Nicholas House, 31–34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK. USA: NBN, Blue Ridge Summit, PA, USA. Website: www.multilingual-matters.com Twitter: Multi_Ling_Mat Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/multilingualmatters Blog: www.channelviewpublications.wordpress.com Copyright © 2019 Hanh thi Nguyen, Taiane Malabarba and the authors of individual chapters. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. The policy of Multilingual Matters/Channel View Publications is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products, made from wood grown in sustainable forests. In the manufacturing process of our books, and to further support our policy, preference is given to printers that have FSC and PEFC Chain of Custody certification. The FSC and/or PEFC logos will appear on those books where full certification has been granted to the printer concerned. Every reasonable effort has been made to locate, contact and acknowledge copyright owners. Any errors will be rectified in future editions. Typeset by Nova Techset Private Limited, Bengaluru and Chennai, India. Printed and bound in the UK by the CPI Books Group Ltd. Printed and bound in the US by Thomson-Shore, Inc.

Contents

Acknowledgements Contributors 1

vii ix

Introduction: Using Conversation Analysis to Understand the Realities of English-as-a-Foreign-Language Learning, Teaching and Testing Taiane Malabarba and Hanh thi Nguyen

1

Part 1: Learners’ Development of Interactional Competence 2

3

Embodied and Occasioned Learnables and Teachables in an Early EFL Classroom Maria Vanessa aus der Wieschen and Søren Wind Eskildsen Developing Interactional Competence in a Lingua Franca at the Workplace: An Ethnomethodologically Endogenous Account Hanh thi Nguyen

31

59

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes 4

5

6

7

Looking Beyond IRF Moves in EFL Classroom Interaction in China Jingya Li EFL Trainee Teachers’ Orientations to Students’ Non-understanding: A Focus on Task Instructions Dilara Somuncu and Olcay Sert Handling Unprepared-for Contingencies in an Interactional Language Test: Student Initiation of Correction as a Collaborative Accomplishment Eric Hauser Closing Up Testing: Interactional Orientation to a Timer During a Paired EFL Oral Proficiency Test Tim Greer

v

87

110

132

159

vi

CA Perspectives on English Language Learning, Teaching, Testing

Part 3: Sociocultural and Ideological Forces in Language Teaching 8

9

The ‘Power Game’: Interactional Asymmetries in EFL Collaborative Language Teaching Josephine Lee

193

Collision of Centripetal and Centrifugal Forces in Iranian EFL Classroom Interaction Mostafa Pourhaji

220

10 ‘In English, Sorry’: Participants’ Orientation to the English-only Policy in Beginning-level EFL Classroom Interaction Taiane Malabarba 11 Teaching English in Marginalized Contexts: Constructing Relevance in an EFL Classroom in Rural Southern Mexico Peter Sayer, Taiane Malabarba and Leslie C. Moore 12 Commentary: Fault Lines in Global EFL Johannes Wagner Index

244

268 295

307

Acknowledgements

We owe the inception of this book to Joan Kelly Hall, who introduced us to each other and connected our interests in EFL learning and teaching. Many chapters in this book were presented in a panel at AAAL 2017 in Portland, Oregon, and we extend our gratitude to the audience, whose comments have contributed to the quality of the current volume. We appreciate Justin Pannell, ‘Diane’ An Tai Choe, Oscar Silio and Bella Lee Congdon for offering assistance in the preparation of the chapters. And we thank all the contributors for bringing in refreshing perspectives from a range of diverse settings and for working with us so harmoniously across the different time zones.

vii

Contributors

Maria Vanessa aus der Wieschen is a research assistant at the University of Southern Denmark in Sønderborg, Denmark. Her thesis ‘Classroom practices in early foreign language teaching in Denmark: On the role of quantity and quality of exposure to English inside the classroom’ is a longitudinal investigation into the role of age and school factors in foreign language learning, drawing on quantitative methods, ethnography and conversation analysis. Her research interests include user-centered and participatory design for language learning. Søren Wind Eskildsen is Associate Professor in Second Language Learning at the University of Southern Denmark in Sønderborg, Denmark. His primary research interest concerns the usage-based processes and practices in second language learning over time as seen through the lenses of usagebased models of language and conversation analysis. Other interests include the role of gestures in second language learning. He works with both in- and out-of-class L2 data and with children and adults alike. Tim Greer is Professor in the School of Languages and Communication and the Graduate School of Intercultural Studies at Kobe University, Japan. His research employs conversation analysis to examine microinteractional aspects of bilingual talk and second language use, such as interactional competence and identity-in-interaction. His data come from a diverse range of settings including homestay dinner table conversations, hairdressing contexts and oral proficiency tests. His work has been published in Multilingua, Linguistics and Education and Journal of Pragmatics and he has recently co-edited a book on JSL interactional competence. Eric Hauser is Associate Professor at the University of ElectroCommunications in Tokyo, Japan, and an affiliate member of the graduate faculty in the Department of Second Language Studies at the University of Hawai’i, USA. His research focuses on interaction involving second language users of English, on language learning in and through interaction and, more recently, on the use of gestures in Japanese interaction. He has recent publications in Pragmatics, The Modern Language Journal, Language and Sociocultural Theory and Gesture. He is currently the

ix

x

CA Perspectives on English Language Learning, Teaching, Testing

Editor of JALT Journal, the research journal of the Japan Association for Language Teaching. Josephine Lee is Assistant Professor of English Education at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, South Korea. Her research interests center on applying ethnomethodology and conversation analysis to studies on second language pedagogy, classroom interaction and pragmatics. Her recent work has appeared in Applied Linguistics, TESOL Quarterly, Journal of Pragmatics and Social Semiotics. Jingya Li is a lecturer in the Department of Foreign languages, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China. She holds a PhD in language and literacy from the University of New South Wales, Australia, and a Master’s Degree in TESOL from the University of Glasgow, UK. She is interested in integrating sociocultural perspective and micro-analysis in the study of classroom interaction, bilingual education and EFL classroom teaching. Taiane Malabarba is Assistant Professor of English as a Foreign Language and coordinator of the foreign language program at Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos, in the south of Brazil. Her main research interest lies in forms of participation, language policy and multi-activity within EFL learning/teaching contexts. She is also interested in developing evidencebased teacher education programs and materials. Her work has appeared in edited volumes and journals such as Classroom Discourse and Calidoscópio. Leslie C. Moore is Associate Professor of Teaching and Learning and Linguistics at The Ohio State University. Her research examines the social and cultural patterning of learning and language development in communities whose members use multiple languages and participate in multiple learning traditions. She has conducted ethnographic and conversation analytic research in Cameroon, Central Ohio and the Netherlands, working across domestic, community, and secular and religious school settings. She is currently focused on informal science learning for dual language learners. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Spencer Foundation and Fulbright. Hanh thi Nguyen is Professor of Applied Linguistics in the TESOL Program at Hawaii Pacific University, USA. She is the author of Developing Interactional Competence: A Conversation Analytic Study of Patient Consultations in Pharmacy (2012), Talk-in-Interaction: Multilingual Perspectives (2009, with G. Kasper), Pragmatics of Vietnamese as Native and Target Language (2013, with C. Roever), and multiple journal articles and book chapters on the topics of interactional competence development, classroom discourse, workplace communication and Vietnamese applied linguistics.

Contributors xi

Mostafa Pourhaji is Assistant Professor of Teaching English as a Foreign Language at Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, in the capital of Iran. In his research, he mainly pursues the CA-for-SLA enterprise through utilizing the methodological power of conversation analysis to explore how teacher talk creates or inhibits learners’ participation opportunities. He is also interested in applying conversation analysis to the study of materials use and teacher education. His work has been published in Journal of Teaching Language Skills, Foreign Language Research Journal and Journal of English Language Teaching and Learning. Peter Sayer is an Associate Professor of Language Education Studies in the College of Education and Human Ecology at the Ohio State University. His work focuses sociolinguistics and education of emergent bilingual learners, especially in Mexico and Latino students in the US. He is the author of over 40 publications, including the book Tensions and Ambiguities in English Language Teachers: Portraits of EFL Teachers as Legitimate Speakers (Routledge, 2012) and is the incoming editor of TESOL Journal and co-director of the Buckeye Childhood Bilingualism Research Lab. Olcay Sert is Senior Lecturer in the School of Education, Culture and Communication at Mälardalen University, Sweden. He is the editor-in-chief of Classroom Discourse (Routledge) and the author of Social Interaction and L2 Classroom Discourse (2015, Edinburgh University Press). His book has been shortlisted for the BAAL Book Prize and AAAL First Book Award. His articles have appeared in international peer-reviewed journals such as Journal of Pragmatics, TESOL Quarterly, System, Language and Education and Computer Assisted Language Learning. His main research approach is conversation analysis and his research deals primarily with classroom discourse, interactional competence and language teacher education. Dilara Somuncu is a research assistant in the Department of Foreign Language Education, Faculty of Education, Gaziantep University, Turkey. She is currently conducting her PhD studies at Hacettepe University. Her research interests include language teacher education, language teacher cognition, conversation analysis and classroom discourse. Johannes Wagner is Professor of Communication in the Department of Design and Communication, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark. In his contributions to Applied Linguistics, he has pushed for a microsociological understanding of second language learning and teaching. In recent years, he has been working on a comprehensive understanding of human social praxis as the nexus of embodied practices, tangible objects in the environment and talk.

1 Introduction: Using Conversation Analysis to Understand the Realities of English-as-a-ForeignLanguage Learning, Teaching and Testing Taiane Malabarba and Hanh thi Nguyen

1 Introduction

It has been estimated that, by 2020, there will be about 2 billion users of English worldwide – the majority of whom are non-native English speakers, outnumbering native speakers at a ratio of about 4:1 (British Council, 2013). Another estimate puts the number of learners of English as a foreign language at 100 million to 1.1 billion (Baker, 2011: 84). In the European Union, for example, English is the most widely taught foreign language (Cenoz & Gorter, 2013: 591; Eurostat, 2016). As English continues its global dominance as a lingua franca, it is crucial to understand the processes and issues in English education around the world. This edited volume brings together 10 cutting-edge empirical studies on the realities of English language learning, teaching and testing in a wide range of contexts where English is an additional language or a workplace lingua franca, that is, in English as a foreign language (EFL) contexts. EFL contexts deserve research attention because they are distinct from contexts in which English is taught and learned as a second language in the target-language environment, that is, ESL contexts. In our view, EFL contexts differ in three main aspects from ESL contexts, and each difference poses practical problems for learners and teachers. The most important difference is in the availability of the target language. Whereas most ESL learners have ready opportunities to use

1

2

CA Perspectives on English Language Learning, Teaching, Testing

English ‘in the wild’ outside of the classroom (e.g. Barraja-Rohan, 2015; Yagi, 2007; see also Language Learning in the Wild, 2017; Wagner, 2015), EFL learners’ opportunities to use English are mostly limited to instructional settings such as classrooms (e.g. Cenoz, 2007; Hauser, 2009; Herazo Rivera, 2010; Rao, 2002), arranged online lessons (e.g. Balaman & Sert, 2017; Kozar, 2015; Nguyen, 2016) and class exchange activities online (e.g. Whyte & Cutrim Schmid, 2014). Outside of instructional settings, EFL learners may be exposed to the target language as consumers of the internet and entertainment (music, movies, games, and so on) (e.g. Piirainen-Marsh & Tainio, 2009) or as users of English as a lingua franca at the workplace (e.g. Firth, 2009a, 2009b). How do students and teachers in classroom interaction orient to this limited access to the target language? For example, do teachers strive to use English in their own speech and police the use of English by students to increase their target language exposure and practice? Outside of the classroom, how does language learning ‘in the wild’ take place in EFL contexts? A second and related aspect that sets EFL contexts apart from ESL contexts is the purpose of language learning. Most ESL learners often have immediate needs to use the target language in their daily lives or future academic and professional careers for immersion in or integration into the target society (e.g. Duff et al., 2000; Menard-Warwick, 2007). In contrast, the relevance of English to EFL learners in many parts of the world, despite general perceptions of English’s socio-economic advantages, is often vague and undefi ned (e.g. Butler, 2011; Cenoz, 2007; Chang & Goswami, 2011), with the exception of workplace settings where English is used as a lingua franca (e.g. Firth, 2009a, 2009b). How do teachers connect their lessons to the students’ life-world experiences outside of the EFL classroom? How do learners make sense of teaching and testing activities in the target language? At the workplace, how do learners develop language skills in situ as they carry out work-related tasks? A third and fi nal major difference between EFL and ESL contexts lies in the common language and culture shared by teacher and students. While the teacher and students in an ESL classroom may come from various languages and cultures (e.g. Auerbach, 1993; Nguyen & Kellogg, 2010), the teacher and students in an EFL classroom typically speak the same fi rst language (L1) and share the same cultural values as well as expectations about teaching and learning (e.g. Canagarajah, 1999; Cenoz, 2007). The questions are: Does this shared linguistic and cultural background pull the EFL teachers and students away from the target language in actual classroom interaction and, if so, how does this take place? How do they negotiate and resolve the tension between their expectations and the assumptions of teaching methodologies imported from Englishspeaking countries? The authors in this collection will focus on how learners and teachers orient to the above constraints and affordances in English education

Introduction: Using CA to Understand the Realities of EFL Learning, Teaching and Testing

3

around the world with respect to three facets: (1) learners’ development of interactional competence; (2) the organization of teaching and testing practices; and (3) sociocultural and ideological forces that may impact classroom interaction. Our goal is to provide close-up glimpses into how English is learned, taught and assessed at the local, moment-to-moment level, both within and outside of the classroom. Such detailed analyses can inform English language teaching (ELT) professionals, teacher trainers, policy makers and researchers about how language learning, teaching and testing are conducted and accomplished, given the constraints and the possibilities afforded by interactional resources as well as social, cultural and political forces in diverse settings around the world. The present volume extends current understandings by going beyond the description of EFL settings and highlighting specific issues, such as: the negotiation of language choices (in Brazil); teacher–teacher power relationships in co-teaching (in Korea); the tension between teachers’ control and students’ initiations or displays of non-understanding (in Iran and Turkey); teachers’ management of initiation-response-feedback (IRF) sequences to encourage student participation in large classes (in China); and the relevance of English education to marginalized students (in Mexico). Further, this volume covers not only teaching but also learning and testing, involving both classroom settings and settings outside the classroom, such as the workplace (in Vietnam) and oral proficiency tests (in Japan). Finally, and most importantly, the present volume leaves the frequently researched domain of ESL contexts and instead maintains a decided focus on EFL contexts, spanning the continents of Asia, Central and South America, and Europe, and involving varied learner populations, from children to young adults to adults. While the chapters in this book cover diverse teaching contexts in several continents, they all draw primarily on the data-driven and microanalytic lens of conversation analysis (CA). Since this is the book’s common backdrop, we will begin with an overview of CA’s conceptual framework and methodological procedure. 2 Conversation Analytic Perspective

Conversation analysis is a program of inquiry that aims to understand tacit social order through the concrete details of talk-in-interaction (Have, 2007; Hutchby & Wooffitt, 1998; Sacks, 1995; Sacks et al., 1974; Schegloff, 2007). Sharing ethnomethodology’s standpoint (Garfi nkel, 1967, 2002), CA is concerned with the practical methods and commonsense reasoning by members of a culture in everyday activities, and thus takes social interaction as the milieu where social order is created, maintained and negotiated. More specifically, CA considers social interaction to be ‘the basic and primordial environment for the development, the use, and the learning of natural language’ (Schegloff, 1996: 4, emphasis added). In the paragraphs

4

CA Perspectives on English Language Learning, Teaching, Testing

below, we will outline CA’s foundational principles and methodological procedures, and discuss the integration between ‘applied’ CA and compatible research traditions in the analysis of language teaching and learning. 2.1 Conversation analytic underpinnings

At its core, CA is defi ned by (a) its assumption that social interaction is inherently orderly, (b) its emic stance, and (c) its treatment of context as indexically enacted in talk (Have, 2007; Hutchby & Wooffitt, 1998; Sacks, 1995; Sacks et al., 1974; Schegloff, 1997). CA maintains that social interaction, albeit seemingly messy, is systematic and orderly at all points. That is, participants’ conduct such as pauses, restarts and voice variations are not haphazard, trivial, redundant or meaningless (as in a narrow conceptualization of linguistic competence à la Chomsky, 1965), but are participants’ commonsense methods to construct social order and culture in situ (Sacks, 1995, Vol. 1, Lecture 33). These systematic practices are both context free (in the sense that they can be recognized and utilized across contexts) and context dependent (in the sense that they are mobilized locally, with sensitivity to the organization of a given moment in talk) (Sacks et al., 1974). For example, Goodwin (1981) demonstrated that a speaker’s gaze direction and turn disturbances (such as cut-off sounds and pauses) are systematic practices that are placed sequentially to elicit a recipient’s mutual gaze and response. While these practices are context free, they are also context dependent in the sense that participants in a particular moment of talk employ them contingently in the context of the prior turns and the actions being achieved at that moment. This foundational assumption in CA permeates throughout the chapters in this book, as they engage with a range of issues in language teaching and learning. Further, it is important to note that, in order to maintain ‘order at all points’ (Sacks, 1995: 484), participants draw on their competence as members of a culture, that is, the ability to manage language-specific realizations of universal, generic forms of organization in human interaction (such as turn-taking mechanism, sequence organization, turn design and repair) to jointly achieve social actions with others (Shegloff, 2006; see also Hall, 2018). Thus, newcomers to a language and culture, such as second language (L2) learners, will need to develop language-specific realizations of interactional practices in order to participate in interaction in the target language (Schegloff, 1995: xlvii). The chapters by Nguyen and by aus der Wieschen and Eskildsen in this book focus specifically on this topic of interactional competence development. In order to understand members’ methods for what they are, CA takes a decidedly emic stance – one that results from ‘studying behavior as from inside the system’, similar to how phonemes reflect the perceptual reality of sounds to speakers of the language (Pike, 1967: 37).1 Sharing ethnomethodology’s departure from top-down, exogenous theories in order to

Introduction: Using CA to Understand the Realities of EFL Learning, Teaching and Testing

5

embark on an endogenous investigation of social order as it is practically accomplished in everyday activities, CA requires that social interaction be studied from the participants’ perspectives (Have, 2007). Methodologically, this requirement means that, when studying cultures different from one’s own vernacular culture (institutional settings included), the researcher needs to acquire members’ competence (Moerman, 1988; Sidnell, 2013). The authors in this volume achieved this by becoming members themselves (e.g. Greer, Hauser and Malabarba), living in the target community for an extended period of time as a participant-observer (e.g. Sayer and Malabarba & Moore) or learning about the studied setting through interviews and field observation (e.g. aus der Wieschen & Eskildsen, J. Lee and Nguyen). CA’s emic viewpoint has brought a shift in research on classroom interaction. Rather than relying on propositional knowledge about teaching such as idealized models, CA research on language teaching focuses on ‘identifying and characterizing classroom interaction’ by looking at classroom talk ‘on its own terms’ (He, 2004: 580). The requirement of an emic stance also means that when learning processes are examined, theories of learning are not imposed on the data, but the analysis of what is learned and how it is learned is driven by the learners’ and coparticipants’ conduct in talk (e.g. aus der Wieschen & Eskildsen, this volume; Nguyen, this volume). With its insistence on an emic approach to data, CA sees context as not assumed or given, but rather as reflexively constructed in talk (Schegloff, 1997; Sidnell, 2007). Features of context, while perhaps known by the researcher, can only become analytically relevant when oriented to and occasioned by the participants through observable conduct. This view aims to avoid taking for granted participants’ commonsense actions and to force the analyst to focus on what participants actually do locally and contingently to construct their social realities. By suspending a priori categories such as ‘teacher’, ‘tester’ and ‘student’ until they are demonstrably indexed in details of talk, the analyst can empirically uncover the practices that participants employ to achieve teaching, testing and learning (e.g. Greer, this volume; Hauser, this volume). Such an approach to data also enables the analyst to understand how participants may construct, negotiate or resist the reproduction of social, cultural and political forces (e.g. J. Lee; Malabarba; Pourhaji; Sayer et al., all in this volume). CA’s three key underpinnings – its assumption that social interaction is orderly at all points, its emic perspective and its treatment of context as indexical – are operationalized in CA’s methodological procedure, which will be described next. 2.2 Conversation analytic procedure

Since CA is concerned with how social order can be achieved locally in everyday activities, CA work begins with recording naturally

6

CA Perspectives on English Language Learning, Teaching, Testing

occurring conversations, in video or audio forms. In the case of ELT research, this means recording language classroom interactions, test sessions and learning situations as they occur spontaneously, without any experimental design or setup. This type of data is considered institutional talk which, in contrast to ordinary conversations, is ‘goaloriented in institutionally relevant ways’ and is conducted with institution-specific lexical choice, turn design, sequence organization and overall structural organization (Drew & Heritage, 1992: 22, 29–45). In data collection, CA researchers are mindful of the ‘observer’s paradox’ (Labov, 1972) and do their best to minimize intrusion in order to assure that the data refl ect the participants’ social realities, such as getting to know the participants before recording (Sayer et al., this volume), concealing the camera behind natural objects in the given setting (J. Lee, this volume), or asking the participants to record themselves (Nguyen, this volume). (For further discussion on data collection in general, see Mondada, 2013; and on classroom data collection, see Kimura et al., 2018.) Once the data have been collected, they are transcribed in close detail to capture the participants’ methods of achieving social actions. Most CA researchers, including the authors in this volume, use the transcription notation system developed by Gail Jefferson over the years and described in detail in 2004 (see Appendix). This system pays attention to not only the words being said but also (1) the temporal and sequential relationship of talk such as periods of silence and overlapped talk, (2) speech delivery features such as intonation, volume, speed and voice variations, and (3) actions accompanying talk such as laughter tokens, audible in-breaths, embodied actions and spatial orientations. Since the analyst does not know in advance which details will be treated as relevant by the participants, the goal of CA transcription is to record as much as possible the fi ne-grained details of talk (Heritage, 1984). The transcript serves as the starting point of analysis as well as evidence for analytical claims. (For further discussion of CA transcription, see Hepburn & Bolden, 2013, 2017; Jenks, 2011.) Through ‘unmotivated looking’ (Sacks, 1984) at the data, the analyst makes data-generated observations about how the interaction unfolds, from the participants’ perspectives. Essentially, these observations aim to answer the question, ‘why that now?’ (Schegloff & Sacks, 1974: 241) by examining the participants conducts in, before and after the phenomenon in question. Even when the researcher has preconceived interests, such as how teachers handle unknowing responses from students (Somuncu & Sert, this volume), those interests need to be suspended in this initial approach to data. Crucial in CA work is the honest engagement with details of talk ‘as they are’ since all conducts in conversations exhibit social order. From such disciplined observations, a recurrent phenomenon of interest may be identified and collected for further analysis.

Introduction: Using CA to Understand the Realities of EFL Learning, Teaching and Testing

7

Each chapter in this book presents a collection of a phenomenon that has been generated in this way from a larger data pool. For example, from a corpus of student-led instruction activities in an oral proficiency test, Hauser identified and collected cases of error corrections for further examination of how the students and teachers orient to these corrections. In building the analysis, CA researchers may rely on previous fi ndings on the identified phenomenon to understand its context-free nature, while paying attention to its sequential context and endogenous actions in the talk at hand. (For further discussion of CA analytical steps, see Sidnell, 2013.) 2.3 Applied conversation analysis and related approaches

The type of CA presented in this volume may be referred to as ‘applied’ CA, in that it does not limit itself to describing basic and general interactional practices in ordinary conversations for the sake of understanding only these practices, but it also aims to address wider concerns in institutional settings (Have, 2007: 174), such as how learning and teaching are accomplished in different contexts. Applied CA adheres to CA’s conceptual foundation and methodological procedure, but its analytical target is beyond ordinary conversations. Moreover, its outcomes are aimed to inform and change practice by revealing institutional workings and problems in order to recommend interventions. Further, since applied CA has a broader research agenda, it is often integrated with other data-driven approaches, such as linguistics, ethnography and sociocultural theory (cf. Have, 2007). This integration strengthens the analysis and, in some cases, is a prerequisite to the analysis. For instance, in Nguyen’s (this volume) study of how a novice’s turn design changed over time in instructions to hotel guests, sequential analysis informs and is informed by the phonetic details of the novice’s pronunciation, which are influenced by the novice’s L1. In Sayer et al.’s (this volume) study on English teaching in a marginalized context in Mexico, it is mandatory that the researchers conduct ethnographic work in order to gain members’ competence and perspectives, a prerequisite in doing CA. Only when the researchers are familiar with participants’ social, political and historical beings and their struggles and goals can we adequately appreciate what they bring to a given moment in interaction. In fact, any applied CA study needs to draw on ethnographic information to understand participants’ specifi c institutional and cultural setting (see also Moerman, 1988; Sidnell, 2007). All chapters in this volume describe participants’ ethnographic backgrounds for this reason. With this conceptual and methodological contextualization for the volume, we will next review what is currently known about English language teaching and learning practices in EFL contexts.

8

CA Perspectives on English Language Learning, Teaching, Testing

3 Learning, Teaching and Testing in EFL Contexts

Given this volume’s focus, we will narrow this discussion to previous discourse-based research on the realities of language teaching and learning in EFL contexts. We will first review studies on an important aspect of language learning – the development of interactional competence. Then we will discuss what is currently known about teaching and testing practices, and how social, cultural and ideological forces are brought to bear on EFL teaching and learning.

3.1 Learners’ development of interactional competence

Interactional competence is the ability to employ interactional practices – such as turn-taking, sequence organization, overall structural organization, topic management, turn design and participation framework practices – in order to jointly accomplish actions with others in social interaction (see Hall, 1993, 1995, 1999, 2018; Hall & PekarekDoehler, 2011; Nguyen, 2017; Pekarek-Doehler, 2006, 2010; Young, 1999, 2009, 2011). Despite the fact that the learning of English as an additional language is taking place on a massive scale around the globe, there has been only limited research on learners’ development of interactional competence in EFL contexts. 2 The few studies in this area show that English language learners employ a range of learning practices and can develop the abilities to participate in conversations both inside and outside the classroom. Regarding learning within the EFL classroom, aside from research showing the positive effects of instructional strategies on learners’ development of communicative abilities (e.g. Alcón Soler, 2005, 2006; Martínez-Flor, 2006; Rabab’ah, 2016; Takahashi, 2001), studies on the discourse processes that take place in the EFL classroom reveal that learners actively utilize interactional practices for language learning that orient to the institutional goals and requirements of the language classroom (see also Seedhouse, 2004). For example, Vietnamese students in group discussions tend to respond to the given prompts in parallel question-answer adjacency pairs. Also, topic extensions typically refocus back to the prompts rather than elicit genuine exchanges of information among group members (Trần, 2016). These show that students orient to the task goal as completing assigned prompts and not as engaging in natural conversations. In another respect, Japanese students in group discussions orient to the classroom’s goal to practice and learn English by using the L1 only when referring to Japanese things and when needing a last resort to achieve intersubjectivity. The fact that they usually translate Japanese words back into English also indexes their orientation to the classroom’s goal (Hauser, 2013b). When students use bilingual electronic dictionaries in group activities to accomplish repair or to topicalize a word

Introduction: Using CA to Understand the Realities of EFL Learning, Teaching and Testing

9

in the L1, they sometimes orient to the dictionary as illegitimate, thus upholding the idea that the classroom is a space for practicing English (Hauser, 2014). Along similar lines, it has also been reported that lowintermediate level Japanese students of English in debate activities often engage in disagreement openly and directly without the usual dispreferred turn design practices in ordinary conversations, perhaps as an orientation to classroom debate as an activity in which disagreement is preferred (Fujimoto, 2010). The EFL classroom also fosters learners’ interactional competence development. First of all, teachers can provide affordances for language learning in classroom interaction, such as performing other-correction (Hauser, 2010), producing the beginning of a sentence frame for learners to complete (Gardner, 2008), engaging in negotiation for meaning by repeating, clarifying, paraphrasing, summarizing and extending learner contributions (Can Daşkin, 2015), creating opportunities for students to learn from one another collaboratively in multiple responses to teachers’ questions (Ko, 2014), providing exposure to new words that are reproduced over several turns (Gardner, 2008), and resorting to the L1 to assure understanding (Can Daşkin, 2015; Gardner, 2008; Sert, 2015). Secondly, learners may initiate their own learning opportunities. Turkish secondary school students have been shown to initiate repair after a teacher’s question in a pre-listening activity, which led to their learning of a new expression (Sert, 2017). Group activities in the EFL classroom can also provide multiple opportunities for language practice and development. One type of such opportunities occurs in repairs (Bannink, 2002; Greer, 2016; Hauser, 2013b, 2014), and repair has been demonstrated to be the impetus for language learning (e.g. Markee, 2000). Another type of such opportunities is in the spontaneous conversations that may take place in group activities. When students engage in spontaneous conversations after structured tasks or when they re-purpose the given prompts, they produce story-type turns, overlaps and affiliative actions such as agreement and laughter (Bannink, 2002, on Dutch learners of English; Trần, 2016, on Vietnamese learners of English). In addition, in a consensus-building task, when students have the chance to insert their personal preferences into the role-play scenario and when they are held accountable to report on the activity, they begin to negotiate meanings and initiate language play, which may facilitate learning (Bannink, 2002). Group interaction also opens up opportunities for learners to practice pragmatic sensitivity. For example, this sensitivity is expressed in group discussions through elaborated oppositional turns that use lexical devices and prosody to downgrade or upgrade stances, through disagreement prefaces to mitigate opposition, through reformulations to pursue responses and through embodied actions to manage turns (Hosoda & Aline, 2015). Indeed, studies have shown that participation in classroom conversations or conversations-for-learning over time can help EFL learners

10

CA Perspectives on English Language Learning, Teaching, Testing

develop interactional practices, such as topic management and turn-taking. In a longitudinal study on Korean speakers of English in weekly conversations-for-learning (‘speech practice sessions’), Y.A. Lee and Hellermann (2014) showed that, over time, a learner changed from disjunctive topic shifts to coherently signaled topic shifts, thus exhibiting adaptations of interactional practices to achieve topic management. In another longitudinal study, Campbell-Larsen (2014) reported that by the end of a semester, second and third year non-English major students in Japan were able to initiate and develop topics with more diverse and effective practices. As time went on, the students were able to proffer topics with prefaces and by question strings (thus broadening the scope of the topic) rather than by single questions without prefaces. They were also able to respond to topic proffers with negotiation or extended answers beyond the question rather than responding minimally, to produce stepwise topic transitions rather than abrupt topic initiations, and to repair troubles in English rather than in the L1. EFL learners in Japan have also been shown to develop the capability to produce appropriate turns in teacher-led news-tellings. Watanabe (2017) documented how a young learner shifted from only joining in a response chorus to producing selfselected turns. While his early self-selected turns were not sequentially well placed, his later self-selected turns fit the sequential organization and goal orientation of the activity at hand. These studies, however, are few and far between; learners’ development of interactional competence inside the EFL classroom is still an understudied area. Aus der Wieschen and Eskildsen’s chapter fills this gap by investigating young learners’ development of embodied linguistic expressions inside an EFL classroom in Denmark. Outside the EFL classroom (and other learning settings), English also functions as a lingua franca in casual conversations, entertainment, the workplace or service encounters. In this type of EFL context, speakers have been shown to employ a variety of flexible practices (such as innovative and hybrid linguistic resources) and collaborative practices (such as appropriation, collaborative repairs, extended questions and the let-it-pass procedure) in order to accomplish goals (e.g. Brouwer et al., 2004; Carroll, 2005; Firth, 1990, 1995, 1996, 2009a, 2009b; Firth & Wagner, 2007; Kaur, 2011; Mondada, 2004; Sampson & Zhao, 2003). In particular, Firth (2009a) showed that business partners using English as a lingua franca may incorporate one another’s ‘non-standard’ resources and flag their own language or others’ language as deviation from expected norms (via devices such as hesitation markers, sound cut-offs, self-repairs, slower tempo and smiling voice), all the while attending to the ongoing business transaction as the primary focus. Similarly, Brouwer et al. (2004) noted that, despite the presence of numerous non-target-like constructions in lingua franca business transactions and everyday conversations, participants prioritize the progressivity of the activity at hand and rarely perform correction. When

Introduction: Using CA to Understand the Realities of EFL Learning, Teaching and Testing

11

correction does happen, it is dealt with as embedded correction; that is, correction is not considered the main business. Importantly, the lingua franca environment also fosters language learning in the very process of language use (Canagarajah, 2007; Firth, 2009a). For instance, Piirainen-Marsh and Tainio (2009) and PiirainenMarsh (2011) showed how, in playing English-medium video-games, Finnish teenagers voice the characters in the game and appropriate the language in the game, thus acquiring new target language resources. Firth and Wagner (2007) demonstrated that in a business phone call, a Danish cheese producer adopted a ‘non-standard’ expression used by his Egyptian buyer in an earlier call (‘the blowing [of the cheese]’), thus adjusting his interactional practices to achieve the task at hand, namely, to efficiently tie the current call to the unresolved business in the previous call. EFL users have also been shown to come up with creative solutions to work around their own linguistic problems. S. Kim (2018) documented how a Thai learner of English, in interviews outside of class, after running into interactional troubles with her pronunciation of the word ‘air hostess’, employed common-sense categorical descriptors such as ‘service job’, ‘airport services’, ‘on the flight’ and ‘on a plane- airplane’ preemptively before producing the phrase ‘air hostess’, thus securing mutual understanding with the interlocutor. Contributing to this line of research, Nguyen’s chapter (this volume) tracks the development of interactional competence by a novice front-desk staff member at a hotel in Vietnam. 3.2 Teaching and testing practices as dynamic processes

L2 teaching comprises a number of verbal and non-verbal practices to accomplish pedagogical activities as well as rapport among classroom participants (Hall, 2019; Nguyen, 2007). The teaching and testing practices we will discuss below are those that have been documented in EFL contexts. They are not necessarily exclusive to EFL classrooms (and may also appear in ESL teaching contexts). A frequent pattern in classroom discourse, the IRF sequence (Mehan, 1979; Sinclair & Coulthard, 1975), has naturally been documented in EFL classroom interaction. Research shows that this basic discourse structure is often manipulated contingently by teachers in light of student responses and pedagogical goals (cf. Y.A. Lee, 2007). For instance, teachers of young learners (in South Korea) reformulate their initiations in linked series of IRF sequences to be sensitive to students’ responses and the materials at hand (W. Park, 2014). College-level writing tutors (also in South Korea) rarely issue a closing turn in the third position; instead, they expand the IRF sequence by producing multiple questions to gradually lead to a teaching point or, if there is a delay or problem in the student’s response, they reformulate their initial question, recapitulate the student’s response or provide the expected response themselves (Jung, 2017).

12

CA Perspectives on English Language Learning, Teaching, Testing

By examining expanded IRF sequences in the larger context of pedagogical activities in high school English classes in northern China, Li (this volume) demonstrates that teachers’ IRF moves are shaped by students’ actions and the activity’s pedagogical goals. Another common classroom phenomenon, task-related instruction, is also found in EFL classrooms. St. John and Cromdal (2016) showed that English teachers in Sweden may mobilize both verbal and multimodal actions to address not only the questioner, but also the whole cohort. Further, they orient to a student’s question and another student’s candidate response during task instructions as assets to check students’ understanding of the task at hand and to build instructions. Along similar lines, Hà and Wanphet (2016, on tertiary English instructions in Thailand) revealed that the effectiveness of teachers’ instruction depended upon how they handled students’ multimodal displays of understanding or lack of understanding. Shedding further light onto task-related instruction in EFL classrooms, Somuncu and Sert (this volume) analyze how novice teachers in Turkey respond to students’ displayed non-understandings. A noticeable EFL teaching practice involves the heightened priority given to the use of the target language. For instance, Amir and Musk (2013) reported that teachers in English classes in Sweden often initiate explicit language policing sequences to remind students to use English instead of the L1. Okada (2013) showed that in Japanese EFL classrooms and oral proficiency interviews, students’ L1 is kept as ‘a last resort’ and used only after a question in ‘natural’ English and the reformulation of the same question in more slowly and carefully pronounced English have failed to generate a response from the students (see also Hauser, 2013b). Similarly, Sert (forthcoming) shows how teachers demonstrate a preference for an explanation in the L2 following students’ use of L1. Malabarba (this volume) reports a similar practice in a beginning-level Brazilian EFL classroom, where the use of the target language is also fostered by the teacher’s constant ratification of students’ departure turns that are delivered in English. It is noteworthy that the use of the target language in an EFL classroom may also depend on the curriculum type. Examining EFL in Finland, for instance, Nikula (2005) found that, in skill-based classes, English is constructed as an object of study and its use is highly dependent on materials; therefore it is strictly used in instructional sequences. In contrast, in CLIL lessons, English is seen as a communicative tool, being used in activity boundaries, managemental talk and pair-work activities. Finally, it is important to recognize that teachers’ attempts at eliciting L2 responses from students may not always be successful; students may choose to respond in the L1 (Rathert, 2012) and teachers may sometimes need to switch to the L1 to facilitate student participation in IRF sequences (Li, 2018). CA studies have also informed us about how embodied resources are utilized for meaning making in the EFL classroom. In a study on EFL

Introduction: Using CA to Understand the Realities of EFL Learning, Teaching and Testing

13

whole-class instructional interaction in Finland, Kääntä (2012) described the array of multimodal resources employed by teachers to allocate response turns to students. These involved head nods, eye gaze and pointing gestures that were fi nely coordinated with teacher’s talk to manage turn-taking and student participation. In another study on EFL in Luxembourg, Mortensen (2016) analyzed a specific hand gesture, a cupped hand behind the ear, which was used by teachers to do otherinitiated repair in beginning-level classrooms. The study showed that the co-occurrence of this gesture with speech located a specific kind of problem (e.g. pronunciation), while in the absence of speech, the same gesture indicated a problem of hearing caused by teacher’s lack of eye gaze towards the speaker when the trouble source was produced. In ESL settings, gestures have been documented to work as a powerful pedagogical tool for teaching vocabulary (Waring et  al., 2013) and grammar (Kimura & Kazik, 2017; Matsumoto & Dobs, 2017), while in EFL settings, teachers’ uses of gesture have been mostly documented to assist the introduction and learning of a new word (Watanabe, 2017, on Japanese young learners of English) and explanations (Sert, 2017, on English lessons in a secondary school in Turkey). Contributing to this line of research, aus der Wieschen and Eskildsen (this volume) provide a detailed account of how teachers and students use embodied actions to achieve and maintain intersubjectivity, while Somuncu and Sert (this volume) focus on how teachers manage students’ embodied displays of nonunderstanding during task instructions. Learning in the EFL classroom goes beyond mastering linguistic forms and abilities; it is also for building class rapport and mutual affiliation. During textbook-driven and test-driven language practice, the teacher and students may initiate spontaneous and humorous questions and statements that depart from the given materials to build rapport and group solidarity (Sullivan, 2000, on EFL classroom discourse in Vietnam). Along similar lines, teachers and students may recycle words in each other’s turns to perform language play, thus simultaneously attending to language forms and lesson content and affi liating with each other and with the target language itself (Duff, 2000, on EFL classroom discourse in Hungary). In group interaction, students’ public displays of uncertainty or lack of knowledge about the target language (English) and their responses to each other’s displays may serve to jointly construct themselves as non-experts, thus forming mutual affi liation in an egalitarian relationship (Hauser, 2018, on EFL classroom discourse in Japan). Several chapters in this volume (e.g. Li; Malabarba; Sayer et al.) add to current understandings about social relationships in the EFL classroom by showing how teachers and students may build rapport and mutual affiliation as they accomplish the business of language teaching and learning. An integral part of teaching is testing. 3 While interactional practices in standardized L2 oral and computer-based tests have been well

14

CA Perspectives on English Language Learning, Teaching, Testing

documented (e.g. Bernstein et al., 2010; Galaczi, 2010, 2013; Kasper & Ross, 2007; Kasper & Youn, 2017; Kormos, 1999; Lazaraton, 1992; Okada, 2010; van Lier, 1989; Young & He, 1998; Young & Milanovic, 1992), little is known about how teachers and students co-construct assessment activities in small-scale tests in EFL contexts. And yet, it is these small-scale assessment activities that are more integral to the dayto-day reality of language teaching. The little research that exists in this area reveals that testing is a practical enterprise accomplished turn-byturn by participants, who jointly build on each other’s practices to arrive at shared understandings that allow for a test activity to take place. Leyland et al. (2016), for example, showed how a novice language tester in Japan moved away from using questions to play the devil’s advocate and from summarizing students’ responses to provide upshots because these practices did not successfully elicit participation from the students. The two chapters by Hauser and Greer (this volume) on the dynamic and co-constructed interactional practices that take place in classroom-level English tests in Japan are thus timely contributions to shed light on this topic. 3.3 Sociocultural and ideological forces in English language teaching

Power, resistance and social relationships are pervasive issues in L2 classroom interaction, where broader social-cultural beliefs and ideologies are enacted and contested in participants’ local actions and identity construction (Auerbach, 1995; Talmy, 2015). In an EFL classroom, a number of identities are made relevant in interaction depending on the setting (e.g. Bannink & Van Dam, 2013; Firth & Wagner, 1997; Okada, 2015). It is true that through their institutional identity, teachers are often given epistemic and authoritative primacy over the students (e.g. Fagan, 2012; Waring, 2011). An example is the distribution of turns, a hallmark of classroom management (Sert & Walsh, 2013), which positions the teacher as the main participant responsible for deciding who is to speak next. Likewise, the right to initiate repair and correction has been reported to be mostly held by teachers and not students (e.g. Greer, 2016; Hauser, 2010). Finally, teachers’ choice to uptake certain type of contributions from students at a given moment may also index their ideological, pedagogical and cultural preferences (Pourhaji, this volume). Despite teachers’ pre-assigned rights, however, classroom power relations may be quite complex and fluid. We cannot assume a priori that teachers in L2 classrooms in general have maximum control or are in a more powerful position (Rampton, 2006; Thornborrow, 2002). In the teaching of language for specific purposes (LSP), for instance, students are commonly more knowledgeable than teachers on field-specific content (for a review, see Belcher, 2009). Similarly, Hauser (this volume) shows how, during interactional language tests in

Introduction: Using CA to Understand the Realities of EFL Learning, Teaching and Testing

15

Japan, epistemic primacy is held by the students, who instruct and correct the teachers’ display of engineering understanding in an activity designed to assess the students’ oral abilities. Rather than being considered deviant or disruptive, learner initiatives display learner agency and can offer insights into their understandings of the lesson as well as providing teachers with opportunities to link to and expand on these understandings. Certainly, teachers’ prolonged lack of uptake can snuff out student engagement. At the same time, constant uptake of learner initiatives can potentially derail the larger instructional project. How do teachers manage to advance their agendas while remaining responsive to learner contributions? Garton (2012, on EFL classroom discourse in Italy) found that, despite the great variety of responses given by teachers whenever a student initiated a new turn, teachers are highly oriented to the lesson plan and respond to learner-initiated turns differently depending on the extent to which they help advance the lesson. Pourhaji (this volume) investigates a similar question when analyzing learner initiatives in adult EFL classes in Iran: what might be the relationship between teacher uptake of student initiatives and the degree to which the initiative is congruent with the teacher’s agenda and epistemic authority? Epistemic primacy and participants’ entitlement to speak and act come to light quite clearly in co-teaching situations, a growing phenomenon in language education. However, much research on EFL co-teaching has used surveys and interviews (e.g. Pratt, 2014; Xu, 2015), and little is known about the actual processes of teachers’ negotiation of roles. A recent study by Y. Park (2014) on co-taught classrooms in Korea found that teachers may co-manage the teaching floor during teacher–student talk and co-manage troubles through teacher–teacher talk. The teachers’ contributions and collaboration seem to be related to their language expertise, which is also actively oriented to by the students. Issues related to co-teachers’ roles and statuses such as the distribution of teachers’ turns and the rights to make contributions and decide on classroom management matters are taken up in the chapter by J. Lee (this volume). An important part of the ideological forces that may affect English education is the status ascribed to English across different settings around the globe, which fi nds its way into the classroom. For example, Hashiguti (2017) found that Brazilian students, no matter what their proficiency level, report feeling that they cannot speak English (‘I can’t speak English’, Hashiguti, 2017: 214, or ‘I freeze when I have to speak English’, Hashiguti, 2017: 218). She argued that this sentiment is ‘a mark of colonization which aimed at monoculturalism and monolingualism’ (Hashiguti, 2017: 224). Malabarba (this volume) offers a description of what can be viewed as a teacher’s attempt to design lessons that (1) are meaningful to students whose current realities and interests are not directly connected to the target language and (2) encourage students to speak the target language.

16

CA Perspectives on English Language Learning, Teaching, Testing

This is done primarily through establishing and maintaining an Englishonly policy at the classroom level and using English to engage in personal spontaneous talk initiated by students. The social, cultural and political life-worlds of the teacher and students have been shown to be manifested in actual moments of classroom interaction (e.g. Liddicoat, 2009; Nguyen & Yang, 2015; Talmy, 2009). This seems to hold true for EFL contexts as well, given the few available studies on this topic. Rathert (2012), for example, showed that Turkish students of English may choose to respond in the L1 as a way to distance themselves from the target language when the topic has little relevance for them. Another strategy was created by teachers and students in college-level English classes in Vietnam, who went beyond the given language exercises and drew on their local lore and jokes to make the lesson relevant on a personal level (Sullivan, 2000; see also Canagarajah, 1999, on how Sri Lankan teachers and students replaced alien textbook content and language with local topics and home language). The fact that the EFL classroom is embedded in a web of social, political and historical relations is illustrated by Duff ’s (1995) study of a dual language (EnglishHungarian) program at a high school in Hungary. In contrast with oral recitations in Hungarian-medium classes, more democratic activities such as small-group open-ended discussions in English-medium classes refl ected political changes around that time in Hungarian society. Contributing to the understudied topic of the connection between classroom interaction and teachers’ and students’ life-worlds in EFL contexts, Sayer et al. (this volume) reach beyond the classroom walls into the histories and lives of the teachers and students at a minority ethnic boarding school in Mexico. In so doing, the authors are able to uncover the layers of meanings and social relations that matter to the participants in classroom talk. 4 The Organization of this Volume

The chapters in this volume address the themes in research on EFL interaction mentioned above. Through ethnomethodological conversation analysis, they reveal the different constraints faced by learners and teachers and the possibilities they come up with in order to accomplish learning, teaching and testing. In Part 1: Learners’ Development of Interactional Competence, aus der Wieschen and Eskildsen demonstrate the microgenetic development of young learners’ competence regarding an embodied linguistic item in classroom activities in Denmark, where the constraints of the learners’ limited English proficiency coupled with the institutional goal to maximize target language use are shown to open up richly embedded opportunities for learning. Nguyen longitudinally traces the development of interactional competence by a novice front-desk staff member at a hotel in

Introduction: Using CA to Understand the Realities of EFL Learning, Teaching and Testing

17

Vietnam. The constraints of the novice’s English pronunciation in the context of the work-related task to explain hotel information to guests open up interactional troubles, which become a possible trigger for the novice to develop her turn design in various ways toward more effective task accomplishment. In Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes, Li details how moves in IRF cycles are employed contingently over larger stretches of talk by teachers to guide, scaffold and engage students in high school English classes in China. Here, the IRF sequence is shown to be utilized to orient toward both the constraints of maintaining the structure of teaching activities in large classes and the possibilities of expanding and modifying the basic sequence in light of students’ online contributions. Somuncu and Sert describe how teachers-in-training in EFL classes in Turkey manage learners’ expressions of non-understanding of instructions. They show that while students’ displayed lack of understanding may constrain the progressivity of teaching activities, they also provide interactionally relevant slots for teachers to fill gaps in students’ knowledge. With a focus on classroom-level assessment practices in Japan, Hauser examines the fi nely co-constructed student–teacher interaction in an assessment activity, and Greer details how student dyads orient to the closing of a timed speaking test. They demonstrate that constraints associated with assessment activities such as the limited time frame and the need for teachers to evaluate students while engaging in co-constructed interaction can also lead to opportunities for students to utilize specific interactional resources such as the management of pre-closing and closing and practices for doing being monitored. In Part 3: Sociocultural and Ideological Forces in English Language Teaching, J. Lee brings attention to the negotiated power relationship between American and Korean co-teachers in EFL classes for young learners in South Korea. The constraints regarding teacher roles in this coteaching arrangement are shown to be enacted and contested in classroom interaction. Also on the theme of power negotiation, Pourhaji concentrates on the dynamic power relationship between students and teachers during student initiatives in college-level EFL classes in Iran. Within the constraints of pedagogical agendas and cultural expectations of teachers’ epistemic authority, possibilities to uptake or reject learners’ initiatives are analyzed. The issue of how an ‘English-only’ policy may be talked into being at the classroom discourse level is taken up by Malabarba in the context of adult classes in Brazil. The constraints of beginning-level students’ proficiency and the institution’s implicit policy to prioritize the target language do not limit the possibilities for the teachers and students to embed personal aspects into the lessons. Finally, how the broader social, historical and economical context may become relevant to language learning and teaching is taken up by Sayer, Malabarba and Moore in the context of an ethnic boarding school in Mexico. Despite the constraints of the

18

CA Perspectives on English Language Learning, Teaching, Testing

teaching context, namely the apparent disconnection between assigned materials and the students’ lives, the participants find possibilities to bring their personal history and viewpoints into the English classroom. The volume concludes with an insightful and critical commentary by Wagner, who contextualizes these chapters in traditions and developments in ethnomethodology and CA-based research on EFL teaching and learning. While focusing on different issues, each empirical chapter describes the context of the study to familiarize the reader with the diversity of EFL contexts. To facilitate practical applications, the authors also discuss implications for ELT practitioners. Taken together, this volume makes it clear that the constraints and possibilities in English education in EFL contexts are constructed, enacted and negotiated in the intricacies of moments of social interaction. Notes (1) This is in contrast to an etic stance, in which behavior is studied from outside the system, often using preconceived and top-down categories for analysis. The contrast between emic and etic is seen in the distinction between the phonemic level and phonetic level in phonology (Pike, 1967). (2) In contrast, much research has been conducted on interactional competence development in ESL contexts, e.g. Barraja-Rohan, 2015; Eskildsen, 2011, 2012, 2015; Eskildsen & Wagner, 2015; Hauser, 2013a; Hellermann, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2011; Kim, 2016, 2017a, 2017b; Markee, 2000, 2008; Nguyen, 2011, 2012; Seedhouse & Walsh, 2010; Shintani & Ellis, 2014; Yagi, 2007; Young & Miller, 2004. (3) We do not make a distinction herein between ‘testing’ and ‘assessment’, ‘evaluation’ or ‘measuring’.

References Alcón Soler, E. (2005) Does instruction work for pragmatic learning in EFL contexts? System 33 (3), 417–435. Alcón Soler, E. (2006) Fostering EFL learners’ awareness of requesting through explicit and implicit consciousness-raising tasks. In M.P. Garcia Mayo (ed.) Investigating Tasks in Formal Language Learning (pp. 221–241). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Amir, A. and Musk, N. (2013) Language policing: Micro-level language policy-in-process in the foreign language classroom. Classroom Discourse 4 (2), 151–167. Antaki, C. (2011) Six kinds of applied conversation analysis. In C. Antaki (ed.) Applied Conversation Analysis: Intervention and Change in Institutional Talk (pp. 1–14). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Auerbach, E.R. (1993) Reexamining English only in the ESL classroom. TESOL Quarterly 27 (1), 10–33. Auerbach, E.R. (1995) The politics of the ESL classroom: Issues of power in pedagogical choices. In J. Tollefson (ed.) Power and Inequality in Language Education (pp. 3–99). New York: Cambridge University Press. Baker, C. (2011) Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism (5th edn). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Balaman, U. and Sert, O. (2017) Development of L2 interactional resources for online collaborative task accomplishment. Computer Assisted Language Learning 30 (7), 601–630; doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2017.1334667.

Introduction: Using CA to Understand the Realities of EFL Learning, Teaching and Testing

19

Bannink, A. (2002) Negotiating the paradoxes of spontaneous talk in advanced L2 classes. In C. Kramsch (ed.) Language Learning and Language Socialization: Ecological Perspectives (pp. 266–289). New York: Continuum. Bannink, A. and Van Dam, J. (2013) The fi rst lecture: Playing upon identities and modeling academic roles. Linguistics and Education 24, 556–571. Barraja-Rohan, A.-M. (2015) ‘I told you’: Storytelling development of a Japanese learning English as a second language. In T. Cadierno and S.W. Eskildsen (eds) Usage-based Perspectives on Second Language Learning (pp. 271–304). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Belcher, D. (2009) English for Specific Purposes in Theory and Practice. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Bernstein, J., Van Moere, A. and Cheng, J. (2010) Validating automated speaking tests. Language Testing 27 (3), 355–377. British Council (2013) The English Effect (p. 24). See www.britishcouncil.org. Brouwer, C.E., Rasmussen, G. and Wagner, J. (2004) Embedded corrections in second language talk. In R. Gardner and J. Wagner (eds) Second Language Conversations (pp. 75– 92). London: Continuum. Butler, Y.G. (2011) The implementation of communicative and task-based language teaching in the Asia-Pacific region. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 31, 36–57. Campbell-Larsen, J. (2014) Topic in talk-in-interaction: A longitudinal study of Japanese learners of English. Bulletin of the Research Institute at St Andrews University 39 (3), 171–199. Canagarajah, A.S. (1999) Resisting Linguistic Imperialism in English Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Canagarajah, A.S. (2007) Lingua franca English, multilingual communities, and language acquisition. The Modern Language Journal 91, 923–939. Can Daşkın, N. (2015) Shaping learner contributions in an EFL classroom: Implications for L2 classroom interactional competence. Classroom Discourse 6 (1), 33–56. Carroll, D. (2005) Vowel-marking as an interactional resource in Japanese novice ESL conversations. In K. Richards and P. Seedhouse (eds) Applying Conversation Analysis (pp. 214–234). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Cenoz, J. (2007) The acquisition of pragmatic competence and multilingualism in foreign language contexts. In E. Alcón Soler and M. Safont Jordà (eds) Intercultural Language Use and Language Learning (pp. 123–140). New York: Springer. Cenoz, J. and Gorter, D. (2013) Towards a plurilingual approach in English language teaching: Softening the boundaries between languages. TESOL Quarterly 47 (3), 591–599. Chang, M. and Goswami, J.S. (2011) Factors affecting the implementation of communicative language teaching in Taiwanese college English classes. English Language Teaching 4 (2), 3–12. Chomsky, N. (1965) Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. DelliCarpini, M. (2009) Dialogues across disciplines: Preparing English as a second language teachers for interdisciplinary collaboration. Current Issues in Education 11. Retrieved from https://cie.asu.edu/ojs/index.php/cieatasu/article/view/1573 Drew, P. and Heritage, J. (1992) Talk at Work: Interaction in Institutional Settings. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Duff, P. (1995) An ethnography of communication in immersion classrooms in Hungary. TESOL Quarterly 29 (3), 505–537. Duff, P. (2000) Repetition in foreign language classroom interaction. In J.K. Hall and L.S. Verplaetse (eds) Second and Foreign Language Learning Through Classroom Interaction (pp. 109–138). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Duff, P., Wong, P. and Early, M. (2000) Learning language for work and life: The linguistic socialization of immigrant Canadians seeking careers in healthcare. Canadian Modern Language Review 57 (1), 9–57.

20

CA Perspectives on English Language Learning, Teaching, Testing

Eskildsen, S.W. (2011) The L2 inventory in action: Usage-based linguistics and conversation analysis in second language acquisition. In G. Pallotti and J. Wagner (eds) Learning as Social Practice: Conversation-analytic Perspectives (pp. 327–364). Honolulu, HI: National Foreign Language Resource Center. Eskildsen, S.W. (2012) L2 negation constructions at work. Language Learning 62 (2), 335–372. Eskildsen, S.W. (2015) What counts as a developmental sequence? Exemplar-based L2 learning of English questions. Language Learning 65 (1), 33–62. Eskildsen, S.W. and Wagner, J. (2015) Embodied L2 construction learning. Language Learning 65 (2), 268–297. Eurostat (2016) Proportion of pupils in primary education learning foreign languages, by language, 2014. See http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/ File:Proportion_of_pupils_in_primary_education_learning_foreign_languages,_by_ language,_2014_(%C2%B9)_(%25)_YB16-II.png. Fagan, D. (2012) ‘Dealing with’ unexpected learner contributions in whole group activities: An examination of novice language teachers’ discursive practices. Classroom Discourse 3, 107–128. Firth, A. (1990) ‘Lingua franca’ negotiations: Towards an interactional approach. World Englishes 9 (3), 269–280. Firth, A. (1995) ‘Accounts’ in negotiation discourse: A single-case analysis. Journal of Pragmatics 23 (2), 199–226. Firth, A. (1996) The discursive accomplishment of normality: On ‘lingua franca’ English and conversation analysis. Journal of Pragmatics 26, 237–259. Firth, A. (2009a) Doing not being a foreign language learner: English as a lingua franca in the workplace and (some) implications for SLA. IRAL 47, 127–156. Firth, A. (2009b) The ‘lingua franca’ factor. Intercultural Pragmatics 6 (2), 147–170. Firth, A. and Wagner, J. (1997) On discourse, communication and (some) fundamental concepts in SLA research. The Modern Language Journal 81 (3), 285–312. Firth, A. and Wagner, J. (2007) Second/foreign language learning as a social accomplishment: Elaborations on a reconceptualized SLA. The Modern Language Journal 91, 800–819. Fujimoto, D. (2010) Agreements and disagreements: The small group discussion in a foreign language classroom. In G. Kasper, H.t. Nguyen, D. Yoshimi and J. Yoshioka (eds) Pragmatics and Language Learning (Vol. 12, pp. 297–342). Honolulu, HI: National Foreign Language Resource Center. Galaczi, E.D. (2010) Face-to-face and computer-based assessment of speaking: Challenges and opportunities. In L. Araújo (ed.) Proceedings of the Computer-based Assessment (CBA) of Foreign Language Speaking Skills (pp. 29–51). Brussels: European Commission. Galaczi, E.D. (2013) Interactional competence across proficiency levels: How do learners manage interaction in paired speaking tests? Applied Linguistics 35 (5), 553–574. Gardner, R. (2008) Conversation analysis and orientation to learning. Journal of Applied Linguistics 5 (3), 229–244. Garfi nkel, H. (1967) Studies in Ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliff s, NJ: Prentice Hall. Garfi nkel, H. (2002) Ethnomethodology’s Programs: Working out Durkheim’s Aphorism. New York: Rowman & Littlefield. Garton, S. (2012) Speaking out of turn? Taking the initiative in teacher-fronted classroom interaction. Classroom Discourse 3 (1), 29–45. Goodwin, C. (1981) Conversational Organization: Interaction between Speakers and Hearers. New York: Academic Press. Greer, T. (2016) Multiple involvements in interactional repair: Using smartphones in peer culture to augment lingua franca English. In M. Theobald (ed.) Friendship and Peer Culture in Multilingual Settings (pp. 197–229). Bingley: Emerald Group.

Introduction: Using CA to Understand the Realities of EFL Learning, Teaching and Testing

21

Hà, C.B. and Wanphet, P. (2016) Exploring EFL teachers’ use of written instructions and their subsequent verbal instructions for the same tasks. Nordic Journal of English Studies 15 (4), 135–159. Hall, J.K. (1993) The role of oral practices in the accomplishment of our everyday lives: The sociocultural dimension of interaction with implications for the learning of another language. Applied Linguistics 14 (2), 145–167. Hall, J.K. (1995) (Re)creating our worlds with words: A sociohistorical perspective of face-to-face interaction. Applied Linguistics 16 (2), 206–232. Hall, J.K. (1999) A prosaics of interaction: The development of interactional competence in another language. In E. Hinkel (ed.) Culture in Second Language Teaching and Learning (pp. 137–151). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hall, J.K. (2018) From L2 interactional competence to L2 interactional repertoires: Reconceptualising the objects of L2 learning. Classroom Discourse 9 (1), 25–39. Hall, J.K. (2019) An EMCA approach to capturing the specialized work of L2 teaching: A research proposal. In M. Haneda and H. Nassaji (eds) Perspectives on Language as Action. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Hall, J.K. and Pekarek Doehler, S. (2011) L2 interactional competence and development. In J.K. Hall, J. Hellermann and S. Pekarek Doehler (eds) L2 Interactional Competence and Development (pp. 1–15). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Hashiguti, S.T. (2017) Can we speak English? Reflections on the spoken EFL in Brazil. Trabalhos em Linguística Aplicada 56 (1), 213–233. Hauser, E. (2009) Turn-taking and primary speakership during a student discussion. In H.t. Nguyen and G. Kasper (eds) Talk-in-interaction: Multilingual Perspectives (pp. 215–244). Honolulu, HI: National Foreign Language Resource Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa. Hauser, E. (2010) Other-correction of language form following a repair sequence. In G. Kasper, H.t. Nguyen, D. Yoshimi and J. Yoshioka (eds) Pragmatics and Language Learning (Vol. 12, pp. 277–296). Honolulu, HI: National Foreign Language Resource Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa. Hauser, E. (2013a) Stability and change in one adult’s second language English negation. Language Learning 63 (3), 463–498. Hauser, E. (2013b) Beyond intersubjectivity: Task orientation and fi rst language use in foreign language discussions. Pragmatics and Society 4 (3), 285–316. Hauser, E. (2014) Solution strokes: Gestural component of speaking trouble solution. Gesture 14 (3), 297–319. Hauser, E. (2018) Being a non-expert in L2 English: Constructing egalitarianism in group preparation work. Hacettepe University Journal of Education 33 (2), 93–112. Have, P.t. (2007) Doing Conversation Analysis: A Practical Guide (2nd edn). London: Sage. He, A. (2004) CA for SLA: Arguments from the Chinese language classroom. The Modern Language Journal 88 (4), 568–582. Hellermann, J. (2006) Classroom interactive practices for developing L2 literacy: A microethnographic study of two beginning adult learners of English. Applied Linguistics 27 (3), 377–404. Hellermann, J. (2007) The development of practices for action in classroom dyadic interaction: Focus on task openings. The Modern Language Journal 91 (1), 83–96. Hellermann, J. (2008) Social Actions for Classroom Language Learning. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Hellermann, J. (2011) Members’ methods, members competencies: Looking for evidence of language learning in longitudinal investigation of other-initiated repair. In J.K. Hall, J. Hellermann and S. Pekarek Doehler (eds) L2 Interactional Competence and Development (pp. 147–172). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Hepburn, A. and Bolden, G.B. (2013) The conversation analytic approach to transcription. In J. Sidnell and T. Stivers (eds) The Handbook of Conversation Analysis (pp. 57–76). Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.

22

CA Perspectives on English Language Learning, Teaching, Testing

Hepburn, A. and Bolden, G.B. (2017) Transcribing for Social Research. London: Sage. Herazo Rivera, J.D. (2010) Authentic oral interaction in the EFL class: What it means, what it does not. Profi le Issues in Teachers’ Professional Development 12 (1), 47–61. Heritage, J. (1984) Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology. Cambridge and New York: Polity Press. Hosoda, Y. and Aline, D. (2015) Single episode analysis of extended conflict talk sequences in second language classroom discussion. Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 3 (2), 231–262. Hutchby, I. and Wooffitt, R. (1998) Conversation Analysis: Principles, Practices and Applications. Cambridge: Polity Press. Jefferson, G. (2004) Glossary of transcript symbols with an introduction. In G.H. Lerner (ed.) Conversation Analysis: Studies from the First Generation (pp. 13–31). Amsterdam and Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. Jenks, C.J. (2011) Transcribing Talk and Interaction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Jung, H. (2017) Contingencies in EFL writing tutors’ third turns: A conversation analytic perspective. English Teaching 72 (4), 157–177. Kääntä, L. (2012) Teachers’ embodied allocations in instructional interaction. Classroom Discourse 3 (2), 166–186; doi.org/10.1080/19463014.2012.716624. Kasper, G. and Ross, S.J. (2007) Multiple questions in oral proficiency interviews. Journal of Pragmatics 39 (11), 2045–2070; doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2007.07.011. Kasper, G. and Youn, S.J. (2017) Transforming instruction to activity: Roleplay in language assessment. Applied Linguistics Review; doi.org/10.1515/applirev-2017-0020. Kaur, J. (2011) Intercultural communication in English as a lingua franca: Some sources of misunderstanding. Intercultural Pragmatics 8 (1), 93–116. Kim, Y. (2016) Development of L2 interactional competence: Being a story recipient in L2 English conversation. Discourse and Cognition Linguistic Society 23 (1), 1–8. Kim, Y. (2017a) Topic initiation in conversation-for-learning: Developmental and pedagogical perspectives. English Teaching 72 (1), 73–103. Kim, Y. (2017b) ‘What is stoyr-steruh type?’: Knowledge asymmetry, intersubjectivity, and learning opportunities in conversation-for-learning. Applied Linguistics; doi. org/10.1093/applin/amx029. Kim, S. (2018) Development of discursive practices for Thai English intelligibility in interaction. System 72, 164–177. Kimura, D. and Kazik, N. (2017) Learning in-progress: On the role of gesture in microgenetic development of L2 grammar. Gesture 16 (1), 126–150. Kimura, D., Malabarba, T. and Hall, J. (2018) Data collection considerations for classroom interaction research: A conversation analytic perspective. Classroom Discourse 9 (3), 185–204; doi.org/10.1080/19463014.2018.1485589. Ko, S. (2014) The nature of multiple responses to teachers’ questions. Applied Linguistics 35 (1), 48–62. Kormos, J. (1999) Simulating conversations in oral-proficiency assessment: A conversation analysis of role plays and non-scripted interviews in language exams. Language Testing 16 (2), 163–188; doi.org/10.1177/026553229901600203. Kozar, O. (2015) Language education via audio/videoconferencing (LEVAC): A discursive investigation. Linguistics and Education 31, 86–100. Labov, W. (1972) Sociolingistic Patterns. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Language Learning in the Wild (2017) Mission. See http://languagelearninginthewild. com (accessed 1 November 2017). Lazaraton, A. (1992) The structural organization of a language interview: A conversation analytic perspective. System 20 (3), 373–386. Lee, Y.-A. (2007) Third turn position in teacher talk: Contingency and the work of teaching. Journal of Pragmatics 39, 1204–1230.

Introduction: Using CA to Understand the Realities of EFL Learning, Teaching and Testing

23

Lee, Y.-A. and Hellermann, J. (2014) Tracing developmental changes through conversation analysis: Cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis. TESOL Quarterly 48 (4), 763–788. Leyland, C., Greer, T. and Rettig-Miki, E. (2016) Dropping the devil’s advocate: One novice language tester’s shifting interactional practices across a series of speaking tests. Classroom Discourse 7 (1), 85–107; doi.org/10.1080/19463014.2015.1100129. Li, J. (2018) L1 in the IRF cycle: A case study of Chinese EFL classrooms. Asian-Pacifi c Journal of Second and Foreign Language Education 3 (1), 1; doi.org/10.1186/s40862017-0042-y. Liddicoat, A. (2009) Sexual identity as linguistic failure: Trajectories of interaction in the heteronormative language classroom. Journal of Language, Identity & Education 8 (2), 191–202. Markee, N. (2000) Conversation Analysis. Mahwah, NJ and London: Lawrence Erlbaum. Markee, N. (2008) Toward a learning behavior tracking methodology for CA-for-SLA. Applied Linguistics 29 (3), 404–427. Martínez-Flor, A. (2006) The eff ects of explicit and implicit treatments on EFL learners’ confi dence in recognizing appropriate suggestions. In K. Bardovi-Harlig, J.C. Felix-Brasdefer and A.S. Omar (eds) Pragmatics Language Learning (Vol. 11, pp. 199–223). Honolulu, HI: National Foreign Language Resource Center. Matsumoto, Y. and Dobs, A.M. (2017) Pedagogical gestures as interactional resources for teaching and learning tense and aspect in the ESL grammar classroom. Language Learning 67 (1), 7–42. Mehan, H. (1979) Learning Lessons: Social Organization in the Classroom. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Menard-Warwick, J. (2007) ‘Because she made beds. Every day’. Social positioning, classroom discourse, and language learning. Applied Linguistics 29 (2), 267–289. Moerman, M. (1988) Talking Culture. Philadelphia, PA: University of Philadelphia Press. Mondada, L. (2004) Ways of ‘doing being plurilingual’ in international work meetings. In R. Gardner and J. Wagner (eds) Second Language Conversations (pp. 18–39). London: Continuum. Mondada, L. (2013) The conversation analytic approach to data collection. In J. Sidnell and T. Stivers (eds) The Handbook of Conversation Analysis (pp. 32–56). Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Mortensen, K. (2016) The body as a resource for other-initiation of repair: Cupping the hand behind the ear. Research on Language and Social Interaction 49 (1), 34–57. Nguyen, H.t. (2008) Rapport building in language instruction: A microanalysis of the multiple resources in teacher talk. Language and Education 1 (4), 284-303. Nguyen, H.t. (2011) A longitudinal microanalysis of a second language learner’s participation. In G. Pallotti and J. Wagner (eds) L2 Learning as Social Practice: Conversationanalytic Perspectives (pp. 17–44). Honolulu, HI: National Foreign Language Resource Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa. Nguyen, H.t. (2012) Social interaction and competence development: Learning the sequential organization of a communicative practice. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction 1 (2), 127–142. Nguyen, H.t. (2016) Some interactional functions of text in a text-and-voice scmc chat session for language learning. International Journal of Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching 6 (1), 1–23. Nguyen, H.t. (2017) Toward a conversation analytic framework for tracking interactional competence development from school to work. In S. Pekarek Doehler, A. Bangerter, G. de Weck, L. Filliettaz, E. González-Martinez and C. Petitjean (eds) Interactional Competences in Institutional Settings: From School to the Workplace (pp. 197–225). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Nguyen, H.t. and Kellogg, G. (2010) ‘I had a stereotype that American were fat’: Becoming a speaker of culture in a second language. The Modern Language Journal 94, 56–73.

24

CA Perspectives on English Language Learning, Teaching, Testing

Nguyen, H.t. and Yang, L. (2015) A queer learner’s identity positioning in second language classroom discourse. Classroom Discourse 6 (3), 221–241. Nikula, T. (2005) English as an object and tool of study in classrooms: Interactional effects and pragmatic implications. Linguistics and Education 16, 27–58. Okada, Y. (2010) Role-play in oral proficiency interviews: Interactive footing and interactional competencies. Journal of Pragmatics 42 (6), 1647–1668; doi.org/10.1016/ j.pragma.2009.11.002. Okada, Y. (2013) Prioritization: A formulation practice and its relevance for interaction in teaching and testing contexts. In T. Greer, D. Tatsuki and C. Roever (eds) Pragmatics and Language Learning, Vol. 13 (pp. 55–77). Honolulu, HI: National Foreign Language Resource Center. Okada, Y. (2015) Contrasting identities: A language teacher’s practice in an English for Specific Purposes classroom. Classroom Discourse 6 (1), 73–87; doi:10.1080/194630 14.2014.961092. Park, W. (2014) Examining Korean English teachers’ question-in-interaction with young learners: Discussion beyond initiation-response-feedback (IRF). Korean Journal of Applied Linguistics 30 (3), 197–222. Park, Y. (2014) The roles of third-turn repeats in two L2 classroom interactional contexts. Applied Linguistics 35 (2), 145–167. Pekarek Doehler, S. (2006) Compétence et langage en action. Bulletin Suisse de Linguistique Appliquée 84, 9–45. Pekarek Doehler, S. (2010) Conceptual changes and methodological challenges: On language and learning from a conversation analytic perspective on SLA. In C. Jenks and S. Walsh (eds) Conceptualizing Learning in Applied Linguistics (pp. 105–126). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Piirainen-Marsh, A. (2011) Enacting interactional competence in gaming activities: Coproducing talk with virtual others. In J.K. Hall, J. Hellermann and S. Pekarek Doehler (eds) L2 Interactional Competence and Development (pp. 19–44). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Piirainen-Marsh, A. and Tainio, L. (2009) Collaborative game-play as a site for participation and situated learning of a second language. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 53 (2), 167–183. Pike, K.L. (1967) Language in Relation to a Unifi ed Theory of the Structure of Human Behavior. The Hague: Mouton. Pomerantz, A. (1984) Agreeing and disagreeing with assessments: Some features of preferred/dispreferred turn shapes. In M. Atkinson and J. Heritage (eds) Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis (pp. 57–101). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pratt, S. (2014) Achieving symbiosis: Working through challenges found in co-teaching to achieve effective co-teaching relationships. Teaching and Teacher Education 41, 1–12. Rabab’ah, G. (2016) The effect of communication strategy training on the development of EFL learners’ strategic competence and oral communicative ability. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 45 (3), 625–651. Rampton, B. (2006) Language in Late Modernity: Interaction in an Urban School. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rao, Z. (2002) Chinese students’ perceptions of communicative and non-communicative activities in EFL classroom. System 30 (1), 85–105. Rathert, S. (2012) Functions of teacher and student code-switching in an EFL classroom and pedagogical focus: Observations and implications. Educational Process: International Journal 1 (1–2), 7–18. Richards, K. (2005) Introduction. In K. Richards and P. Seedhouse (eds) Applying Conversation Analysis (pp. 1–15). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Introduction: Using CA to Understand the Realities of EFL Learning, Teaching and Testing 25

Sacks, H. (1984) Notes on methodology. In J. Heritage and J. Maxwell Atkinson (eds) Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis (pp. 21–27). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sacks, H. (1995) Lectures on Conversation, Vols I and II. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Sacks, H., Schegloff, E.A. and Jefferson, G. (1974) A simplest systematics for the organization of turn taking for conversation. Language 50 (4), 696–735. Sampson, H. and Zhao, M. (2003) Multilingual crews: Communication and the operation of ships. World Englishes 22, 31–43. Schegloff, E.A. and Sacks, H. (1974) Opening up closings. In R. Turner (ed.) Ethnomethodology (pp. 233–264). Harmondworth: Penguin. Schegloff, E.A. (1995) Introduction. In H. Sacks (ed.) Lectures on Conversation, Vols I and II (pp. ix–lxii). Malden, MA: Blackwell. Schegloff, E.A. (1996) Issues of relevance for discourse analysis: Contingency in action, interaction and co-participant context. In E.H. Hovy and D. Scott (eds) Computational and Conversational Discourse: Burning Issues – An Interdisciplinary Account (pp. 3–38). Heidelberg: Springer Verlag. Schegloff, E.A. (1997) Whose text? Whose context? Discourse and Society 8 (2), 165–187. Schegloff, E. (2006) Interaction: The infrastructure for social institutions, the natural ecological niche for language, and the arena in which culture is enacted. In N.J. Enfield and S. Levinson (eds) Roots of Human Sociality (pp. 70–96). Oxford: Berg. Schegloff, E.A. (2007) Sequence Organization in Interaction: A Primer in Conversation Analysis, Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seedhouse, P. (2004) The Interactional Architecture of the Language Classroom: A Conversation Analysis Perspective. Malden, MA and Oxford: Blackwell. Seedhouse, P. and Walsh, S. (2010) Learning a second language through classroom interaction. In P. Seedhouse, S. Walsh and C. Jenks (eds) Conceptualisation of ‘Learning’ in Applied Linguistics (pp. 127–146). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Sert, O. (2015) Social Interaction and L2 Classroom Discourse. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Sert, O. (2017) Creating opportunities for L2 learning in a prediction activity. System 70, 14– 25. Sert, O. (forthcoming) Transforming CA fi ndings into future L2 teaching practices: Challenges and prospects for teacher education. In S. Kunitz, O. Sert and N. Markee (eds) Classroom-based Conversation Analytic Research: Theoretical and Applied Perspectives on Pedagogy. New York: Springer. Sert, O. and Walsh, S. (2013) The interactional management of claims of insufficient knowledge in English language classrooms. Language and Education 27 (6), 542–565; doi:10.1080/09500782.2012.739174. Shintani, N. and Ellis, R. (2014) Tracking ‘learning behaviours’ in the incidental acquisition of two dimensional adjectives by Japanese beginner learners of L2 English. Language Teaching Research 18 (4), 521– 542. Sidnell, J. (2007) Conversation Analysis: An Introduction. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Sidnell, J. (2013) Basic conversation analytic method. In J. Sidnell and T. Stivers (eds) The Handbook of Conversation Analysis (pp. 77–99). Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Sinclair, J.M. and Coulthard, M. (1975) Towards an Analysis of Discourse: The English Used by Teachers and Pupils. London: Oxford University Press. St. John, O. and Cromdal, J. (2016) Crafting instructions collaboratively: Student questions and dual addressivity in classroom task instructions. Discourse Processes 53 (4), 252–279; doi:10.1080/0163853X.2015.1038128. Strutz, J. (2012) Crenças sobre ensino-aprendizagem de língua inglesa: O que pensam quatro professores do ensino médio de escolas públicas. Revista Eventos Pedagógicos 3 (1, Special issue), 416–425.

26

CA Perspectives on English Language Learning, Teaching, Testing

Sullivan, P. (2000) Spoken artistry: Performance in a foreign language classroom. In J.K. Hall and L.S. Verplaetse (eds) Second and Foreign Language Learning through Classroom Interaction (pp. 73–90). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Takahashi, S. (2001) The role of input enhancement in developing pragmatic competence. In K. Rose and G. Kasper (eds) Pragmatics in Language Teaching (pp. 171–199). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Talmy, S. (2009) Resisting ESL: Categories and sequence in a critically ‘motivated’ analysis of classroom interaction. In H.t. Nguyen and G. Kasper (eds) Talk in Interaction: Multilingual Perspectives (pp. 181–213). Honolulu, HI: National Foreign Language Resource Center, University of Hawaii Press. Talmy, S. (2015) A language socialization perspective on identity work of ESL youth in a superdiverse high school classroom. In N. Markee (ed.) Handbook of Classroom Discourse and Interaction (pp. 353–368). Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Thornborrow, J. (2002) Power Talk: Language and Interaction in Institutional Discourse. Harlow: Pearson Education. Trần, Q.H. (2016) Responsive turns in L2 discussion tasks: A conversation analysis perspective. Language Education in Asia 7 (2), 100–113. van Lier, L. (1989) Reeling, writhing, drawling, stretching, and fainting in coils: Oral proficiency interviews as conversation. TESOL Quarterly 23 (3), 489–508. Wagner, J. (2015) Designing for language learning in the wild: Creating social infrastructures for second language learning. In T. Cadierno and S.W. Eskildsen (eds) Usage-based Perspectives on Second Language Learning (pp. 75–102). Berlin: Moutin de Gruyter. Watanabe, A. (2017) Developing L2 interactional competence: Increasing participation through self-selection in post-expansion sequences. Classroom Discourse 8 (3), 271–293. Waring, H. (2011) Learner initiatives and learning opportunities in the language classroom. Classroom Discourse 2, 201–218. Waring, H., Creider, S.C. and Box, C. (2013) Explaining vocabulary in the second language classroom: A conversation analytic account. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction 2, 249–264. Whyte, S. and Cutrim Schmid, E. (2014) A task-based approach to video communication with the IWB: A French-German primary EFL class exchange. In E. Cutrim Schmid and S. Whyte (eds) Teaching Languages with Technology: Communicative Approaches to Interactive Whiteboard Use. A Resource Book for Teacher Development (pp. 50–85). London: Bloomsbury. Xu, H. (2015) The development of teacher autonomy in collaborative lesson preparation: A multiple-case study of EFL teachers in China. System 52, 139–148. Yagi, K. (2007) The development of interactional competence in a situated practice by Japanese learners of English as a second language. Hawaii Pacifi c University TESL Working Paper Series 5 (1), 19–38. Young, R.F. (1999) Sociolinguistic approaches to SLA. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 19, 105–132. Young, R.F. (2009) Discursive Practice in Language Learning and Teaching. Malden, MA and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Young, R.F. (2011) Interactional competence in language learning, teaching, and testing. In E. Hinkel (ed.) Handbook of Research in Second Language Teaching and Learning (pp. 426– 443). New York: Routledge. Young, R.F. and He, A.W. (1998) Talking and Testing: Discourse Approaches to the Assessment of Oral Profi ciency (pp. 1–24). Amsterdam and Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. Young, R.F. and Milanovic, M. (1992) Discourse variation in oral proficiency interviews. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 14, 403–424. Young, R.F. and Miller, E. (2004) Learning as changing participation: Discourse roles in ESL writing conferences. The Modern Language Journal 88 (4), 519–535.

Introduction: Using CA to Understand the Realities of EFL Learning, Teaching and Testing

27

Appendix: Conversation Analytic Transcription Notations (Based on Jefferson, 2004) . ? , ¿ ↑ ↓ underline CAPS °quiet° °°quiet°° [ ] = (0.8) (.) ::: >word
(Figure 2.7) TEA: swap+ tea ->+ TEA: +det betyder bytte it means swap tea +‘swap seats’ three times---> (1)+ tea ->+

Figure 2.4 Excerpt 2.2a, line 04

Embodied and Occasioned Learnables and Teachables in an Early EFL Classroom

39

Figure 2.5 One version of the ‘swap seats’ gesture (re-enacted). Starts by crossing arms, then opening them

Figure 2.6 Another version of the ‘swap seats’ gesture (re-enacted). Starts by opening the arms, then crossing them

The teacher’s instruction draws on an example, ‘and- (.) you are going to say (--) for instance bikini top and sweat band (--) swap seats’ (lines 01, 03 and 05). During the silence (line 04) she deploys a gesture which elaborates the term ‘swap seats’. The gesture consists of crossing movements of both arms, with fi ngers pointing, from one side to the other. We will refer to this gesture as the ‘swap seats’ gesture because, as we will see, this gesture is connected to that particular linguistic item. For the sake of clarity we represent reenacted versions of the gesture in Figures 2.5 and 2.6. At the onset, before she begins saying ‘swap seats’, the teacher holds her hands spread before her in the interactional space shared with Frederik and Josefi ne (Figure 2.4a). She then makes the crossing movement of the arms (Figure 2.4b), and fi nally she halts the gesture with her arms crossed, her index fi ngers still pointing (Figure 2.4c). Coinciding with the halting of the gesture, her arms crossed and index fi ngers pointing, she says the words, ‘swap seats’. At this stage, however, neither the phrase ‘swap seats’ nor the gesture receive any attention from Frederik and Josefi ne. Instead, Frederik makes the next move to begin playing the game as he asks if he can start (line 06). The teacher answers affi rmatively (line 07) and at the same time she moves her hands back to the position of the onset of the gesture she just deployed (Figure 2.7). The teacher’s next action is to repeat ‘swap’ and translate it (lines 09–11). During her delivery of ‘swap’ she repeats the gesture from before, and during her translation of the term she repeats the gesture three times at a higher pace. She then asks Frederik to demonstrate his ability to say ‘swap’, again using the gesture alongside her talk (Excerpt 2.2b, lines 01–03; Figure 2.8).

40

Part 1: Learners’ Development of Interactional Competence

Figure 2.7 Excerpt 2.2a, line 08

Figure 2.8 Excerpt 2.2b, line 03

Excerpt 2.2b Embodied instruction II

01 TEA: +dennis (0.2) eller (.) frederik Dennis or Frederik tea +hands terminal ‘swap seats’ position ---> 02 (.)+ tea ->+ 03 TEA: +ka du si swap+ can you say swap tea +‘swap seats’ +BH stay in terminal position–––>(Figure 2.8) 04 (0.9) 05 KAS: +schwap + fre +fists of BH together+ 06 FRE: +sop= fre +‘swap seats’ w RH first then BH

Embodied and Occasioned Learnables and Teachables in an Early EFL Classroom

07 TEA: tea 08 TEA: tea 09 10 FRE: fre

41

+=swap +last half of ‘swap seats’ +seats +terminal ‘swap seats’--->(line 12) (0.3) [+ sw[ap+ +‘swap seats’

+rests in position---> (line 12)(Figure 2.9)

11 JOS: [+swap sea:[:t jos +‘swap seat’——> (line 13)(Figure 2.9) 12 TEA: [+>det betyder< byt+ pladser↓+ it means swap seats tea ->+’swap seats’ + fre ->+ 13 (0.2)+ jos ->+ 14 TEA: are you ready

In response, Frederik utters an approximation of ‘swap’ and does a repeat of the teacher’s gesture – a return gesture (line 06). The teacher repeats ‘swap’ (line 07) and then ‘seats’ (line 08) and then, following a pause (line 09) and perhaps orienting to the teacher’s ‘swap’ in line 07 as a correction of his pronunciation, Frederik produces ‘swap’ in a way that sounds very close to the teacher’s version, once more returning the teacher’s gesture (line 10; Figure 2.9). At the same time, Josefi ne contributes with ‘swap sea::t’, while also doing the ‘swap seats’ gesture (line 11; Figure 2.9). After Frederik and Josefi ne have both demonstrated their ability to produce the new item (and the gesture), the teacher concludes by translating into Danish what the pupils have just learned to say (line 12) and moves on to the next activity (line 14). In this excerpt we have seen that the teacher, Frederik and Josefi ne co-construct ‘swap seats’ as a teachable/learnable. Both the teacher and the pupils treat ‘swap seats’ as a multimodal unit consisting of the verbal ‘swap seats’ and the ‘swap seats’ gesture. In the next excerpts, we will look at how the embodied package – the gesture–talk connection that ‘swap seats’ is emerging as – is used in the actual guessing game task.

Figure 2.9 Excerpt 2.2b, lines 11 and 12

42

Part 1: Learners’ Development of Interactional Competence

Excerpt 2.3 First tries in actual task

01 FRE: +cap og bookini et eller andet cap and bookini thingy/something fre +points at ‘cap’, then at ‘bikini top’ 02 (.) 03 TEA: bi[kini top 04 JOS: [bi[kini top 05 CAR: [hh heh 06 FRE: bikini top 07 (0.2) 08 TEA: sw+ap seats tea +‘swap seats’——> (line 10) 09 (0.4) 10 FRE: schwap +sheat + fre +‘swap seats’+ tea ->+ com: no mutual eye gaze jos turns head twd FRE/[TEA 11 UNK: [er du bi[kini man are you bikini man 12 TEA: [+s::: [:: jos +swap seats 13 JOS: [+swap [seats jos +swap seats 14 TEA: [Bent 15 AND: [+zwap ze:a +baby: and +‘swap seats’+beat twice (see Figure 2.10)

Frederik lists two clothing items, ‘cap and bookini thingy/ something’, while pointing at the cap and bikini top on the whiteboard (line 01, Excerpt 2.3). Following some repair work on ‘bikini top’ (lines 03–06), the teacher says ‘swap seats’ while producing the ‘swap seats’ gesture. After 0.4 seconds, Frederik produces something like ‘schwap sheat’, including the use of the swap seat gesture coinciding with the onset of ‘sheat’. This turn is interesting for two reasons: fi rst, Frederik treats the teacher’s ‘swap seats’ in line 08 as a repair initiation, thereby orienting to the apparently noticeably absent ‘swap seats’ in his own talk; and secondly, Frederik produces ‘schwap sheat’ and the accompanying gesture even without having looked at the teacher as she produced the gesture–talk connection. This is noteworthy as it implies that Frederik is remembering the gesture and treating ‘swap seat’ as an embodied unit, a gesture–talk connection. In the lines that follow, Josefi ne repeats ‘swap seats’ accompanied by the gesture, perhaps prompted by the teacher’s ‘s:::::’ (lines 12–13). In addition (in overlap with the teacher reprimanding a pupil in line 14), there is an unsolicited contribution (line 15) by a pupil who produces the gesture–talk combination (see Figure 2.10). This turn also plays with the

Embodied and Occasioned Learnables and Teachables in an Early EFL Classroom

43

Figure 2.10 Excerpt 2.3, line 15

new phrase as the speaker adds ‘baby’ to it, giving it a playful tone almost like a pop song. 3 For our present purposes, however, the interesting thing is that the gesture–talk combination is continuously being reused by not only the main participants in the conversations surrounding the phrase ‘swap seats’ so far, but also by other more peripheral co-participants. Next time it is Frederik’s turn; the gesture–talk relation is becoming more established (Excerpt 2.4). He begins by naming the items, jeans and hoodie (line 01), which occasions repair on ‘jeans’ and an acknowledgment token from the teacher on ‘hoodie’ (lines 02–04). Excerpt 2.4 Embodied request for help

01 FRE: janes a::n ↑hoodi:e (.) janes+ fre +shifts gaze from board to TEA 02 TEA: jea:+ns:↑ +nods tea 03 FRE: +hoodie fre +moves l. hand to r. wrist 04 TEA: and hoo+die tea +begins swap seats gesture 05 UNK: and hoodie fre repeats swap seats gesture facing class, holds the gesture in terminal position with crossed arms, then looks at TEA 06 TEA: sw+ap↑ +nods tea 07 FRE: +shwupp fre +repeats swap seats gesture, shifts gaze back to class 08 TEA: sea+ts +makes ½ ‘swap seats’ tea 09 UNK: swap seats 10 TEA: swap [seats 11 AND: [+sheats and +repeats swap seats gesture com: Meanwhile, jeans and hoodie swap seats.

44

Part 1: Learners’ Development of Interactional Competence

During the delivery of hoodie (line 04), the teacher begins making the ‘swap seats’ gesture. In response, Frederik repeats the gesture but then holds it in terminal position, arms crossed, while establishing mutual eyegaze with the teacher (line 05). The teacher orients to this as an embodied request for help as she provides ‘swap’, but her nod also suggests that she is encouraging him, displaying recognition of the gesture as a token of Frederik being on the right track (line 06). Frederik, then, not only demonstrates an awareness of the gesture–talk connection here, but also uses the gesture as a resource to elicit help from the teacher. He next produces an approximation of ‘swap’ (line 07) along with the ‘swap seats’ gesture, following which the teacher completes the phrase, adding ‘seats’, while also seemingly making the gesture again (line 08; this is hard to discern because of the camera angle). At the end of the sequence, the phrase and the gesture sieve out into the environment where a few other pupils repeat them, albeit not in the same coordinated ways as the teacher, Josefi ne and Frederik, but also not for the same purposes. Exactly why they are doing it is uncertain, but their behavior showcases an orientation to the task and the language used to accomplish it. Flipping the coin, it could be argued that if the repetitions we see in lines 09 and 11 are displays of an orientation to the current learnable, then the vast majority of the pupils (out of 20) are not currently taking part in the pedagogical activity. They may be playing the game and swapping seats when prompted, but given that they know the rules of the game, they do not need to know – or learn – the phrase for any present, practical purposes; they are primarily playing the game. So far we have seen how co-participants in the classroom continue to re-index ‘swap seats’ as an accountable learnable, which is noticeably absent when not produced, and which is to be produced both verbally and gesturally. Also, the pattern of what exactly Josefi ne and Frederik have to say emerges here in a more solidified format as ‘ITEM1 and ITEM2 swap seats’. In the next Excerpt (2.5), we will see what happens when the teacher deviates from this format. Frederik is appointing ‘sweatband’ and ‘sunglasses’ as the next two pupils to ‘swap seats’ but only by saying the two words; there is no imperative in the form of ‘swap seats’ or other instructions (line 01). Excerpt 2.5 ‘Go!’ + ‘swap seats’-gesture

01 FRE: fre 02 TEA: tea 03 FRE: fre

sweatband and +sunglasses +points at ‘sunglasses’ on WB sweatband and sunglasses +GO +claps +go= +makes minimal swap seats gesture

Embodied and Occasioned Learnables and Teachables in an Early EFL Classroom

04 TEA: tea 05 FRE: fre com: 06 TEA: tea

45

=Frederik say +schwap seats+ + ‘swap seats’+ +swap +seats +prep. ‘swap-seats’ +’swap seats’ no mutual gaze between FRE and TEA yes GO+ +claps

The teacher repeats the two clothing items and then she diverges from the established ‘ITEM1 and ITEM2 swap seats’ format by saying GO instead of ‘swap seats’ (line 02). Frederik repeats the teacher’s ‘go’ while doing a minimal version of the ‘swap-seats’ gesture (line 03). This is quite interesting in that Frederik replaces ‘swap seats’ with ‘go’ on the lexical level, while still making a minimal version of the same gesture. This implies that although he is repeating the teacher’s ‘GO’, we can see through his embodied action that he considers it a possible substitution for ‘swap seats’ functionally and sequentially. The teacher then explicitly instructs Frederik to say ‘swap seats’ (line 04), thus marking it as something not quite the same as ‘go’; this is also evident in her embodied actions as is using the ‘swap seats’ gesture while saying swap seats, which she did not do when saying ‘GO’ earlier (line 02). Thereby she clearly orients to ‘swap seats’ as a previously co-constructed pedagogical goal/learnable, as it would not be necessary for Frederik to say ‘swap seats’ just to get the other pupils to carry out the appointed activity. They already know the drill by now, and Frederik has also done both, i.e. said ‘go’ and done the ‘swap seats’ gesture, which was sufficient to get the relevant pupils to swap seats. Frederik still complies (line 05) by saying ‘swap seats’, this time changing the gesture slightly as he separates it into two discernible parts: opening and crossing over, doing one part with each word. The teacher accepts and says ‘go’ and claps her hands once (line 07). While there are instances in the game where the teacher does not require or instruct the pupils to use ‘swap seats’ in cases where they fail to, the tendency is that the phrase is becoming increasingly noticeably absent. This is evident in what happens next (Excerpt 2.6). Here, the teacher not only holds Frederik accountable for not using the phrase, which she has done before by way of instructing him to use it post hoc; rather, she also holds him accountable for knowing the phrase in the sense that she is demonstrably trying to scaffold him to use it instead of merely giving it to him verbatim. Just prior to this excerpt, Frederik and the teacher worked together to construct sweatband and bikini top as the next seat-swapping pair, and now, in line 01, the teacher summarizes this.

46

Part 1: Learners’ Development of Interactional Competence

Excerpt 2.6 And what are they going to do (I)

01 TEA: fre 02 03 TEA: tea 04 tea 05 TEA: tea 06 fre 07 FRE: fre 08 09 TEA: fre 10 11 TEA: tea 12 FRE: fre 13 TEA: tea fre com:

+sweatband and bikini top +claps (0.9) and what are they going +to do Frederik +‘swap-seats’ w palms up twice +(0.2) +‘swap seats’ twice---> (line 05) tell them+ ->+ +(0.6) +prepares ‘swap seats’ +ehm::: +‘swap-seats---> (line 09) (0.6) schwap+ ->+ (0.6) +sea[ts +‘swap-seats’ [+swap seats +minimal ‘swap seats’ from rest->(l. 13) +swap seats+ +‘swap seats’ twice ->+ meanwhile sweatband and bikini top swap seats

As we have established, the normative order for this task is to say the two items, immediately followed by swap seats. But there is a 0.9second gap, in which Frederik does not make an eff ort to do ‘swap seats’ (line 02). The teacher then attempts to elicit the expression from Frederik by asking him what the two pupils (‘sweatband’ and ‘bikini’) are going to do, while producing a slight modifi cation of the ‘swap seats’ gesture three times. Following another gap of 0.2 seconds where Frederik might have come in, the teacher instructs him to ‘tell them’ (line 05). In response, Frederik shows understanding of what the teacher is after as he immediately prepares the ‘swap seats’ gesture (line 06) and produces a hesitation token indicating that he has trouble saying the accompanying words ‘swap seats’, and then he deploys the gesture in full (line 07). The teacher orients to this as a word search and gives Frederik ‘schwap seats’, producing the gesture with ‘seats’ (lines 09–11), but leaves the floor open for 0.6 seconds after saying ‘schwap’ (lines 09–10). This was an invitation for Frederik to take over, but he does not do so until after the teacher has provided the full phrase. Then Frederik repeats ‘swap seats’, while making a minimal ‘swap seats’ gesture

Embodied and Occasioned Learnables and Teachables in an Early EFL Classroom

47

(line 12) and the teacher responds with a repeated gesture–talk combination (line 13). Here, ‘swap seats’ is noticeably absent in lines 02, 06, 08 and 10. The teacher holds Frederik accountable for not using the item, positioning him as someone who should know how and when to say ‘swap seats’ by now. A similar thing happens in the next excerpt (2.7). Excerpt 2.7 And what are they going to do (II)

01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

FRE: sweatband (0.3) and (0.2) ↑skeet (0.2) TEA: skirt FRE: skirt (0.7) TEA: +and what are they going to do tea +makes swap seats gesture (0.6) FRE: +(s::) fre +makes swap seats gesture (0.4) TEA: swap (0.5) FRE: swap (0.3) TEA: seats FRE: +seat(s) fre +makes swap seats gesture (1.2) TEA: swap + det betyder bytte↑ og (t)seat swap it means swap and seat tea +makes swap seats gesture

Following repair work on ‘skirt’ (one of the clothing items called by Frederik, lines 1–4), the teacher asks Frederik ‘and what are they going to do’. This resembles the embodied elicitation in Excerpt 2.5, in that the teacher does the ‘swap seats’ gesture while asking (line 06). Sequentially it also sits in the same position after the announcement of what two clothing items are to swap seats. After another 0.6-second pause, Frederik does the ‘swap seats’ gesture, but seems, again, to have trouble saying ‘swap seats’ (line 08). In what follows, the teacher says ‘swap’, Frederick repeats it after 0.5 seconds, and the teacher completes the phrase with ‘seats’ after 0.3 seconds (line 14). Frederik immediately repeats that as well, while doing the ‘swap seats’ gesture (lines 13–15). After this successful elicitation, the teacher yet again explains what ‘swap seats’ means in Danish (line 17 and continuing after the end of this excerpt). Of primary interest here is the way the teacher does the scaffolding and Frederik does the delivery of ‘swap seats’ as seen in comparison to the

48

Part 1: Learners’ Development of Interactional Competence

previous excerpt. There the teacher had to deliver the entire expression before Frederik displayed recognition and produced it himself, whereas here he is already demonstrating partial recollection of the phrase as he delivers the fi rst sound simultaneously with the gesture (line 08). They then co-produce ‘swap seats’ step by step (lines 10–15). The next excerpt (2.8) shows how Frederik is seemingly scaffolded to an increasingly independent ability to use ‘swap seats’. In lines 01–02 the teacher is eliciting ‘swap seats’ from Frederik as she says ‘and what are they going to do’ while producing the ‘swap seats’ gesture twice. Her elicitation sits in the same sequential position as in the previous excerpts, i.e. following the announcement of the clothing items and a pause, where Frederik might have given the ‘swap seats’ command. In response, Frederik and Josefi ne return the gesture. Excerpt 2.8 And what are they going to do (III)

01 TEA: tea 02 tea fre jos 03 TEA: com: tea jos 04 jos tea 05 TEA: tea 06 FRE: tea fre 07 TEA:

+and what are they going to do +swap seats twice---> +(0.7) +(1) +swap seats twice +swap seats, holds gesture midway, keeps mutual gaze with teacher +stands up +swap seats +swap FRE and TEA hold mutual gaze +first half of swap seats---> +first half of swap sears---> +(0.2) + +second half of swap seats+ +holds gesture---> +↑s[eats ] +second half of swap seats––> [+swap +s]+ ea:ts ->+ +1st half +2nd half of swap seats yeah (.) swap seats

The teacher continues to elicit ‘swap seats’ by saying ‘swap’ and performing half of the ‘swap seats’ gesture (line 03). The teacher’s designedly incomplete utterance (Koshik, 2002) opens up a possible completion by Frederik. With nothing forthcoming from Frederik, the teacher adds ‘seats’ (line 05) and completes her gesture in overlap with Frederik’s production of both the expression ‘swap seats’ and the second half of the accompanying gesture. The teacher evaluates Frederik’s contribution positively by saying ‘yeah’ and repeating ‘swap seats’ (line 07). Eventually, Frederik uses the item voluntarily, as we will show in our fi nal excerpt (2.9).

Embodied and Occasioned Learnables and Teachables in an Early EFL Classroom

49

Excerpt 2.9 Voluntary use of swap seats 01 FRE: fre 02 fre 03 TEA: fre tea 04 FRE: fre 05 FRE: 06 FIN: 07 BEN: 08 KAR: 09 FRE: fre 10 TEA: 11 FRE: fre 12 TEA:

+(shirt and (0.8) shacken and +jack) +points towards whiteboard +points at jacket--->(l.03) +(1.1) +gaze at TEA swea+ter +and +ja[+cket ——>+ +nods+ +gaze tw class [+jag +gaze at class jacket SWEATER AND [JACK[ET [jack[et [jacke[ ::: ]::t [swap +seats] +swap seats sweater and jacket +swap seat(s) +swap seats 1.5 times do we have a sweater and a jacket

Frederik selects two items and has trouble pronouncing at least ‘jacket’, at which he points before and while gazing at the teacher for 1.1 seconds (line 02). The teacher then restates Frederik’s selection for the class (line 03), and what follows are two attempts by Frederik to pronounce jacket (lines 04 and 05). At least three pupils then repeat either both or one of the clothing items rather loudly for the whole class to hear (lines 06–08). During this, Frederik adds swap seats, both verbally and through bodily conduct (line 09). The teacher repeats ‘sweater and jacket’ (line 10; presumably because no-one is swapping seats at this point, see line 12). Immediately, Frederik says ‘swap seats’ again, and does the ‘swap seats’ gesture twice, with the second time being rather minimal. This increasing minimalizaton of the gesture with the development of increasingly voluntary or spontaneous use of the new item is reminiscent of a fi nding from a longitudinal study by Eskildsen and Wagner (2018) in which it was documented how a speaker of L2 English went from a highly embodied mode of hesitant production of a troublesome expression to increasing fluency. During this development, the embodied conduct accompanying his talk disappeared but the action the speaker accomplished remained constant. In other words, it seemed that the semiotics of the gesture disappeared into the spoken language, and perhaps we are witnessing a step on a similar path in Frederik’s development here. It should be stressed, however, that in Eskildsen and Wagner (2018) the embodied conduct accompanying the talk remained available for use if required by the local circumstances of the talk, for example in the case of failing intersubjectivity. In summary, Frederik learned, over numerous instantiations and an introductory translation, to pronounce and use ‘swap seats’ appropriately. The use of gestures was crucial – to achieve intersubjectivity, to enhance

50

Part 1: Learners’ Development of Interactional Competence

the semantics/function of the new item and to re-index the item as an accountable learnable/teachable (Eskildsen & Wagner, 2013). Our data show that the pupils, primarily Frederik and Josefi ne but also two other pupils (cf. Excerpts 2.3 and 2.9), orient to the teachers’ embodied practices in their responses, for instance in the form of return gestures that either display understanding (de Fornel, 1992) or work as embodied requests for clarification, and that the ensuing gesture–talk combination becomes an embodied resource in its own right. Embodied resources in general, but in particular the constant (re)use of the same gesture to indicate intersubjectivity or initiate repair, are pervasive and are found across data sets (Eskildsen, 2017). 7 Discussion

We have demonstrated how, over the course of one activity, the participants in this classroom have co-constructed Frederik’s (and Josefi ne’s) task as saying ‘ITEM1 and ITEM2, swap seats’. At the same time, this means that ‘swap seats’, i.e. both the verbal and the embodied part of this item, has been co-constructed and continually re-indexed as a learnable/ teachable (both as part of the task and for itself) by both the teacher and the pupils. This is evident in Excerpts 2.5–2.8, in which the teacher holds Frederik accountable for not using/saying ‘swap seats’ and orients to ‘swap seats’ as being noticeably absent. Sometimes the gesture starts with hands spread apart and the crossing movement is done only once, with the hands staying in the opposite positions to the starting position, or twice where the hands are moved back to the starting position. Some other times the gesture starts with hands together in front of the torso and the crossing movement is done twice with the hands coming back to the starting position. These variations, however, do not seem to be significant to the participants; the gesture becomes recognizable to them as a resource to draw on to achieve and maintain intersubjectivity. In sum, these ‘swap seats’ data exemplify how a learnable/teachable is co-constructed in situ as the participants make it interactionally relevant as an object of incipient understanding, learning and/or teaching (Eskildsen & Majlesi, 2018; Majlesi & Broth, 2012). The teacher has limited possibilities for planning her classroom activities because she must be able to complete them in a 45-minute lesson. Given this time constraint, she is still expected to carry out an activity that affords participation from all pupils, is playful and can be conducted in English, which is in line with Danish recommendations for teaching English to young learners (aus der Wieschen, 2017). However, although the main activity (the wardrobe game) affords general participation possibilities and pervasive use of English, the activity as it transpires may not be particularly conducive to learning because only the main players in the

Embodied and Occasioned Learnables and Teachables in an Early EFL Classroom

51

game (Frederik and Josefi ne) are required to use English actively in order for the children to play the game. With the majority of the pupils focusing on playing the game, the national recommendation for teachers of young learners of English to draw on games and playful activities may thus result in a constraint that prevents the otherwise desired use of English. Ultimately, there is a risk that the children will be playing games that afford little language use and learning. In the case of the wardrobe game, Frederik and Josefi ne are the only two students who are really provided with speaking time, while the rest of the pupils merely wait for their clothing item to be called (unless it already has been guessed by Frederik and Josefi ne, in which case they are not participating in the game any more at all). We saw throughout the activity that the pupils who swap seats generally do not orient to Frederik not saying ‘swap seats’ as a transgression of the task; they swap seats immediately because they are primarily concerned with playing the game, not publicly orienting to the related learnable. The wardrobe game spans almost an entire lesson, only preceded by the pupils fi nding their seats and the students telling the teacher what clothing item they want to be while Frederik and Josefi ne are outside the classroom. It seems (from looking at the fi rst part of the lesson which is not presented here) that the class has talked about clothing items before. However, it appears that there was no time for the students to practice using the words for the clothing items. The teacher disallowed some clothing items nominated by the children when two pupils wanted to be a diaper and jockstrap, respectively, and another pupil chose a ‘dino shirt’ (a t-shirt with a dinosaur on it), which was not a vocabulary item they had dealt with before. Also, after almost every new clothing item was chosen, some pupils asked for a Danish translation, which was given by their peers or the teacher, but no additional time was spent on talking about the items. At this point, the focus seemed to be on comprehension and on getting the game under way. When Frederik and Josefi ne came into the class, the teacher only briefly pointed at each item (written word and sketch) on the whiteboard while saying the word and at times pointed at parts of her own body to indicate where this item is worn, leaving no space for Frederik and Josefi ne to ask about the meaning or check the pronunciation of any new items, which might have been conducive to further learning. The only learning that demonstrably results from this activity is Josefi ne’s relatively swift appropriation of ‘swap seats’, as briefly mentioned, and the trajectory seen in Frederik’s progress over time, as he learns to pronounce and use ‘swap seats’ appropriately and voluntarily (Excerpt 2.9). However, there is also evidence that at least some pupils are paying attention to what is going on linguistically, as seen in their byplay, such as Anders’ ‘zwap ze:a baby:’ in Excerpt 2.3 and ‘sheats’ in Excerpt 2.4, where he used the ‘swap seats’ gesture in a playful way. Another case (not shown

52

Part 1: Learners’ Development of Interactional Competence

here due to space considerations) was another pupil’s reminder to use ‘swap seats’ on an occasion where neither Frederik, who was designating the clothing items, nor the teacher did it. Particularly interesting about that particular instance was that the pupil said, in Danish, ‘hey you(plural) forgot this here’ while doing the ‘swap seats’ gesture. From a usage-based perspective we assume that the pupils who are visibly and hearably orienting to the expression and the gesture and engaging with the language being used have a better chance of learning than those – the majority, in this case – who are not visibly or hearably paying attention to the semiotic resources being used). The establishment of the gesture–talk assemblage documented here and in previous work (Eskildsen & Wagner, 2013, 2015) is the result of publicly available interactional work that goes into the co-construction of it as a learnable/teachable. It is, in other words, the embodied package, not just the talk and not just the gesture, that is made interactionally relevant as an ‘object of incipient understanding, learning, and/or teaching’ (Majlesi & Broth, 2012). This echoes a recent call to avoid a purely logocentric perspective on communication and instead to put the entire body at the center of attention (Mondada, 2016). When we do that it becomes clear that language as a semiotic resource is a residual of social, embodied and local sense-making practices. In other words, in order to understand how language works and how to teach it, we need to understand that social interaction, that is, the embodied actions people accomplish in and through social interaction, is where the sounds, structures and meanings of language come from. Language and language learning are locally contextualized in this sense and language teaching needs to be as well. Frederik’s learning of ‘swap seats’ is testament to that – but it has practical implications (to which we turn next) as it as it invites considerations of the constraints and possibilities in teaching a foreign language to young learners that stem from the fact of their extremely minimal abilities to meaningfully interact in the new language. 8 Practical Implications

‘Swap seats’ was co-constructed by the participants in this classroom as an accountable learnable/teachable, as part of a task to be accomplished but also a teachable/learnable in and of itself. We do not know if the teacher planned to teach this gesture–talk combination in this fashion but what she did seems to differ from unplanned embodied explanations which are ad hoc dealings with emergent problematic items. In our case, the teacher seems to have decided to instruct the pupils to use swap seats, but she could not have planned or even foreseen what would happen from there on. From an ethnomethodological point of view, this specific classroom practice is a micro-instance of the point that social order cannot be imagined, only discovered – ‘only actually found out, and just in any

Embodied and Occasioned Learnables and Teachables in an Early EFL Classroom

53

actual case’ (Garfi nkel, 2002: 98). What this means for teachers is that they should be careful to use the practices described in this chapter as a concrete script for planning a gesture–talk combination as a teachable/ learnable; these happen as they are made relevant in the contingencies of local ecologies. However, teachers and teacher educators could try to develop awareness of the possibilities that an effective use of multimodal resources can open up. While this point has been made repeatedly in the case of (unplanned) vocabulary explanation practices in the adult FL classrooms (e.g. Eskildsen & Wagner, 2013; Lazaraton, 2004; Sert, 2015; van Compernolle & Smotrova, 2017; Walsh, 2006), one point we would like to stress here is that it also applies to teaching young learners, as is evident in our data. There is more to the practice documented here than explanation, however; the teacher is using embodied conduct in a way that is illustrative of the meaning and function of the verbal language involved, but the primary interactional purpose of her embodied actions throughout is to elicit contributions from the pupils. In an EFL context involving young learners, this seems like a good method to prompt pupil participation because it allows them to focus on other modalities than the purely verbal, which takes the focus away from the foreign language and perhaps results in a less threatening environment. The present chapter thus demonstrates the possibilities of effective use of multimodal resources with young learners. Another point of consequence for policy makers and teachers is that language learning is a usage-driven process that happens in a slow and piecemeal fashion (Eskildsen, 2012; Tomasello, 2003). This in turn raises the question of how to spend the time most profitably in the foreign language classroom. With the data that we have shown here, the timeconsuming nature of language learning is perhaps an even more important factor to take into consideration with young learners because of the little time available; as already pointed out, young learners (fi rst and second graders) in Denmark typically only receive one weekly lesson (45 minutes), and much of this time disappears into non-teaching activities (giving messages, handing out materials, fi xing technologies, entering/exiting the classroom, classroom management, etc.). The wardrobe game shown here seems to be something that the children enjoy (at least the children are playing along with it), but that does not mean that it makes for a pedagogical context that is conducive to language learning in a class-size group. As already mentioned, the learning that demonstrably happens here is microgenetic (i.e. the long-term effects are unknown) and primarily concerns Frederik and Josefi ne. Perhaps our data indirectly speak to the dawning recognition that teaching English to young learners is not particularly profitable (Copland, 2017; Rich, 2014), but rather than throwing in the towel ring, a more optimistic conclusion is that when English is introduced to very young learners, it is of crucial importance that enough time and

54

Part 1: Learners’ Development of Interactional Competence

resources are allocated to the purpose (Daryai-Hansen, 2017) and that the teachers are aware of the teaching potential of embodied actions and are capable of balancing between playing with the children and providing them with opportunities to use and learn the new language. 9 Transcription Conventions

Transcriptions are based on the Jefferson (2004) system, as presented in Chapter 1. Additionally, to capture multilingual and bodily conduct, the following conventions were used. For talk in Danish, a line in bold type underneath a line in Danish includes a translation to English. 14 CLA: +°i (en/min)° (.) b[og ]+ in (a/my) book

Transcription of bodily conduct is largely based on Mondada’s (2014) transcription conventions. A line in italics underneath a line of verbal conduct or silence indicates bodily conduct. 07 FRE: +ehm::: fre +‘swap-seats--->(line 09)

Here, fre indicates the participant’s name, + indicates onset (and offset) of the action relative to the verbal conduct in the enumerated line above it. Where it continues beyond this line of verbal conduct, this is indicated by an arrow and the line where the offset is ---> (line 09) In the line where the action ends, this is indicated by an arrow and a plus sign ->+ indicating the relative position to the talk/silence. 09 TEA: schwap+ fre ->+ com: comment

Comments are indicated with ‘com:’ and refer to the enumerated line above it. Acknowledgments

This research was supported by The Danish Research Council | Humanities (Grant No. DFF-4001-00046). Notes (1) Our translation of ‘aldersintegreret indskoling’. (2) Sometimes pronounced as ‘schwap sheats’ or other variations. These variations are reproduced in the transcripts. (3) For a recent overview of the importance of language play in L2 learning, see Bell (2017).

Embodied and Occasioned Learnables and Teachables in an Early EFL Classroom

55

References aus der Wieschen, M.V. (2017) Classroom practices in early foreign language teaching in Denmark: On the role of quantity and quality of exposure to English inside the classroom. PhD thesis, University of Southern Denmark. Bell, N. (ed.) (2017) Multiple Perspectives on Language Play. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Cadierno, T. and Eskildsen, S.W. (2017) The younger, the better?: A usage-based approach to learning and teaching of English in Danish primary schools. European Journal of Applied Linguistics 6 (1), 171–182. Copland, F. (2017) ‘To teach or not to teach?’: The case for and against teaching English in primary schools. Plenary address given at The International Conference on Teaching Languages to Young Learners, 16–18 May, Ephesus, Turkey. Daryai-Hansen, P. (2017) De 12 praksisanbefalinger – elevers og læreres erfaringer i en dansk kontekst [12 recommendations for practice – pupils’ and teachers’ experiences in a Danish context]. In A.S. Gregersen (ed.) Tidlig sprogstart i skolen [Starting Early with Languages in School] (pp. 14–25). København: Samfundslitteratur. de Fornel, M. (1992) The return gesture: Some remarks on context, inference, and iconic structure. In P. Auer and A. Di Luzio (eds) The Contextualization of Language (pp. 159–176). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Ellis, N.C. (2002) Frequency effects in language processing. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 24 (2), 134–188. Ellis, N.C. (2015) Cognitive and social aspects of learning from usage. In T. Cadierno and S.W. Eskildsen (eds) Usage-based Perspectives on Second Language Learning (pp. 49–73). Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Enever, J. (ed.) (2011) ELLiE. Early Language Learning in Europe. London: British Council. Enever, J. (2014) Primary English teacher education in Europe. ELT Journal 68 (3), 231–242. Eskildsen, S.W. (2012) L2 negation constructions at work. Language Learning 62 (2), 335–372. Eskildsen, S.W. (2015) What counts as a developmental sequence? Exemplar-based L2 learning of English questions. Language Learning 65 (1), 33–62. Eskildsen, S.W. (2017) The emergence of creativity in L2 English – a usage-based casestudy. In N. Bell (ed.) Multiple Perspectives on Language Play (pp. 281–316). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Eskildsen, S.W. and Majlesi, A.R. (2018) Learnables and teachables in second language talk: Advancing a social reconceptualization of central SLA tenets. Introduction to the special issue. The Modern Language Journal 102 (Suppl. 2018), 3–10. Eskildsen, S.W. and Wagner, J. (2013) Recurring and shared gestures in the L2 classroom: Resources for teaching and learning. European Journal of Applied Linguistics 1 (1), 139–161. Eskildsen, S.W. and Wagner, J. (2015) Embodied L2 construction learning. Language Learning 65 (2), 268–297. Eskildsen, S.W. and Wagner, J. (2018) From trouble in the talk to new resources – the interplay of bodily and linguistic resources in the talk of a novice speaker of English as a second language. In S. Pekarek Doehler, J. Wagner and E. Gonzalez-Martinez (eds) Longitudinal Studies on the Organization of Social Interaction (pp. 143–171). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Færch, C. and Kasper, G. (1983) Plans and strategies in foreign language communication. In C. Færch and G. Kasper (eds) Strategies in Interlanguage Communication (pp. 20–60). New York: Longman. Firth, A. and Wagner, J. (1997) On discourse, communication, and (some) fundamental concepts in SLA research. The Modern Language Journal 81 (3), 285–300.

56

Part 1: Learners’ Development of Interactional Competence

Garfi nkel, H. (2002) Ethnomethodology’s Program: Working Out Durkheim’s Aphorism. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Goodwin, C. (2000) Action and embodiment within situated human interaction. Journal of Pragmatics 32 (10), 1489–1522. Hellermann, J. (2008) Social Actions for Classroom Language Learning. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Jefferson, G. (2004) Glossary of transcript symbols with an introduction. In G.H. Lerner (ed.) Conversation Analysis: Studies from the First Generation (pp. 13–31). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Kendon, A. (1972) Some relationships between body motion and speech. In A. Siegman and B. Pope (eds) Studies in Dyadic Communication (pp. 177–216). Elmsford, NY: Pergamon Press. Kimbara, I. (2006) On gestural mimicry. Gesture 6 (1), 39–61. Koshik, I. (2002) Designedly incomplete utterances: A pedagogical practice for eliciting knowledge displays in error correction sequences. Research on Language and Social Interaction 35 (3), 277–309. Lantolf, J.P. (2010) Minding your hands: The function of gesture in L2 learning. In R.  Batstone (ed.) Sociocognitive Perspectives on Language Use and Language Learning (pp. 131–150). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lantolf, J.P. and Thorne, S.L. (2006) Sociocultural Theory and the Genesis of Second Language Development. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lazaraton, A. (2004) Gesture and speech in the vocabulary explanations of one ESL teacher: A microanalytic inquiry. Language Learning 54 (1), 79–117. Lee, J. (2008) Gesture and private speech in second language acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 30 (2), 169–190. Lee, Y.-A. (2007) Third turn position in teacher talk: Contingency and the work of teaching. Journal of Pragmatics 39 (6), 1204–1230. Lilja, N. (2014) Partial repetitions as other-initiations of repair in second language talk: Re-establishing understanding and doing learning. Journal of Pragmatics 71, 98–116. Majlesi, A.R. (2014) Finger dialogue: The embodied accomplishment of learnables in instructing grammar on a worksheet. Journal of Pragmatics 64, 35–51. Majlesi, A.R. and Broth, M. (2012) Emergent learnables in second language classroom interaction. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction 1 (3–4), 193–207. Markee, N. (2015) Giving and following pedagogical instructions in task-based instruction: An ethnomethodological perspective. In C. Jenks and P. Seedhouse (eds) International Perspectives on ELT Classroom Interaction (pp. 110–128). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Markee, N. and Kunitz, S. (2013) Doing planning and task performance in second language acquisition: An ethnomethodological respecification. Language Learning 63 (4), 629–664. McCafferty, S.G. (2002) Gesture and creating zones of proximal development for second language learning. The Modern Language Journal 86 (2), 192–203. McCafferty, S.G. and Stam, G. (eds) (2008) Gesture: Second Language Acquisition and Classroom Research. New York: Routledge. Mehan, H. (1979) ‘What time is it, Denise?’: Asking known information questions in classroom discourse. Theory into Practice 18 (4), 285–294. Ministry for Children, Education and Gender Equality (2016) Fælles Mål for faget engelsk. EMU Danmarks læringsportal. See http://www.emu.dk/sites/default/fi les/ Engelsk%20-%20januar%202016.pdf. Mondada, L. (2014) Conventions for Multimodal Transcription. See https://franzoesistik. philhist.unibas.ch/fileadmin/user_upload/franzoesistik/mondada_multimodal_ conventions.pdf. Mondada, L. (2016) Challenges of multimodality: Language and the body in social interaction. Journal of Sociolinguistics 20, 336–366.

Embodied and Occasioned Learnables and Teachables in an Early EFL Classroom

57

Mortensen, K. (2012) Conversation analysis and multimodality. In J. Wagner, K. Mortensen and C.A. Chapelle (eds) Conversation Analysis and Applied Linguistics: The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics (pp. 1061–1068). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Mortensen, K. (2016) The body as a resource for other-initiation of repair: Cupping the hand behind the ear. Research on Language and Social Interaction 49 (1), 34–57. Muramoto, N. (1999) Gesture in Japanese language instruction: The case of error correction. In L.K. Heilenman (ed.) Research Issues and Language Program Direction. Issues in Language Program Direction: A Series of Annual Volumes (pp. 143–176). Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle. Negueruela-Azarola, E., García, P. and Buescher, K. (2015) From interaction to intraaction: The internalization of talk, gesture, and concepts in the second language classroom. In N. Markee (ed.) The Handbook of Classroom Discourse and Interaction (pp. 233–249). Malden: Wiley-Blackwell. Nevile, M. (2015) The embodied turn in research on language and social interaction. Research on Language and Social Interaction 48, 121–151. Pekarek Doehler, S. (2010) Conceptual changes and methodological challenges: On language and learning from a conversation analytic perspective on SLA. In P. Seedhouse, S. Walsh and C. Jenks (eds) Conceptualising ‘Learning’ in Applied Linguistics (pp. 1–19). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Rich, S. (2014) Taking stock: Where are we now with TEYL? In S. Rich (ed.) International Perspectives on Teaching English to Young Learners (pp. 1–19). Basingstoke: Palgrave. Rosborough, A. (2014) Gesture, meaning-making, and embodiment: Second language learning in an elementary classroom. Journal of Pedagogy 5 (2), 227–250. Schegloff, E.A. (1992) Repair after next turn: The last structurally provided defense of intersubjectivity in conversation. American Journal of Sociology 97 (5), 1295–1345. Schegloff, E.A. (2009) One perspective on conversation analysis: Comparative perspectives. In J. Sidnell (ed.) Conversation Analysis: Comparative Perspectives (pp. 357– 406). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seo, M.-S. (2011) Talk, body, and material objects as coordinated interactional resources in repair activities in one-on-one ESL tutoring. In G. Pallotti and J. Wagner (eds) L2 Learning as Social Practice: Conversation Analytic Perspectives. Honolulu, HI: National Foreign Language Resource Center, University of Hawai’i at Manoa. Seo, M.-S. and Koshik, I. (2010) A conversation analytic study of gestures that engender repair in ESL conversational tutoring. Journal of Pragmatics 42 (8), 2219–2239. Sert, O. (2015) Social Interaction and L2 Classroom Discourse. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Smotrova, T. (2014) Instructional functions of speech and gesture in the L2 classroom. PhD thesis, Pennsylvania State University. Streeck, J., Goodwin, C. and LeBaron, C.D. (eds) (2011) Embodied Interaction: Language and Body in the Material World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Taleghani-Nikazm, C. (2008) Gestures in foreign language classrooms: An empirical analysis of their organization and function. In M. Bowles, R. Foote, S. Perpiñán and R. Bhatt (eds) Selected Proceedings of the 2007 Second Language Research Forum (pp. 229–238). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project. Tarone, E. (1980) Communication strategies, foreigner talk, and repair in interlanguage. Language Learning 30 (2), 417–428. Tomasello, M. (2003) Constructing a Language: A Usage-based Theory of Language Acquisition. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press. van Compernolle, R.A. (2015) Interaction and Second Language Development: A Vygotskian Perspective. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. van Compernolle, R.A. and Smotrova, T. (2014) Corrective feedback, gesture, and mediation in classroom language learning. Language and Sociocultural Theory 1 (1), 25–47.

58

Part 1: Learners’ Development of Interactional Competence

van Compernolle, R.A. and Smotrova, T. (2017) Gesture, meaning, and thinking-forspeaking in unplanned vocabulary explanations. Classroom Discourse; doi.org/10.1080/ 19463014.2016.1275028. van Compernolle, R.A. and Williams, L. (2011) Thinking with your hands: Speechgesture activity during an L2 awareness-raising task. Language Awareness 20 (3), 203–219. Walsh, S. (2006) Investigating Classroom Discourse. New York: Routledge.

3 Developing Interactional Competence in a Lingua Franca at the Workplace: An Ethnomethodologically Endogenous Account Hanh thi Nguyen

This chapter explores the affordances that independent task performance in a foreign language at the workplace may provide for a novice. Using conversation analysis (CA) guided by ethnomethodological (EM) insights about learning and competence development, I longitudinally track the novice’s interaction with guests at a hotel in Vietnam and focus on how the novice modified her interactional practices to accomplish the task of giving instructions about the hotel’s Wi-Fi connection. The analysis shows that repairs of early formulations and how the repair sequences were organized may have triggered the novice to recruit different linguistic materials and employ different turn-design features (such as slowed speech and stretched sounds) in later encounters to better achieve the goal of giving clear instructions. While some linguistic deviations still persisted by the end of the data collection, there is also evidence that the deviations were beginning to destabilize. The fi ndings suggest the value of repairs in lingua franca communication as an impetus for learning and offer practical considerations for teaching English for specific purposes (ESP). Further, this study argues for an EM/CA-based conceptualization of competence development. 1 Introduction

With English being widely used in global communication, novices entering workplaces where it is used as a lingua franca need to develop their English skills on the job. Beyond language classrooms, these workplaces can be where work gets done and interactional competence 59

60

Part 1: Learners’ Development of Interactional Competence

develops. And yet there has been little research on this important form of learning (see a review by Bhatia & Bremner, 2012). This study aims to fill this gap by examining a novice’s development of interactional competence in English as she started to work as a front-desk staff member in charge of escorting guests to their rooms at a hotel in Vietnam. Such a study can inform us not only about how competence development takes place in independent task performance at the workplace but also the extent to which social interaction in and of itself can be instructable. 2 Interactional Competence

Interactional competence is the ability to achieve actions locally, contingently and collaboratively with others in contextualized social interaction (Hall, 1993, 1999, 2018; Hall & Pekarek Doehler, 2011; Hellermann, 2011; Nguyen, 2012a; Pekarek Doehler, 2010; Pekarek Doehler & Petitjean, 2017). More specifically, interactional competence is: (a) coconstructed and socially shared; (b) situated in specific recurrent speechexchange systems (Schegloff, 1999a)1; and (c) comprised of a number of interactional practices such as turn-taking mechanisms, turn design, repair mechanisms, sequence organization, topic management, construction of participation frameworks, and so on. It follows that to develop interactional competence in a second language, learners need to participate recurrently in specific situations with others in the target language, where they employ and modify interactional practices to jointly achieve social actions with co-participants (e.g. Barraja-Rohan, 2015; Brouwer & Wagner, 2004; Cekaite, 2007; Dings, 2014; Hellermann, 2011; Ishida, 2009; Y. Kim, 2016, 2017; Lee & Hellermann, 2014; Markee, 2000; Nguyen, 2011a, 2012b; Pekarek Doehler & Pochon-Berger, 2015). Conceptualization of interactional competence and its development (Brouwer & Wagner, 2004; Hall, 1993, 1995, 1999, 2018; He & Young, 1998; Hellermann, 2008; Nguyen, 2012a; Taguchi, 2014; Young, 2009; Young & Miller, 2004) has drawn from several disciplines, including the ethnography of communication (Hymes, 1972), the philosophy of language (Wittgenstein, 1967), sociocultural theory (Vygotsky, 1978), language socialization (Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986), and situated learning theory (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Yet, empirical investigations on interactional competence development (see above) have been guided primarily by CA, a program to understand social orders in the situated and fi ne-grained details of talk-in-interaction from the participants’ perspectives (Sacks et al., 1974). Hence, it has been argued and demonstrated (Hauser, 2011, 2013, forthcoming; Markee, 2000, 2008, forthcoming; Nguyen, 2016, 2017) that conceptualization of interactional competence and competence development can be endogenously based on CA and its precursor, ethnomethodology (EM) (Garfinkel, 1967, 2002) without borrowing from theories exogenous to CA and EM.

Developing Interactional Competence in a Lingua Franca at the Workplace

61

First of all, borrowing exogenous theories to understand the development of interactional competence runs the risk of missing the haecceities (Garfi nkel, 2002: 92) of members’ sense-making conduct in its own right (Mackay, 1974), which is EM’s and CA’s thrust. Hauser (2011), for example, pointed out that imposing situated learning theory onto learner data may lose sight of what is being accomplished emically in talk, which may not have to do with central or peripheral participation. 2 Secondly, at their core, both CA and EM are concerned with competence in interaction. Garfi nkel (2002: 92) used the term ‘vulgar competence’ to refer to members’ methods of sense-making to achieve social orders locally, practically, contingently, observably and accountably in everyday interaction (see also Garfi nkel & Sacks, 1970). Carrying this focus further, CA ‘is concerned with the analysis of competence which underlies ordinary social activities’ and it accomplishes this by ‘describing and explicating the competences which ordinary speakers use and rely on when they engage in intelligible, conversational interaction’ (Heritage, 1984a: 241, emphasis in original). CA is highly compatible with the three aspects of interactional competence mentioned above. With respect to the notion of co-construction, CA research has demonstrated that the formulation of an utterance in conversation is always designed according to what the co-participants are doing at the moment (e.g. C. Goodwin, 1979) and that cognition is socially shared in talk (C. Goodwin & M. H. Goodwin, 1992; Kempton, 1980; Schegloff, 1991; Streeck, 1995). At the same time, the mechanisms that participants employ to engage in interaction are both ‘context-free’ and ‘context-bound’ (Sacks et al., 1974), suggesting that competence resides with individuals and is mobilized flexibly and contingently in social interaction (see Beach, 2002; Heritage, 1990). It follows that competence development involves changes that an individual makes over time, but at the same time it is made possible and is exhibited in negotiable interaction in specific social practices. Signs of development can then be observed in individual learners’ displayed use of interactional practices over time. Regarding recurrent speech-exchange systems, CA’s empirical investigation of talk in a variety of settings suggests that interaction occurs in different speech-exchange systems with distinct configurations (Schegloff, 1999a). Finally, over the last few decades CA has revealed a rich array of interactional practices that make up members’ competence (see, for example, International Society for Conversation Analysis, 2018; Stivers & Sidnell, 2013). EM and CA are thus natural foundations for the investigation of competence and competence development in interaction. A third reason to base a conceptualization of interactional competence development on EM and CA is their perspectives on learning. Although not conceived as theories of learning (or any theories, see Schenkein, 1978; Sharrock & Watson, 1988), 3 EM and CA provide insightful ideas for the study of how competence may develop. Garfinkel (2002) argued that since members’ methods are publicly and accountably displayed in social

62

Part 1: Learners’ Development of Interactional Competence

interaction, they are ‘instructably witnessable’, ‘teachably visible’ and ‘situatedly tutorial’ (Garfi nkel, 2002: 101, emphasis added). Interaction itself affords learning (see also Kasper, 2009). As learners participate in social interaction, the very process of utilizing interactional practices to accomplish actions with others can inform learners about how to utilize and modify their practices to better achieve goals. EM views learning as a process that takes place ‘over the course of the actual interaction, as a function of actual participation, and by accepting the risks involved’ (Garfi nkel, 1967: 146). This line of thinking about learning, although not a central topic, is spelled out in slightly more detail in CA. From analyses of talk-in-interaction, Schegloff suggested that not-yet-competent members ‘learn to deal with the moment-to-moment contingencies of life in interaction, and the details of language use and conduct, in the momentto-moment contingencies of life in interaction, with their deployments of language and other conduct’ (Schegloff, 1989: 152, emphasis in original). Further, CA’s view of social orders as being locally renewed each time participants engage in actions would imply that learning can be conceptualized as adapting and transforming interactional practices to achieve actions. In C. Goodwin’s (2013) words: Individual actions emerge from, and use, a consequential past shaped through chains of prior action, providing current participants with a dense, present environment, a rich now, containing many different kinds of resources that can be selectively decomposed, reused and transformed to build a next action, a proposal for how the future will be organized. (C. Goodwin, 2013: 21)

Thus, the development of interactional competence involves changes in interactional practices by an individual over time; these changes are made possible by and are exhibited in recurrent participation in a specific speech-exchange system. Since interactional competence is competencein-action (Pekarek Doehler, 2006; see also Firth & Wagner, 1997; Kasper, 2009; Markee & Kasper, 2004; Pekarek Doehler, 2010), developing interactional competence is then learning-in-action (Firth & Wagner, 2007). This chapter seeks further empirical support for an EM/CA-based understanding of learning and explores the possibilities and constraints of learning-in-action in an EFL context. It does so by tracing the development of interactional competence, specifically the practice of formulation in turn design, by a novice in interactions in English with international guests at a hotel in Vietnam. The next section will discuss previous research on the development of interactional competence at the workplace. 3 Developing Interactional Competence at the Workplace

Learning at the workplace may take place with the instructional support of a training course or a mentor alongside the novice during task

Developing Interactional Competence in a Lingua Franca at the Workplace

63

performance, or without instructional support as the novice engages in tasks independently. With respect to the first type of learning environment at the workplace, it has been shown that actions by experienced surgeons and novice surgeons to accomplish tasks in the operation room can simultaneously serve as situated instructions and displays of learning (Koschmann et al., 2007; Svensson et al., 2010; Zemel & Koschmann, 2014). In an airplane cockpit, a learner can become more successful at performing a maneuver by carrying out the maneuver as well as displaying embodied and social knowledge and understanding of the tasks at hand while receiving online directives, questions and assessments from the instructor (Melander & Sahlström, 2009). In task performance in front of the layperson, trainees and supervisors may additionally need to manage their delicate role and expertise differentiation (Nguyen, 2011b; Pomerantz et al., 1995, 1997). With respect to second language learning, immigrants at the workplace may change their pragmatic habits to be more similar to their native-speaker co-workers, such as making more direct requests, but they may also make conscious efforts to change the co-workers’ pragmatic routines in ways that are more acceptable to the learners, such as using more polite requests (Li, 2000). Second language users at the workplace may also draw from their previous classroom training in role-plays to make appropriate requests at the workplace with varied degrees of directness that show increased awareness of cultural factors (Holmes & Riddiford, 2011; Riddiford & Joe, 2010). Learning-in-action alongside or under the guidance of an expert is thus shaped by the participation frameworks of this environment. Newcomers to a workplace can also develop their communicative skills over time when performing tasks independently not alongside an expert or supervisor. Nguyen (2012a), for example, showed that novice pharmacists engaging in recurrent patient consultations adapted their practices for action sequencing and sequential organization, turn design, topic management and self-positioning in participation frameworks with patients. The impetuses for these adaptations were argued to be the institutional goals of effective delivery of drug information and building rapport with patients, as well as local interactional troubles in previous encounters. Similarly, Nguyen (forthcoming) demonstrates that by participating in interaction with guests and working out interactional troubles over time, a novice hotel staff member was able to adjust the turn formats of her assessments and topic initiations to achieve smoother small talk with guests about their trips. Along similar lines, users of English as a second language in business phone calls can become observably more fluent in call openings after participating in calls with turn disturbances several times (Brouwer & Wagner, 2004). In contrast, a shop owner who uses English as a second language may not change her linguistic routines in a specific task due to her effective embodied employment of a written text, the customers’ collaboration and her failure to perform repair in

64

Part 1: Learners’ Development of Interactional Competence

repair sequences (S. Kim, 2017). Thus it seems that novices’ learning in independent task performance may be afforded or hindered by local and practical negotiations in interaction. Except for the few studies above, there has been little research on the development of interactional competence at the workplace by novices that longitudinally examines the novices’ independent task performance in actual interaction. The scarcity of research in this area and the importance of understanding about how novices enter the workplace motivate the present study. In particular, together with Nguyen’s (forthcoming) paper, I will examine how a novice hotel staff member developed her turn design practices in conversations with guests while escorting them to their rooms. While Nguyen’s (forthcoming) study focuses only on small talk about the guests’ trips, this chapter analyzes the novice’s instructions about the hotel’s Wi-Fi connection. Escort talk is unique to hotel communication and will be described in detail in the next section. 4 Escort Talk in Hotel Services and as Lingua Franca Communication

Communication with guests at hotels can be described as a hospitality cycle with four stages: arrival (registration at reception desk and luggage transfer), familiarization (briefi ng on hotel facilities and regulations), engagement (guests’ use of facilities) and departure (payment, luggage transfer) (Blue & Harun, 2003). Taking place in the second stage – familiarization – the escort involves ‘explaining the facilities and services of the room, answering questions, and trying to make the guest feel welcome’ (Baker et al., 2000: 136). Hotel interaction between international guests and local staff is often a form of lingua franca communication (Blue & Harun, 2003; Vũ, 2015). Language use in lingua franca workplace environments has been shown to contain dynamic, on-the-spot hybridity and innovation of linguistic forms (largely due to the participants’ fi rst languages as well as mutual appropriation of each other’s utterances) to achieve intersubjectivity among participants (e.g. Firth, 1996; Firth & Wagner, 2007; Kaur, 2010; Sampson & Zhao, 2003). Interactional troubles often occur; however, participants may apply the let-it-pass procedure (Firth, 1996) or collaboratively repair these troubles in interaction (Firth, 1996; Firth & Wagner, 2007; Kaur, 2011) in order to maintain orderly business and to get the work done. 5 Context

Tourism is an important industry in Vietnam, contributing 4.6% to the country’s GDP (World Travel and Tourism Council, 2017) and serving 10,012,735 international visitors in 2015, the year of data collection at the

Developing Interactional Competence in a Lingua Franca at the Workplace

65

start of this study (Viet Nam National Administration of Tourism, 2016). The lingua franca used with international visitors is predominantly English (Vũ, 2015). It is thus important to understand how novices develop the interactional competence needed to deliver hospitality in this lingua franca. Based on a larger data set of escort talk by two staff members at a hotel in Vietnam (approximately 36 hours), the overall sequential structure of escort talk can be described as follows (see also Nguyen, forthcoming): OPENING • • •

Greetings Room location request/confi rmation by staff (‘tell me your room number please’/‘your room is 302?’) – response by guests Directive by staff (e.g. ‘this way please’)

WALKING TO ROOM •

Ongoing description of amenities along the way by staff – assessment or questions by guests – response by staff massage and sauna location and hours pool and bar location and hours breakfast location and procedure Small talk topic initiation by guests or staff (e.g. weather, guests’ wellbeing, hotel history, guests’ trip, duration of stay) telling acknowledgment, assessment closing ○ ○ ○

•

○

○ ○ ○

ARRIVAL AT ROOM • • •

Opening door with room key by staff – thanking by guests Invitation for guests to enter by staff – acceptance by guests Assessment of room by guest or staff (‘beautiful!’, ‘nice room for you’) – response

TALKING IN ROOM • • • • • •

Announcement of complimentary fruit and water – acknowledgment/ thanking by guests Description of room facilities by staff – acknowledgment/thanking by guests Instructions about Wi-Fi by staff – acknowledgment/thanking by guests Instructions about how to access receptionist – acknowledgment/ thanking by guests Announcement about luggage’s upcoming arrival – thanking by guests Questions by guests – answers by staff

66

Part 1: Learners’ Development of Interactional Competence

THANKING WELL-WISHING LEAVE TAKING This chapter focuses on the novice’s talk about the hotel’s Wi-Fi network, namely that the hotel’s Wi-Fi connection was free and required no password. This type of sequence was selected for analysis because it was prevalent, occurring in every month’s data and in a majority of the encounters (75 out of 110), which allows for longitudinal tracking of possible changes over time. 6 Research Questions

This study aims to longitudinally trace the novice’s employment of interactional practices during escort talk with international guests. Specifically, the analysis centers on the question: how did the novice’s turn design practices change over time in delivering instructions about how to access the hotel’s Wi-Fi network? Through this analysis, this chapter aims to elucidate the affordances for interactional competence development as ‘learning-in-action’ at the workplace in a lingua franca context and the nature of social interaction as both descriptions of and instructions for social orders. 7 Methodology

The data consist of escort encounters between international guests and a novice, Xuân (pseudonym), from her second to 12th month (June to March) in the position of a front-desk staff member in charge of escorting guests to their rooms. Audio-recording was made by Xuân once a month for 10 encounters each, except for one month in which Xuân recorded 20 encounters, resulting in a total of 110 encounters (approximately 18 hours of data). The guests with whom Xuân interacted were native and nonnative English speakers from North America, Europe and Asia. Xuân’s English was certified to be equivalent to Level B1 in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. 8 Findings

Over the 10-month period, Xuân employed a few turn formats to give instructions about the Wi-Fi, with some chronological changes. Specifically, she expanded her turn-construction unit (TCU) (Sacks et al., 1974) with different adverbial phrases of location and added turn features such as pauses and sound stretches. Finally, there is some evidence for possible destabilization in the pronunciation of a key word toward the end of the data collection. Before I present an analysis of Xuân’s changes, I will fi rst provide an overview of these turn formats.

Developing Interactional Competence in a Lingua Franca at the Workplace

67

8.1 Turn formats in instructions about the hotel’s Wi-Fi connection

The few slightly varied formats in Xuân’s instructions are exemplified by Excerpts 3.1a, 3.1b, 3.1c and 3.1d. In all excerpts, X refers to Xuân and G refers to a guest (when there were multiple guests, a number is added to each guest to differentiate them). Where relevant, pronunciation details are transcribed in IPA symbols and placed between slashes immediately after the word. Excerpt 3.1a 2015-June-05

01 → X: yes wifi free no password /pakwuək/. 02 G: okay good. Excerpt 3.1b 2015-July-03c

01 → X: 02 03 04 G2: 05 X:

yes, wifi in the /zə/ hotel free and no password /pakwuək/. (0.3) great. yes,

Excerpt 3.1c 2015-Nov-02

01 → X: 02 03 04 G1:

wifi (0.2) in your room free (0.2) and you don’t need /nits/ the /zə/ password /patwuək/. (0.4) yes.

Excerpt 3.1d 2015-Jan-04a

01 → X: a:nd wifi everywhere free, and you don’t 02 need /nits/ the /zə/ password /pakwuək/. 03 (0.6) 04 X: yes 05 G1: okay.

As these examples show, Xuân provides instructions about the hotel’s Wi-Fi connection by saying simply ‘Wi-Fi free’, or adding a location with an adverbial phrase, ‘in the hotel’, ‘in your room’ and ‘everywhere’. In addition, she either says ‘no password’ or ‘you don’t need the password’. It is important to note that her pronunciation of several words deviates from most varieties of English. In particular, ‘password’ is pronounced as /pakwuək/ or /patwuək/, ‘the’ as /zə/, and ‘need’ as /nits/. The replacement of the syllable-fi nal sibilant /s/ with a voiceless stop /t/ or /k/, the replacement of the alveolar voiced stop /d/ with a velar voiceless stop /k/ in ‘password’, the replacement of the interdental /ð/ with a voiced alveolar sibilant /z/ in ‘the’ and the insertion of a fi nal /s/ to a word in ‘need’ are consistent with pronunciation patterns observed among Vietnamese users of English

68

Part 1: Learners’ Development of Interactional Competence

(Hà, 2005). As will be shown below, it is perhaps due to these deviations that not all of Xuân’s instructions were problem-free as in Excerpts 3.1a– 3.1d. In fact, out of the 75 episodes involving Wi-Fi instructions, 31 or 41% involved other-initiated repair or third-turn repair. The turn formats described above did not appear evenly throughout the 10 months of data collection; rather, there seem to be some patterns that shifted over time. The next sections will describe these shifts and the repair sequences that may have triggered them. 8.2 The first change in turn format: Expanding turn-construction unit

Early on in the data collection, Xuân used the format ‘Wi-Fi free’ and ‘no password’ in her instructions (see Excerpt 3.1a). However, this formulation led to two extensive repair sequences in four of the Wi-Fi instruction episodes. One of these two is Excerpt 3.2, which took place in Xuân’s second month on the job (June) and was the first Wi-Fi instruction episode in the data. Excerpt 3.2 2015-June-02

01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

X: yes wifi free and ((breathy)) no password /pakwuək/. (1.0) G1: nope, X: wifi free and no password /pakwuək/. (0.6) → X: no pass /pat/. (0.9) → X: no code /kod/. (1.0) G1: no:? (0.3) → X: (0.4) G1: (nani:) ((“what is” in Japanese)) (.) [, [ G2: → X: no (1.0) X: okay excuse me. ((sounds of footsteps, Xuân probably walks away to write on paper)) G1: G2: ((silent gap, then Xuân probably shows paper))

Developing Interactional Competence in a Lingua Franca at the Workplace

69

26 G1: AH. no ↑pass↓word! eh::::: 27 [heh heh heh ah::: okay. uh un:. 28 X: [heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh 29 X: ye::s. 30 G1: uh huh. 31 (3.6)

Xuân gives Wi-Fi instructions in lines 1–2 but, after a delay, the guest responds with ‘nope’ (line 4). Xuân treats this response as problematic, and produces a third-position repair (Schegloff, 1992) by repeating the entire instructions (line 5). Given the ensuing pause, she repairs a part of her turn by repeating it (‘no pass /pat/’, line 7). Xuân’s selection to repair this part of her turn shows that she treats it as the trouble source. However, another pause occurs and Xuân produces a repair again, this time reformulating the trouble source as ‘no code /kod/’ (line 9). That the guests still cannot make sense of Xuân’s turn is seen in the next pause and the guest’s repair initiation (line 11). Xuân selfrepairs by slowly repeating her turn with the original formulation ‘no password/patwuək/’ (line 13) but the guests still display a lack of understanding (lines 14–17). Xuân’s recycle of the same repair in line 18 indicates the impasse for both parties to arrive at mutual sensemaking at this point. After a pause (line 19), Xuân announces an interruption to the progressivity of the current activity (line 20) and walks away, perhaps to fi nd some paper to write on, while the guests continue to express their puzzlement over the trouble source, ‘/pakwuək/’ (lines 23–24). Upon Xuân’s return and perhaps showing the written word, the guests fi nally arrive at mutual understanding with Xuân (line 26). This episode thus involves multiple other-initiations of repair and extended repair work in both the oral medium and written medium. As mentioned above, in addition to Excerpt 3.2, Xuân also experienced another repair sequence in her Wi-Fi instructions in the same month out of a total of four. It is possible that this history of interactional troubles led Xuân to shift to a different format in her turn design. In the following three months, she expanded the first TCU and added the location, ‘in the hotel’. Although this change did not address the pronunciation issue with the trouble source as indicated by the guests in Excerpt 3.2, namely the word ‘password /pakwuək/’, it expands the turn and provides a bit more contextual information, and thus could possibly give the recipient more time and material to process the meaning of the message. However, the rate of problematic instances in these three months was still about the same as in Xuân’s second month (Table 3.1), and Xuân was witnessed to make another change in her turn format, which will be described in the next section.

70 Part 1: Learners’ Development of Interactional Competence

Table 3.1 Wi-Fi instructions by Xuân over time Repair

No Repair

Time

Frequency

June

2 (50%)

zero (2)

2 (50%)

zero (2)

July

6 (46%)

‘hotel’ (6)

7 (54%)

‘hotel’ (7)

13

Aug

3 (50%)

‘hotel’ (3)

3 (50%)

‘hotel’ (3)

6

Sept

5 (56%)

‘hotel’ (5)

4 (44%)

‘hotel’ (4)

9

Oct

4 (57%)

‘hotel’ (2), ‘room’ (2)

3 (43%)

‘hotel’ (3)

Nov

4 (40%)

‘hotel’ (1), ‘room’ (3)

6 (60%)

‘hotel’ (1), ‘room’ (4), ‘room and hotel’ (1)

Dec

1 (14%)

‘room’ (1)

6 (86%)

‘room’ (6)

7

Jan

2 (25%)

‘room’ (2)

6 (75%)

‘room’ (2), ‘everywhere’ (2), ‘room and everywhere’ (2)

8

Turn formats (counts)

Frequency

Turn formats (counts)

Total 4

7 10

Feb

2 (40%)

zero (1), ‘room’ (1)

3 (60%)

‘room’ (1), ‘everywhere’ (2)

5

Mar

2 (33%)

‘room’ (1), ‘room and everywhere’ (1)

4 (67%)

‘room’ (3), ‘everywhere’ (1)

6

Total

31 (41%)

44 (59%)

75

8.3 The second change in turn format: Replacing linguistic resources and manipulating non-linguistic features

As mentioned above, with the addition of the phrase ‘in the hotel’ to the instructions, repair sequences were still present in Xuân’s Wi-Fi instructions. Excerpts 3.3a and 3.3b are examples of these interactional problems. Excerpt 3.3a 2015-July-03b

01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

X: yes, wifi in the /zə/ hotel free and no password /patwuək/. (1.0) G1: and: (0.2) [what else? [and what? G2: → X: no password /patwuək/. G1: no:: G2: no:? → X: you don’t need /nits/ the /zə/ password /patwuək/. (1.2) → X: no [code /kod/. [HHHHH. I’m hh. s(hh)orry. hh. G1: G1: hh. sor[ry. hh. [°excuse me:° X: → X: uh: (1.0) G1: yeah.

Developing Interactional Competence in a Lingua Franca at the Workplace

18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

71

((Xuân walks away, perhaps to write word on paper)) X: ((Xuân returns)) excuse me madam? (2.0) X: yes. no password /patwuək/. (1.2) G1: >password!< X: yes! G2: oh password. G1: no password. X: yes. G2: so how dG1: just comes on? wifi just comes on? X: yes. you don’t need /nits/ the /zə/ password /patwuək/. G1: oh okay. G1: alright. G1: I’m good.

Similar to Excerpt 3.2, Excerpt 3.3a involves multiple repair sequences around the word ‘password’ as the trouble source in Xuân’s turn. In lines 1–2, Xuân gives instructions about the Wi-Fi connection. After a delay, the guests initiate repair (lines 4, 5). The category-specific format of their repair initiators indicates clearly that ‘no password’ is the trouble source (see Schegloff, 2007: 101). Xuân orients to this in her repair (line 6); however, she retains the same pronunciation which is different from most English varieties. Again, the guests initiate repair with a designedly incomplete utterance (Koshik, 2002) to pinpoint the trouble source further as ‘password’ (lines 7, 8). This time, instead of repeating the trouble source, Xuân reformulates it in a full sentence, ‘you don’t need /nits/ the password /patwuək/’ (line 9). In spite of this, the guests still fail to achieve mutual understanding with Xuân, as seen in the ensuing pause. Facing the delay, Xuân then produces another repair and reformulates the trouble source as ‘no code /kod/’ (line 11). This reformulation signals her understanding that ‘password’ is the trouble source. However, the guests’ explicit acknowledgment of their failure to make sense of Xuân’s turn and their orientation to this failure as awkwardness can be seen in their apologies and laughter (lines 12, 13) (see Haakana, 2001). At this point, Xuân resorts to spelling out the letters of the word ‘password’ to repair, but the guests still fail to understand the word, perhaps due to Xuân’s misspelling of it as P-A-S-S-W-R-O-D and her pronunciation of several letters in ways that are not recognizable to them. As in the previous episode, Xuân then employs the writing medium to repair, and the guests fi nally reach intersubjectivity with Xuân (lines 23, 25): their change of epistemic state can be seen in the production of ‘oh’ in line 25 (Heritage, 1984b).

72

Part 1: Learners’ Development of Interactional Competence

It is important to note that Xuân displays her understanding that ‘password /patwuәk/’ is the trouble source, and this understanding is seen again in Excerpt 3.3b. Excerpt 3.3b 2015-August-01b

01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

X: yes. wifi in the /zə/ hotel free and you don’t need /nits/ the /zə/ password /patwuək/. (0.7) G2: the wifi:, (0.6) X: wifi: you don’t need /nits/ the /zə/ password /patwuək/. (0.9) X: no password /patwuək/. (1.0) G1: no patkwuək? G2: no patkwuək? → X: password /patwuək/. (0.2) X: no code /kod/. (0.4) G2: AH. NO CODE! G1: AH. G2: NO PASSWORD! [PASSWORD! X: [ye(hh)s. pass(hh)word /patwuək/. [huh huh huh .hh G2: [hah hah O(hh)KAY: huh huh huh (.) G2: [okay.

When the guests’ repair initiators (lines 11, 12) identify the trouble source as Xuân’s production of ‘no password /patwuək/’, Xuân repeats ‘password /patwuək/’ (line 13) in her repair. As in Excerpts 3.2 and 3.3a, she also reformulates ‘password’ as ‘code /kod/’ (line 15). The format of this reformulation and repetition exhibits her orientation to the word ‘password’ as the trouble source (not both words in ‘no password’), an orientation that may have risen from her experience in previous encounters where this word was treated as the trouble source. Encounters like those in Excerpts 3.3b, 3.3a, and 3.2 clearly show that the guests signal, and Xuân orients to, the word ‘password’ as the trouble source. However, Xuân’s pronunciation of this word remained deviant from most English varieties until the end of data collection. What is interesting, however, is that there seems to be a trend toward fewer repair sequences over time (Table 3.1 and Figure 3.1), despite this particular linguistic inaccuracy.

Developing Interactional Competence in a Lingua Franca at the Workplace

73

Figure 3.1 Percentages of Wi-Fi instructions with repair over time

As shown in Table 3.1 and Figure 3.1, in November the percentage of problematic cases (that is, those involving repair work) began to decrease. Around this time, in place of ‘Wi-Fi in the hotel free’, Xuân also began to employ another formulation, ‘Wi-Fi in your room free’ or ‘Wi-Fi everywhere free’, or a combination of these two formats, ‘Wi-Fi in your room and everywhere free’. Excerpts 3.4a, 3.4b and 3.4c illustrate non-repair cases with these formulations, and Excerpts 3.5a and 3.5b show problematic cases with repairs. Excerpt 3.4a 2016-Nov-01a

01 02 03 04

X: and wifi in your room (0.4) free and → you don’t need /nits/ the /zə/ password /patwuək/. (0.4) G2: okay.

Excerpt 3.4b 2016-Jan-04a

01 02 03 04 05

X: a:nd wifi: everywhere free: and you don’t → need /nits/ the /zə/ password /pakwuək/. (0.5) X: yes. G1: >okay.
OH YEAH!< (0.4) G1: no password.= X: =yes.= G1: =okay °thank you.°

Excerpt 3.5b 2016-Mar-03b

01 X: um and everywhere free:. 02 (0.3) 03 X: you don’t need /nits/ the /zə/ 04 password /pakwuək/ for wifi:. 05 (0.8) 06 G1: one more time? 07 → X: no /nos/ password /patwuək/. 08 (0.2) 09 X: for wifi:. 10 (0.4) 11 G1: AH. [no °wi-° wifi /wai fi/. >yeah.< 12 G2: [no password. 13 G1: o[kay, 14 G2: [no wifi /wai fi/? 15 G1: no- [no: 16 G2: [ah. (.) no code. 17 G1: no code. 18 (.) 19 X: yes. no code. 20 G2: alright.

In both excerpts, the guests produce an open-class repair initiator (Drew, 1997) (line 4 in Excerpt 3.5a and line 6 in Excerpt 3.5b), which prompts Xuân to recycle the part of her instructions which she treats as problematic (lines 5, 6 in Excerpt 3.5a and lines 7, 9 in Excerpt 3.5b). In Excerpt 3.5b, the guests then display a misunderstanding that there is ‘no Wi-Fi’ (lines 11–14) but self-repair to ‘no code’ (lines 15–17), and Xuân confirms their repaired understanding (line 19).

Developing Interactional Competence in a Lingua Franca at the Workplace

75

Two observations can be made about Xuân’s Wi-Fi instruction sequences in these later months (from November to March). First, she tends to slow down by inserting pauses (Excerpts 3.4a, 3.4c, 3.5b) between TCUs and lengthening or stretching sounds (Excerpts 3.4b, 3.5a, 3.5b). Secondly, Xuân’s later formulations do not contain sounds that she pronounced differently from recognizable English varieties. While the earlier phrase ‘Wi-Fi in the hotel free’ involves the pronunciation of ‘the’ as /zə/ for Xuân, the later formulations (‘Wi-Fi in your room free’ and ‘Wi-Fi in your room and everywhere free’) involve sounds that she, as is typical of many Vietnamese users of English, can pronounce easily due to their direct mapping to the Vietnamese sound system (Maddieson, 1984). Although these changes did not target the trouble source of the repair sequences in Xuân’s instructions, namely the word ‘password’, the percentage of repair sequences per month decreased slightly over time (Table 3.1 and Figure 3.1). I surmise that Xuân’s selective use of non-problematic linguistic materials and slower speech tempo may have helped the guests to register what Xuân was saying a bit more easily. Despite these changes by Xuân, repair still persisted at a 33% rate by the end of data collection (in March, Table 3.1 and Figure 3.1), which may suggest that Xuân’s turn design, and particularly her pronunciation of ‘password’ as /pakwuək/ or /patwuәk/, might still pose interactional troubles despite the modifications. However, the repair sequences from February and March suggest some initial destabilization of Xuân’s pronunciation of this particular word. 8.4 Possible destabilization of a deviant linguistic form

Among the 11 Wi-Fi instruction episodes in February and March, seven involved no repair and four involved repair. In all cases, Xuân pronounced ‘password’ as /pakwuәk/ or /patwuək/ in the instructions. However, in the repair cases, she changed her formulation and pronunciation in the repair. It is in this repair turn that Xuân pronounced the /s/ in ‘password’ for the very first (and only) time during data collection (Excerpt 3.6, from the first encounter recorded in February). Excerpt 3.6 2016-Feb-01a

01 X: and you don’t 02 need /nits/ the /zə/ password /pakwuək/. 03 (0.8) 04 → X: no password /paswuək/. 05 (0.9) 06 G1: [no password? [okay:. 07 X: [wifi [yes. 08 X: yes.

After the routine instructions in lines 1–2, there is the usual delay (line 3). Xuân seems to orient to the guests’ delay in responding and produces a

76

Part 1: Learners’ Development of Interactional Competence

self-repair (line 4). As before in the data, this repair indicates her treatment of her original phrase ‘you don’t need the password’ as problematic. In the repair, Xuân does not repeat the exact wording in her instructions but reformulates it as ‘no password’, and it is here that she pronounces the /s/ in ‘password’ as in most English varieties for the first time in the data. While this pronunciation did not recur in later recorded encounters, another change occurred which could, to some extent, be related to this pronunciation shift. In all four instances of ‘no password’ in the rest of the data (three in repairs and once in a repetition in the same conversation when the guests asked about Wi-Fi again), Xuân pronounced the phrase as /nos patwuәk/, that is, with a sound /s/ inserted to the end of ‘no’ (see Excerpt 3.5b above, for example). That this insertion did not occur in the 12 instances of Xuân’s pronunciation of ‘no password’ throughout the months prior to Excerpt 3.6 (see Excerpts 3.2, 3.3a, 3.3b for examples) suggests that it was a new change that may be linked to the shift seen in Excerpt 3.6.4 It is prudent not to rule out the possibility that Xuân’s insertion of /s/ right before ‘password’ is an approximation of the /s/ in the middle of this word. It is important to also note that this nascent /s/ occurred only in the repair or repetition turns, and not in the initial instruction turns. This suggests an intricate linkage between linguistic emergence and the sequential environment. 9 Discussion

The analysis above has shown that in Xuân’s instructions about the hotel’s Wi-Fi from her second to 12th month on the job as a front-desk staff member, the word ‘password’, pronounced as /patwuək/ or /pakwuək/, was regularly treated by both the guests and Xuân as the trouble source in repair sequences. While Xuân maintained a deviant pronunciation throughout the data and pronounced the /s/ in ‘password’ only once in a repair turn, she modified her turn designs in many ways, including expanding a TCU by adding ‘in the hotel’, replacing ‘in the hotel’ with other expressions that contained words with non-deviant pronunciation, and adding pauses and slowing down in her speech tempo. This mobilization of other interactional resources to pre-empt (sometimes unsuccessfully) a recurrent interactional problem instead of repairing the trouble source itself is similar to the methods employed by Busaya, a Thai user of English reported in S. Kim (2018). Rather than repairing the pronunciation of a problematic word, ‘air hostess’, over time Busaya utilized multiple categorical descriptors related to the word before mentioning it, in order to achieve understanding in interviews. Unlike Busaya, however, Xuân began to insert the sound /s/ to the end of the word ‘no’ in front of ‘password’ /patwuәk/ in repair or repetition turns toward the end of the data collection. Although the resulting phrase ‘no password /nos patwuәk/’ was still a deviation from most English varieties, the insertion

Developing Interactional Competence in a Lingua Franca at the Workplace

77

of /s/ may indicate an approximation to this word’s widely recognizable pronunciation. Finally, it appears that Xuân’s turn-design modifications may have been prompted by the numerous interactional troubles that she experienced in situated, practical task performance. It also appears that these modifications were driven by task accomplishment, namely delivering information about hotel features clearly to guests. The fi ndings suggest that learning in independent task performance at the workplace may have both constraints and possibilities. A novice’s path to effective task accomplishment may require some zig-zagging with multiple trials and errors, recalibrations and readjustments, at the cost of effective task accomplishment. While interaction history informed the novice, who also oriented to the word ‘password’ as the trouble source, her pronunciation only began to show some initial change after 10 months in the job. Instead, the novice found other solutions with other interactional practices, including TCU expansion (adding ‘in the hotel’), lexical replacement (‘hotel’ by ‘room’ and ‘everywhere’), pauses, stress and speech tempo. 5 This last detail suggests that a constraint may sprout new possibilities: the failure to repair a mispronunciation led to the utilization of a range of other practices to achieve the target action. There are other possibilities in this learning-in-action at the workplace as well. Since the novice was engaged directly in tasks, the kinds of interactional practices that she mobilized were specific to the actual context of the workplace. Since there is a contrast between practical ways of doing work on the shop floor and abstract theorization of work in instructions, manuals and models (Garfi nkel, 2002), the novice’s learning on the shop floor is invaluable in that what is learned is directed at practical work performance (see also Nguyen, forthcoming). Further, in the very process of getting work done, the novice can adjust her own interactional conduct depending on the guests’ in situ interactional conduct moment to moment. As we have seen, turn by turn in the repair sequences, the guests signaled to the novice which part of her turn was problematic, while the novice also indicated her own orientation to these trouble sources and worked out various remedies, which received immediate online assessment from the guests. What the analysis above elucidates is precisely the learning process that a CA perspective on social interaction would project: in Schegloff ’s words (cited above), not-yet-competent members ‘learn to deal with the moment-to-moment contingencies of life in interaction, and the details of language use and conduct, in the moment-to-moment contingencies of life in interaction, with their deployments of language and other conduct’ (Schegloff, 1989: 152). The learning process analyzed above also resonates with Garfi nkel’s study (cited above) of how members’ methods may be learned ‘over the course of the actual interaction, as a function of actual participation, and by accepting the risks involved’ (Garfi nkel, 1967: 146). In this regard, this study also demonstrates that an EM/CA-based perspective is fruitful in guiding a bottom-up, emic analysis to document

78

Part 1: Learners’ Development of Interactional Competence

changes in interactional practices as they take place in talk, as well as to locate possible and observable reasons for these changes. The fi ndings in this chapter also invite a reconsideration of the concept ‘double socialization’ (Li, 2000) at the workplace. According to Li, a novice entering the workplace needs to be socialized into workrelated practices and workplace language, a view that separates language from work-related tasks. However, as this study and several others (Melander & Sahlström, 2009; Nguyen, 2012a, forthcoming) show, work-related tasks are inseparable from language. In fi ne-tuning her turn design, the novice also improves her instruction delivery, a work-related task. Even in workplaces where work-related tasks involve machine maneuvering (such as in the airplane cockpit, Melander & Sahlström, 2009), embodied actions are organically tied to sequential interaction. In this sense, developing interactional competence is developing work competence. Further, this chapter contributes to understandings about communication in a lingua franca. Previous research has focused on misunderstandings and resolution practices (Firth, 1996; Kaur, 2011; Sampson & Zhao, 2003). This study, with a longitudinal perspective, shows the values of interactional troubles as a fertile soil for competence development. While certainly slowing down task accomplishment to some extent, repair sequences may also provide potential affordances for competence modification over time. 10 Practical Implications

This study can inform the field of ESP in that it complements previous studies based on self-reported data (e.g. Bremner, 2012; Duff et al., 2000; Hill & Bartyn, 2004; Parks, 2001) by offering a glimpse into the actual learning processes that take place at the workplace. First, since more effective task accomplishment does not depend solely on linguistic abilities but also on the abilities to manipulate paralinguistic resources such as pauses, stress and sound stretches, language teaching materials could incorporate a range of interactional practices specific to tasks at the workplace in addition to linguistic forms. Because interactional practices are only meaningful in sequential contexts, one way to sensitize learners to them is to introduce recordings of workplace interaction and guide learners in the analysis of how these practices are used. For example, the Conversation Analytic Roleplay Method (CARM) developed by Stokoe (2011, 2012) for professional communication training could be applied in ESP courses. Secondly, the fi ndings support an experiential learning approach (Dewey, 1938) in ESP to develop workplace interactional competence, in which the learners are engaged directly in workplace task performance. This approach has been shown to be effective in internship programs (e.g. Hill & Bartyn, 2004; Holmes & Riddiford, 2011; Myles, 2009; Riddiford & Joe,

Developing Interactional Competence in a Lingua Franca at the Workplace

79

2010). Given that a novice may take a long time to learn to repair a trouble source, reflection on recorded interaction and consultation with a supervisor or teacher may be helpful. Acknowledgment

This chapter was written with support from Hawaii Pacific University’s Scholarship Endeavors Program. Notes (1) Related terms are ‘oral practices’ (Hall, 1993), ‘verbal practices’ or ‘verbal routines’ (Peters & Boggs, 1986), ‘communicative practices’ (Schieffelin & Ochs, 1996) and ‘discursive practices’ (Young, 2009). (2) If connections to exogenous theories are to be made, they should be made only after truly bottom-up and data-driven analysis (Hauser, 2011; Schegloff, 1999b; Silverman, 1999). (3) This does not imply that CA and EM are a-theoretical. Rather, their rejection of theorization and idealization is to give primacy to practical details of social interaction as expressions of social orders. Thus, CA aims to ‘explicate the inherent theories-in-use of members’ practices as lived orders, rather than trying to order the world externally by applying a set of traditionally available concepts, or invented variations thereof’ (Have, 2007: 31, original emphasis). (4) In contrast, Xuân inserted an /s/ at the end of ‘need’ in all instances of this word from the beginning to the end of data collection, e.g. ‘you don’t need /nits/ the voucher’ and ‘you don’t need /nits/ the password’. (5) She stopped using writing as a repair method after July (see Excerpt 3.3a).

References Baker, S., Huyton, J. and Bradley, P. (2000) Principles of Hotel Front Offi ce Operations (2nd edn). London: Cengage Learning EMEA. Barraja-Rohan, A.-M. (2015) ‘I told you’: Storytelling development of a Japanese learning English as a second language. In T. Cadierno and S.W. Eskilden (eds) Usage-based Perspectives on Second Language Learning (pp. 271–304). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Beach, W.A. (2002) Between dad and son: Initiating, delivering, and assimilating bad cancer news. Health Communication 14, 271–299. Bhatia, V.K. and Bremner, S. (2012) English for business communication. Language Teaching 45 (4), 410–445. Blue, G.M. and Harun, M. (2003) Hospitality language as a professional skill. English for Specifi c Purposes 23, 73–91. Bremner, S. (2012) Socialization and the acquisition of professional discourse: A case study in the PR industry. Written Communication 29 (1), 7–32. Brouwer, C.E. and Wagner, J. (2004) Developmental issues in second language conversation. Journal of Applied Linguistics 1, 29–47. Cekaite, A. (2007) A child’s development of interactional competence in a Swedish L2 classroom. The Modern Language Journal 91, 45–62. Dewey, J. (1938) Experience and Education. New York: Simon & Schuster. Dings, A. (2014) Interactional competence and the development of alignment activity. The Modern Language Journal 98 (3), 742–756.

80

Part 1: Learners’ Development of Interactional Competence

Drew, P. (1997) ‘Open’ class repair initiators in response to sequential sources of troubles in conversation. Journal of Pragmatics 28 (1), 69–101. Duff, P., Wong, P. and Early, M. (2000) Learning language for work and life: The linguistic socialization of immigrant Canadians seeking careers in healthcare. Canadian Modern Language Review 57 (1), 9–57. Firth, A. (1996) The discursive accomplishment of normality: On ‘lingua franca’ English and conversation analysis. Journal of Pragmatics 26, 237–259. Firth, A. and Wagner, J. (1997) On discourse, communication, and (some) fundamental concepts in SLA research. The Modern Language Journal 81 (3), 285–300. Firth, A. and Wagner, J. (2007) Second/foreign language learning as a social accomplishment: Elaborations on a reconceptualized SLA. The Modern Language Journal 91, 800–819. Garfi nkel, H. (1967) Studies in Ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliff s, NJ: Prentice Hall. Garfi nkel, H. (2002) Ethnomethodology’s Programs: Working out Durkheim’s Aphorism. New York: Rowman & Littlefield. Garfi nkel, H. and Sacks, H. (1970) On formal structures of practical actions. In J.D. McKinney and E.A. Tiryakian (eds) Theoretical Sociology: Perspectives and Developments (pp. 337–366). New York: Appleton Century Crofts. Goodwin, C. (1979) The interactive construction of a sentence in natural conversation. In G. Psathas (ed.) Everyday Language: Studies in Ethnomethodology (pp. 97–121). New York: Irvington. Goodwin, C. (2013) The co-operative, transformative organization of human action and knowledge. Journal of Pragmatics 46, 8–23. Goodwin, C. and Goodwin, M.H. (1992) Context, activity and participation. In P. Auer and A. Di Luzio (eds) The Contextualization of Language (pp. 77–99). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Hà, Cẩm Tâm (2005) Common pronunciation problems of Vietnamese learners of English. Journal of Science: Foreign Studies 21 (1), 1–11. Haakana, M. (2001) Laughter as a patient’s resource: Dealing with delicate aspects of medical interaction. Text 21 (1–2), 187–219. Hall, J.K. (1993) The role of oral practices in the accomplishment of our everyday lives: The sociocultural dimension of interaction with implications for the learning of another language. Applied Linguistics 14 (2), 145–167. Hall, J.K. (1995) (Re)creating our worlds with words: A sociohistorical perspective of face-to-face interaction. Applied Linguistics 16 (2), 206–232. Hall, J.K. (1999) A prosaics of interaction: The development of interactional competence in another language. In E. Hinkel (ed.) Culture in Second Language Teaching and Learning (pp. 137–151). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hall, J.K. (2018) From L2 interactional competence to L2 interactional repertoires: Reconceptualising the objects of L2 learning. Classroom Discourse 9 (1), 25–39; doi. org/10.1080/19463014.2018.1433050. Hall, J.K. and Pekarek Doehler, S. (2011) L2 interactional competence and development. In J.K. Hall, J. Hellermann and S. Pekarek Doehler (eds) L2 Interactional Competence and Development (pp. 1–15). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Hauser, E. (2011) On the danger of exogenous theory in CA-for-SLA: A response to Hellermann and Cole (2009). Applied Linguistics 32 (3), 348–352; doi.org/ doi:10.1093/applin/amr015. Hauser, E. (2013) Stability and change in one adult’s second language English negation. Language Learning 63 (3), 463–498. Hauser, E. (forthcoming) The construction of interactional competence in L2 interaction. In R.M. Salaberry and S. Kunitz (eds) Teaching and Testing L2 Interactional Competence: Theory and Practice. New York: Routledge. Have, P. ten (2007) Doing Conversation Analysis: A Practical Guide. London: Sage.

Developing Interactional Competence in a Lingua Franca at the Workplace

81

He, A.W. and Young, R.F. (1998) Language proficiency interviews: A discourse approach. In R.F. Young and A.W. He (eds) Talking and Testing: Discourse Approaches to the Assessment of Oral Profi ciency (pp. 1–24). Amsterdam and Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. Hellermann, J. (2008) Social Actions for Classroom Language Learning. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Hellermann, J. (2011) Members’ methods, members’ competencies: Looking for evidence of language learning in longitudinal investigation of other-initiated repair. In J.K. Hall, J. Hellermann and S. Pekarek Doehler (eds) L2 Interactional Competence and Development (pp. 147–172). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Heritage, J. (1984a) Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology. Cambridge and New York: Polity Press. Heritage, J. (1984b) A change-of-state token and aspects of its sequential placement. In M. Atkinson and J. Heritage (eds) Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis (pp. 299–345). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Heritage, J. (1990) Intention, meaning, and strategy: Observations on constraints on interaction analysis. Research on Language and Social Interaction 24 (1–4), 311–332. Hill, M. and Bartyn, E. (2004) Experiential learning in bilingual workplaces in Hong Kong: Business English in the Workplace Project. Hong Kong Journal of Applied Linguistics 9 (1), 70–86. Holmes, J. and Riddiford, N. (2011) From classroom to workplace: Tracking sociopragmatic development. ELT Journal 65 (4), 376–386. Hymes, D. (1972) Models of the interaction of language and social life. In J. Gumperz and D. Hymes (eds) Directions in Sociolinguistics: The Ethnography of Communication. Holt, Rinehart & Winston. International Society for Conversation Analysis (2017) EMCA Bibliography Database [wiki]. See http://emcawiki.net/EMCA_bibliography_database (accessed 25 May 2017). Ishida, M. (2009) Development of interactional competence: Changes in the use of ‘ne’ in L2 Japanese during study abroad. In H.t. Nguyen and G. Kasper (eds) Talk-ininteraction: Multilingual Perspectives (pp. 351–385). Honolulu, HI: National Foreign Language Resource Center, University of Hawaii. Kasper, G. (2009) Locating cognition in second language interaction and learning: Inside the skull or in public view? IRAL 47, 11–36. Kaur, J. (2010) Achieving mutual understanding in world Englishes. World Englishes 29 (2), 192–208. Kaur, J. (2011) Intercultural communication in English as a lingua franca: Some sources of misunderstanding. Intercultural Pragmatics 8 (1), 93–116. Kempton, W. (1980) The rhythmic basis of interactional micro-synchrony. In M.R. Key (ed.) The Relationship of Verbal and Non-verbal Communication (pp. 67–75). The Hague: Mouton. Kim, S. (2017) Stabilization of idiosyncratic fi xed expressions in the wild: A longitudinal conversation analytic perspective. Dissertation, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI. Kim, S. (2018) Development of discursive practices for Thai English intelligibility in interaction. System 78, 164–177. Kim, Y. (2016) Development of L2 interactional competence: Being a story recipient in L2 English conversation. Discourse and Cognition Linguistic Society 23 (1), 1–8. Kim, Y. (2017) Topic initiation in conversation-for-learning: Developmental and pedagogical perspectives. English Teaching 72 (1), 73–103. Koschmann, T., LeBarron, C.D., Goodwin, C., Zemel, A. and Dunnington, G. (2007) Formulating the triangle of doom. Gesture 7 (1), 97–118.

82

Part 1: Learners’ Development of Interactional Competence

Koshik, I. (2002) Designedly incomplete utterances: A pedagogical practice for eliciting knowledge displays in error correction sequences. Research on Language and Social Interaction 35 (3), 277–309. Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991) Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lee, Y.-A. and Hellermann, J. (2014) Tracing developmental changes through conversation analysis: Cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis. TESOL Quarterly 48 (4), 763–788. Li, D. (2000) The pragmatics of making requests in the L2 workplace: A case study of language socialization. Canadian Modern Language Review 57 (1), 58–87. Mackay, R.W. (1974) Conceptions of children and models of socialization. In R. Turner (ed.) Ethnomethodology. Selected Readings (pp. 180–193). Harmondsworth: Penguin Education. Maddieson, I. (1984) Patterns of Sounds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Markee, N. (2000) Conversation Analysis. Mahwah, NJ and London: Lawrence Erlbaum. Markee, N. (2008) Toward a learning behavior tracking methodology for CA-for-SLA. Applied Linguistics 29 (3), 404–427. Markee, N. (forthcoming) Some theoretical reflection on the construct of interactional competence. In R.M. Salaberry and S. Kunitz (eds) Teaching and Testing L2 Interactional Competence: Theory and Practice. New York: Routledge. Markee, N. and Kasper, G. (2004) Classroom talks: An introduction. The Modern Language Journal 88 (4), 491–500. Melander, H. and Sahlström, F. (2009) Learning to fly – the progressive development of situation awareness. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 53 (2), 151–166. Myles, J. (2009) Oral competency of ESL technical students in workplace internships. TESL-EJ 13 (1), 1–24. Nguyen, H.t. (2011a) A longitudinal microanalysis of a second language learner’s participation. In G. Pallotti and J. Wagner (eds) L2 Learning as Social Practice: Conversation-analytic Perspectives (pp. 17–44). Honolulu, HI: National Foreign Language Resource Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa. Nguyen, H.t. (2011b) Boundary and alignment in multiparty confl ict talk. Journal of Pragmatics 43, 1755–1771. Nguyen, H.t. (2012a) Developing Interactional Competence: A Conversation Analytic Study of Patient Consultations in Pharmacy. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Nguyen, H.t. (2012b) Social interaction and competence development: Learning the sequential organization of a communicative practice. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction 1 (2), 127–142. Nguyen, H.t. (2016) Interactional practices across settings: From classroom role-plays to workplace patient consultations. Applied Linguistics 39 (2), 213–235; doi.org/ doi:10.1093/applin/amw007. Nguyen, H.t. (2017) Toward a conversation analytic framework for tracking interactional competence development from school to work. In S. Pekarek Doehler, A. Bangerter, G. de Weck, L. Filliettaz, E. González-Martinez and C. Petitjean (eds) Interactional Competences in Institutional Settings: From School to the Workplace. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Nguyen, H.t. (forthcoming) Turn design as longitudinal achievement: Learning on the shop floor. In J. Hellermann, S.W. Eskilden and S. Pekarek Doehler (eds) Language in Action: CA Studies of L2 Learning ‘in the Wild’. New York: Springer. Parks, S. (2001) Moving from school to the workplace: Disciplinary innovation, border crossings, and the reshaping of a written genre. Applied Linguistics 22 (4), 405–438. Pekarek Doehler, S. (2006) Compétence et langage en action. Bulletin Suisse de Linguistique Appliquée 84, 9–45.

Developing Interactional Competence in a Lingua Franca at the Workplace

83

Pekarek Doehler, S. (2010) Conceptual changes and methodological challenges: On language and learning from a conversation analytic perspective on SLA. In C. Jenks and S. Walsh (eds) Conceptualizing Learning in Applied Linguistics (pp. 105–126). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Pekarek Doehler, S. and Petitjean, C. (2017) Introduction: Interactional competences in institutional settings – young people between school and work. In S. Pekarek Doehler, A. Bangerter, G. de Weck, L. Filliettaz, E. González-Martinez and C. Petitjean (eds) Interactional Competences in Institutional Settings: From School to the Workplace (pp. 1– 26). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Pekarek Doehler, S. and Pochon-Berger, E. (2015) The development of L2 interactional competence: Evidence from turn-taking organization, sequence organization, repair organization and preference organization. In T. Cadierno and S. Eskildsen (eds) Usage-based Perspectives on Second Language Learning (pp. 233–267). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Peters, A. and Boggs, S. (1986) Interactional routines as cultural influences upon language acquisition. In B. Schieff elin and E. Ochs (eds) Language Socialization Across Cultures (pp. 80–96). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pomerantz, A., Ende, J. and Erickson, F. (1995) Precepting in a general medicine clinic: How preceptors correct. In G.H. Morris and R.J. Chenail (eds) The Talk of the Clinic. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Pomerantz, A., Fehr, B.J. and Ende, J. (1997) When supervising physicians see patients: Strategies used in difficult situations. Human Communication Research 23 (4), 589–615. Riddiford, N. and Joe, A. (2010) Tracking the development of sociopragmatic skills. TESOL Quarterly 44 (1), 195–205. Sacks, H., Schegloff, E.A. and Jefferson, G. (1974) A simplest systematics for the organization of turn taking for conversation. Language 50 (4), 696–735. Sampson, H. and Zhao, M. (2003) Multilingual crews: Communication and the operation of ships. World Englishes 22, 31–43. Schegloff, E.A. (1989) Reflections on language, development, and the interactional character of talk-in-interaction. In M.H. Bornstein and J.S. Brunner (eds) Interaction in Human Development (pp. 139–153). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Schegloff, E.A. (1991) Conversation analysis and socially shared cognition. In L. Resnick, J. Levine and S. Teasley (eds) Perspectives on Social Shared Cognition (pp. 150–171). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Schegloff, E.A. (1992) Repair after next turn: The last structurally provided defense of intersubjectivity in conversation. American Journal of Sociology 97 (5), 1295–1345. Schegloff, E.A. (1999a) Discourse, pragmatics, conversation, analysts. Discourse Studies 1 (4), 405–435. Schegloff, E.A. (1999b) ‘Schegloff ’s texts’ as ‘Billig’s data’: A critical reply. Discourse in Society 10 (4), 558–572. Schegloff, E.A. (2007) Sequence Organization in Interaction: A Primer in Conversation Analysis, Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schenkein, J. (1978) Sketch of an analytic mentality for the study of conversational interaction. In J. Schenkein (ed.) Studies in the Organization of Conversational Interaction (pp. 1–6). New York: Academic Press. Schieffelin, B. and Ochs, E. (1986) Language socialization. Annual Review of Anthropology 15, 163–191. Schieffelin, B. and Ochs, E. (1996) The microgenesis of competence: Methodology in language socialization. In D.I. Slobin, J. Gerhardt, A. Kyratzis and G. Jiansheng (eds) Social Interaction, Social Context, and Language: Essays in Honor of Susan ErvinTripp (pp. 251–263). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Sharrock, W.W. and Watson, R. (1988) Autonomy among social theories. In N.G. Fielding (ed.) Actions and Structure: Research Methods and Social Theory (pp. 56–77). London: Sage.

84

Part 1: Learners’ Development of Interactional Competence

Silverman, D. (1999) Warriors or collaborators: Reworking methodological controversies in the study of institutional interaction. In S. Sarangi and C. Roberts (eds) Talk, Work and Institutional Order: Discourse in Medical, Mediation and Management Settings (pp. 401–426). Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Stivers, T. and Sidnell, J. (eds) (2013) The Handbook of Conversation Analysis. Malden, MA and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Stokoe, E. (2011) Simulated interaction and communication skills training: The ‘conversation analytic role-play method’. In C. Antaki (ed.) Applied Conversation Analysis: Changing Institutional Practices (pp. 119–139). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Stokoe, E. (2018) The conversation analytic role-play method [Workshop]. See http:// www.carmtraining.org (accessed 3 November 2018). Streeck, J. (1995) On projection. In E.N. Goody (ed.) Intelligence and Interaction (pp. 84–110). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Svensson, M.S., Christian, H. and Luff, P. (2010) Embedding instruction in practice: Contingency and collaboration during surgical training. In A. Pilnick, J. Hindmarsh and V.T. Gill (eds) Communication in Healthcare Settings: Policy, Participation and New Technologies (pp. 99–116). Malden MA and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Taguchi, N. (2014) Developing Interactional Competence in a Japanese Study Abroad Context. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Viet Nam National Administration of Tourism (2016) International Visitors to Viet Nam in December and 12 Months of 2016 [Government statistics]. See http:// vietnamtourism.gov.vn/english/index.php/items/11311 (accessed 25 May 2017). Vũ, Thị Hồng Vân (2015) English as a lingua franca in the Vietnamese hotel industry: Communicative strategies and their implications for vocational education. Dissertation, Curtin University, Perth, Australia. Vygotsky, L.S. (1978) Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wittgenstein, L. (1967) Philosophical Investigations (trans. G.E.M. Anscombe) (3rd edn). Oxford: Basil Blackwell. World Travel and Tourism Council (2017) Travel and Tourism Economic Impact 2017:  Vietnam. See https://www.wttc.org/economic-impact/country-analysis/ country-reports/. Young, R.F. (2009) Discursive Practice in Language Learning and Teaching. Malden MA and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Young, R.F. and Miller, E. (2004) Learning as changing participation: Discourse roles in ESL writing conferences. The Modern Language Journal 88 (4), 519–535. Zemel, A. and Koschmann, T. (2014) ‘Put your fi nger right in here’: Learnability and instructed experience. Discourse Studies 16 (2), 163–183.

Part 2 Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

4 Looking Beyond IRF Moves in EFL Classroom Interaction in China Jingya Li

Classroom interaction does not occur in isolated initiation-responsefeedback (IRF) cycles, but in interconnected and larger sequences. This chapter takes this into consideration and describes the unfolding of IRF cycles in English as a foreign language (EFL) classes in China. It examines the functions of these IRF cycles within extended sequences and explores how the teachers’ management of IRF cycles affects students’ participation opportunities. Teacher–student interaction in materialsbased activities, grammar-relevant activities and vocabulary explanations were investigated through ethnomethodological conversation analysis (EMCA). The fi ndings suggest that the functions of IRF cycles can only be understood in the context of larger, co-constructed sequences of classroom interactions. 1 Introduction

This chapter examines the functions of the moves of the IRF cycle (Mehan, 1979; Sinclair & Coulthard, 1975) in sequential context in EFL classrooms in China. Instead of isolating moves in the IRF cycle, this study situates those moves within larger sequences and demonstrates how they function in connected and continuous classroom interactions, allowing for flexible interactional structures and jointly oriented participation among teacher and students. The classic IRF cycle consists of three moves. The initiation (I) move refers to a teacher’s directive or informative instruction to be publicly understood; the response (R) move refers to the students’ reaction to show their understanding of the teacher’s instruction; and the feedback (F) move refers to the teacher’s comments or evaluation in light of pedagogical goals (Hellermann, 2003; Sinclair & Coulthard, 1975; Wells, 1993). On a smaller scale, the IRF cycle is a sequence in which the teacher initiates a question or command, the student(s) produce(s) a response, and 87

88

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

the teacher provides feedback, often in the form of evaluation (Mehan, 1979). On a larger scale, the organization of the IRF cycle can be more flexible, including not only the basic initiation, response and feedback moves, but also how these moves are structured in larger sequences (Walsh, 2011). Previous research on the functions of the IRF cycle in classroom contexts showed two distinct aspects (Gibbons, 2006; Nassaji & Wells, 2000; Walsh, 2011; Waring, 2009). On the one hand, the structure of the IRF cycle is treated as restricted and uninterrupted, in which the teacher’s evaluative feedback serves to close the sequence, leaving less time and space for the students to engage in the learning process (Hall, 2010; Wood, 1992). On the other hand, the IRF cycle has been shown to be flexible, allowing participants to collaboratively construct knowledge, thus creating learning opportunities (Nassaji & Wells, 2000; Waring, 2009; Wells, 1993). In order to understand the dynamic nature of the IRF cycle, the teacher’s initiation and feedback moves have been examined by a number of studies (Lee, 2007; Nassaji & Wells, 2000; Sharpe, 2006; Wells, 1993). Taking an emic perspective, this chapter focuses on how moves in the IRF cycle are interlinked and function as participants achieve their purposes in teaching and learning. The overall aim of this study is to understand IRF cycles beyond their basic moves, uncovering how sequences of IRF cycles function in classroom interactions and their influence on opportunities for student participation. The analysis sheds light on how IRF cycles are utilized during classroom interaction in a senior high school in northern China. To begin with, I will review previous studies on the IRF cycle in language classrooms, focusing mainly on the ones that address the IRF’s sequential organization and functions in EFL contexts. 2 The IRF Cycle in Context

The IRF cycle and its impact on language learning opportunities have been investigated in many studies. Confronted with the reality of classroom discourse, a few studies have analyzed the IRF cycle in terms of sequences and chains. For instance, Molinari et al. (2013) investigated the larger sequences in which the IRF cycle occurs. They recognized four types of sequence of the IRF cycle, namely monologic sequences, scaffolding sequences, dialogic sequences and co-constructive sequences (Molinari et al., 2013: 414). According to Molinari et al. (2013), these developed chains and sequences of the IRF cycle can be applied effectively or negatively in classroom contexts depending on the teacher’s management of the talk. They found that a monologic sequence could limit the students’ opportunities for participation since the teacher simply accepted or rejected the students’ answers in order to achieve pedagogical aims. On

Looking Beyond IRF Moves in EFL Classroom Interaction in China

89

the other hand, scaffolding, dialogic and co-constructive sequences could provide open orientations to encourage students’ contributions. Although studies like this have expanded the IRF cycle from moves to sequences or chains, their conclusion was drawn either from the teacher’s perspective or from an etic coding system. In order to understand the effectiveness of IRF cycles, it is important to examine not only the teacher’s strategies or skills that allow for more learning opportunities but also students’ reactions toward teacher talk based on their needs and understandings (Sert, 2015). In addition, the fluid and dynamic feature of the IRF cycle in ongoing classroom interactions cannot be fully interpreted through an exogenous coding system (Seedhouse, 2004). Rather, the functions of the moves in an IRF cycle need to be examined in the sequential context of classroom talk, with attention paid to how it is co-constructed by the participants from moment to moment. To explore how turns are sequentially produced and taken up in an ongoing IRF cycle, researchers have relied on ethnomethodological conversation analysis (EMCA). EMCA allows for a close examination of IRF cycles within larger sequences to reveal how participants manipulate their moves locally to accomplish different pedagogical goals. Influenced by the insights generated within EMCA, research on the IRF cycle has recently started to change its direction from focusing on individual skills to the collaborative aspects of the exchange. This reflects a view of classroom interaction as a co-constructed process involving the use of various kinds of competences in a situated context rather than as a pure cognitive process (Van Compernolle, 2015). Through this perspective, the IRF cycle is not a static pattern, but it functions within sequences as both teacher and students orient to it. In other words, the IRF cycle not only entails the moves themselves but also a set of related utterances that are sensitive to previous utterances and will affect the following turn-allocations and utterances (Sert, 2015; Waring, 2009). Consistent with this view, Lefstein et al. (2015), for instance, argued that classroom discourse should be analyzed through sequences rather than moves. They questioned the analysis of individual discourse moves and pointed out that ‘discourse moves are positioned within sequences that critically shape their meaning and effect’ (Lefstein et al., 2015: 881). They demonstrated the importance of attention to the larger sequential context of IRF cycles by first examining the frequencies and rates of individual discourse moves and then applying sequential analysis to re-analyze the data with the focus of chains. The results showed that the focus on individual moves failed to tell the whole story (such as how moves were structured and how each move functioned). On the basis of this fi nding, they argued that the analysis of sequences of moves ‘offers insight into the issues of change over time and differences among the pedagogic activities’ (Lefstein et al., 2015: 882).

90

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

Along similar lines, Molinari et al. (2013) argued that classroom discourse patterns are continuous and connected to each other. One single pattern such as the IRF cycle may be the trigger for the next sequence. A sequential and statistical analysis of chained IRF cycles showed that, stemming from the nuclear IRF cycle, the chains of IRF cycles can be (1) focused question/correct answer/simple follow-up, (2) focused question/ incorrect answer/refusal, (3) focused question/incorrect answer/scaffold, or follow-ups of elaboration leading to further elaborations at the subsequent lags (Molinari et al., 2013: 423–424). Thus, the same IRF cycle can lead to four different orientations depending on specific teaching purposes. Within each sequence, the teacher plays a crucial role to direct classroom discourse toward an open-ended discussion or simply to close it and restart a new one. Park (2014) examined the sequences of the IRF cycle, focusing on the teacher’s questioning practice in elementary English class in Korea. Park’s study showed that the teacher’s questions were not predetermined but accomplished in situ with particular pedagogical goals. According to Park (2014), the teacher’s questions should be interpreted within IRF sequences where meanings are negotiated and jointly constructed to achieve mutual understanding. However, Park’s (2014) study focuses on how teachers appropriate their questions and pays little attention to other functions of teacher talk such as comments, prompts or exposition. Jung (2017) examined the contingency of the third turn in the IRF cycle in one-on-one writing tutorials. She found that the tutors could expand IRF sequences by using multiple questions, recapitulations and provisions to incorporate the students’ preceding responses. The tutor might also reformulate or close the sequence according to the students’ second response. Jung showed that the teacher’s third turn (either evaluative or commentary) is contingently designed in response to the students’ response turns and in order to achieve certain pedagogical purposes. In these studies, the IRF cycle has been treated as sequences or chains, which expands the focus of the three moves in the IRF cycle. However, a detailed description of how sequences or chains of IRF cycles are coconstructed in ongoing and dynamic classroom interactions, especially in the EFL context of China, is still needed. This chapter aims to fi ll this gap by analyzing how turns in IRF cycles are sequentially structured and changed from moment to moment, and how the teacher and students build on each other’s turns to achieve communicative and pedagogical purposes in classroom discourse. 3 Pedagogical Activities as Contexts of IRF Cycles

Related to an understanding of the dynamic features of the IRF cycle is an appreciation of how interactional resources are mobilized for

Looking Beyond IRF Moves in EFL Classroom Interaction in China

91

pedagogical aims. The IRF cycle in classroom contexts is goal oriented and often accompanied by certain tasks or pedagogical activities (Seedhouse, 2004). Three of these common activities are: (a) eliciting answers in materials-based activities (Walsh, 2011; Waring, 2009); (b) eliciting answers in grammar-relevant activities (Pekarek Doehler, 2018); and (c) scaffolding students’ understanding (Gibbons, 2003; Sharpe, 2006; Vacca, 2008; van de Pol et al., 2010). It is important to note the difference between the terms initiation and elicitation as they are used in this chapter. Initiation in this chapter refers to the teacher’s initial move in the IRF cycle to start the conversation. Elicitation refers to the strategies used by (normally) teachers to get learners to respond in the teacher’s feedback or follow-up moves. Elicitation sequences examined in this study focus on the teachers’ modifications of their initial moves, the teachers’ responses to students’ turns, and the teachers’ elicitations of students’ following turns. 3.1 Eliciting answers in materials-based activities

One of the common activities examined in previous studies is materialsbased activity, which involves a piece of material such as worksheets or exercise books. This type of pedagogical activity is described as ‘materials mode’ by Walsh (2011: 117; see also Walsh, 2006). Walsh (2006, 2011) argued that materials mode is often accomplished through the IRF cycle, highly controlled by materials, and managed by the teacher most of the time. His examination of the organization of teacher-fronted classroom interactions in materials-based activities showed that interactional spaces, although varied in terms of the students’ freedom to participate, are largely determined by the nature of the materials in that all contributions are bounded by the materials, with fewer opportunities for the students to develop or manage interactions. Gourlay (2005) also provided an in-depth analysis of the organization of and students’ participation in the IRF cycle in answer-checking episodes in a multilingual business English class at a university in the UK. His study showed that the IRF cycle is the dominant interactional pattern in teacher-fronted answer-checking episodes, but such structure can be negotiated through the teacher’s modification of language. Additionally, Waring (2009) examined the organization and function of the IRF cycle in homework-review activities with a focus on both teachers’ and students’ contributions. She pointed out that, although the sequences of the IRF cycle within a pre-set exercise ‘are almost impervious to restructuring’ (Waring, 2009: 817), they still have potential to be developed into more student-oriented dialogue when an initiation is made successfully in order to break the restricted structure. Waring (2009) then questioned Walsh’s (2006) categories of classroom modes and highlighted the socially contingent nature of learning.

92

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

3.2 Eliciting answers in grammar-relevant activities

Another common pedagogical activity in second or foreign language classrooms is focus-on-form activity (Ellis, 2015; Seedhouse, 2004; Walsh, 2011), which is often accomplished in grammar-relevant activities. Grammar-relevant activities in this chapter refer to classroom activities that focus on teaching grammar rules. These activities can be ‘explicit grammar explanation’, ‘consciousness raising activities’, ‘dictogloss (all rule-based instructional types)’, ‘recasts’ and ‘metalinguistic feedback’ (Norris & Ortega, 2000: 421–422). When grammar-relevant activities are accomplished based on a particular set of material, they can also be regarded as materials-based activities. There may also be an overlap between vocabulary activities and grammar-relevant activities in that the teacher may introduce vocabulary items to assist the students’ understanding of a certain grammatical structure. Seedhouse (2004) examined the IRF cycle in form-and-accuracy contexts, particularly when teachers modeled grammatical sentence structures, and observed that generally those activities entail a teacher’s prompts and students’ output, followed by the teacher’s evaluation or follow-up moves. Walsh (2011: 118) categorized the features of interaction in grammar-relevant activities as ‘skill and systems mode’ in which turn taking is mainly form focused, teacher controlled and topic limited. However, the efficiency of the IRF cycle in a certain grammar-relevant activity cannot be evaluated only through patterns or structures of the interaction. Student participation and production as well as how the teacher addresses the students’ actions from moment to moment can lead to diff erent orientations of learning (Pallotti & Wagner, 2011). Examining the situated accomplishment of IRF cycles, especially in display questions used in grammar exercises, Y.A. Lee (2006) provided a close examination of how sequences of the IRF cycle are co-oriented by the teacher and students to notice and understand grammar rules. With respect to the third turn of the IRF cycle in a grammar lesson, Y.A. Lee (2007) also demonstrated that, through the use of interactional practices, the teacher’s explanations, modification or prompts of particular grammar rules or structures can direct the students toward specific pedagogical goals. 3.3 Scaffolding students’ understanding

IRF cycles involving teacher’s scaffolding are different from elicitation sequences in the way the teacher assists learning. Rather than simply eliciting the students’ turns, scaffolding sequences link the students’ current understanding to new knowledge. Scaffolding is a metaphor derived from the field of construction, where a scaffold is used to support workers

Looking Beyond IRF Moves in EFL Classroom Interaction in China 93

as they build or repair a tall structure. In classroom discourse, it refers to ‘the temporary support provided for the completion of a task that learners otherwise might not be able to complete’ (van de Pol et al., 2010: 272). The idea of scaffolding is often associated with Vygotsky’s (1978) zone of proximal development (ZPD) from a sociocultural perspective, which refers to ‘the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem-solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem-solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more able peers’ (Vygotsky, 1978: 86). Learning occurs when students are assisted by their teachers to co-construct knowledge in the ZPD, and the IRF cycle is one mechanism to provide such a learning condition (Sharpe, 2006). There are various ways to scaffold learning, including dialogue and other ‘semiotic systems such as visuals, gestures and action’ (Sharpe, 2006: 213). Scaffolding through dialogue has been demonstrated to be a central feature in classroom discourse (Gibbons, 2003.) Based on the types of discourse, scaffolding strategies can be designed in terms of macro and micro levels (Sharpe, 2006). At the macro level, classroom activities can be sequenced in a challenging but supporting manner. For instance, in guided discovery activities students are assisted to discover and explore grammatical rules by themselves according to the sequence of activities, including discovering models, summarizing or imitating models and producing their own sentences (Harmer, 2007). At the micro level, scaffolding in teacher talk such as questioning, recasts, meaning negotiations, hints and meta-comments can involve turn-taking strategies to support students’ learning. Among these strategies, meta-comments play a significant role in teaching students not only what to learn but also how to learn (Hammond & Gibbons, 2005). Through meta-comments, students begin to take more responsibility while the teacher gradually withdraws his/her interventions, in a process termed ‘fading’ (van de Pol et  al., 2010: 257). In metacomments, rather than simply eliciting the expected answers via verbal or non-verbal hints, the teacher can use linguistic clues or metacognitive knowledge to link students’ current understanding to new knowledge (Hammond & Gibbons, 2005). In Sharpe’s (2006) study on scaffolding in a seventh year history class, he showed that teachers’ meta-comments may create ‘conceptual hooks’ (Sharpe, 2006: 229), which help teachers summarize important concepts and promote students’ self-regulated learning. Aligning with CA-based research in this area, this study aims to examine the sequences of the IRF cycle through CA, uncovering ‘the micro-level detail and sequential, context-driven understanding of participant orientations’ (Sert, 2015: 35). Before I present the analysis, I will next describe the EFL context of this study.

94

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

4 Context

This chapter studies four EFL senior classes in a high school in northern China. Each lesson lasted 45 minutes. The lesson included grammar, vocabulary and reading comprehension. In high schools in China, English is a compulsory course and students attend one English lesson (45 minutes) per school day. With the influence of Chinese culture and Confucianism in general, learning in classrooms in China emphasizes memorization (Gardner, 1990; W.O. Lee, 1996), modeling and imitations (Jin & Cortazzi, 2006). There is also a general preference for the grammar-translation approach (Zheng & Davison, 2008), often with a ‘demonstration-mimesis practice-performance’ learning pattern (Jin & Cortazzi, 2006: 10) and the seeking of only one standard answer (Biggs, 1996). These cultural beliefs are reflected in the way the IRF cycle is shaped in Chinese EFL classrooms. Rather than adopting communicative language teaching, which allows more dialogic structure of classroom interactions, Chinese teachers generally prefer the IRF cycles and sequences, highlighting the form of the language and accuracy. The participants in this study include two teachers and their respective students. The two teacher participants (Ms Cen and Ms Ding)1 speak Chinese (Mandarin) as a fi rst language (L1) and English as a foreign language. Both of them were experienced teachers who had been teaching English for at least 10 years. The student participants were Grade 12 senior high school students who also spoke Chinese (Mandarin) as an L1 and English as a foreign language. The students started learning English in Grade 3, and by the time of this study they had had nine years of English instruction. Their English language proficiency level was intermediate. The students’ age varied from 19 to 21 years old. There were approximately 60–70 students in each class and 260 students in total for this study. 5 Research Questions

Informed by studies on moves and sequences of the IRF cycle, and inspired by previous CA-based research on classroom interaction beyond the classic IRF cycle, this study aims to uncover how IRF cycles are sequentially co-constructed by the teacher and students to achieve certain pedagogical goals. It attempts to answer the following research questions in order to develop further understanding of contingent IRF cycles and their impact on opportunities for student participation. (1) How are IRF cycles sequentially organized in different pedagogical activities in EFL classrooms? (2) How do teachers create opportunities for student participation through the management of IRF cycles in these pedagogical activities?

Looking Beyond IRF Moves in EFL Classroom Interaction in China

95

6 Methodology

Four video-recordings were obtained in the four different classes participating in this study, yielding a total of 180 minutes of recordings. Two cameras were used in each classroom, one in the front corner of the room and the other in the back corner of the room. In addition, an audio-recorder was placed at the teacher’s desk and two other audiorecorders were placed in the aisles between the rows of the students’ seats. The researcher sat behind the camera in the back corner, operating camera angles to maximize the number of participants on tape. Participant consent was obtained one week before observations when the researcher was allowed to introduce her research project. The data analysis focused only on whole-class interactions and included teacher talk, student talk, and their multimodal behavior such as gestures and movements during whole-class discussion. Regarding the large size of the class, it was difficult to capture the students’ individual voices at times. Rather, the students’ participation was gauged by the volume and sound of their voices. The data were analyzed through EMCA, which provides a systematic way to analyze IRF cycles and their sequential environments (Sert, 2015). EMCA focuses both on sequences of conversation as well as on the contextual factors. It was noted by Seedhouse (2007: 520) that EMCA ‘involves matching this context-free statement to the participants’ contextsensitive implementation of these organizations in their talk and revealing the value of the social actions thus performed’. He pointed out that in EMCA, conversational patterns are given their contextual meanings to understand how these patterns are conducted by participants socially and contingently. Although organizations in conversation are context free, EMCA looks at how these patterns are connected and performed in specific contexts. EMCA thus allows for the examination of the patterns of the IRF cycle in a ‘normative and context-sensitive way to display social actions’ (Seedhouse, 2004: 51). The analysis below not only describes the organization and moves of the IRF cycles but also shows how they are coconstructed by the teacher and students in a situated classroom context to achieve language learning and teaching goals. Following EMCA’s bottomup and emic approach, this study intends to uncover the natural sequences of IRF cycles and understand how opportunities for students’ participation can be created or hindered in those sequences.

7 Findings

In order to address both research questions, the sequences of the IRF cycle identified and their opportunities for student participation were analyzed together. I will show that in the four observed EFL classrooms, in

96

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

distinct pedagogical activities with different teaching goals, these sequences were managed in ways that created different participation opportunities for the students. These activities are (a) eliciting students’ answers and (b) explaining grammar rules. 7.1 Elicitation sequences

Rather than examining only the teacher’s elicitation moves, this study locates their elicitation moves within sequences where the teacher and students collaboratively constructed the series of IRF cycles. I will describe two types of elicitation sequences within different pedagogical activities: eliciting answers in materials-based activities and eliciting answers in grammar-relevant activities. 7.1.1 Elicitation in materials-based activities

Materials-based activities occurred frequently in the four EFL classrooms observed in this study. The organization of the IRF cycle was shaped by the nature of the materials, namely worksheets and PowerPoint slides used by the teacher. In these sequences, the teacher’s decision making is contingently built on the students’ previous utterances. In order to achieve pedagogical goals and engage the students, the teacher’s elicitation can be modifi ed throughout several turns in light of the students’ manners of participation. This is illustrated in Excerpt 4.1. Excerpt 4.1 is a whole-class interaction involving a vocabulary exercise, which the students have prepared before the lesson (see Appendix A). The teacher, Ms Ding, is giving feedback on the students’ answers. Excerpt 4.1 Vocabulary exercise on worksheet 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Ms Ding:

Zhao: Ms Ding:

Qian: Ms Ding:

the first one ‘at last WE (0.5) the bird’ who can stand up. (0.5) stand up. (6.0) ‘lost sight of’ ‘lost sight of’ sit down. number two 一看到警察小偷就跑了 once see police thief immediately run away at the sight of the policeman, the thief ran away (2.0) ‘at the::: at the first of (.) policeman’. (1.0) DON’T be nervous. ‘at sight:: of the policeman’ okay sit down. number three? ‘I recognized him’ ‘第一眼’ ‘first sight’ ‘at first sight’ who can? (0.5)

Looking Beyond IRF Moves in EFL Classroom Interaction in China

21

Sun:

22 Ms Ding: 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

97

‘at the first sight’

‘at the first sight’ sit down. number four ‘看见她着急地走了’ ‘see her hurriedly left’ ‘caught sight of her hurrying away’

Ms Ding:

Li: Ms Ding:

(2.0) who can, the last one? (0.5) ((two students (Li and Wang) stand up at the same time, when Wang sees Li standing up, he sits down)) ‘caught sight of’ yeah. ((nodding)) ‘caught sight of’ ‘I caught sight of her hurrying away’, okay. sit down please. now: so much for this word.

As shown in line 1, Ms Ding starts with an initiation, asking for volunteers to stand up to answer the question. Initially, the students remain silent for six seconds (line 6) until one student, Zhao, stands up and offers an answer. Ms Ding’s wait time after her elicitation at this stage serves to sustain the relevancy of a response by a student. After the fi rst response by Zhao, three more students (Qian, Sun and Li) self-select to participate (lines 13, 21, 29). The pauses after the teacher’s elicitations become shorter, from six seconds (line 6) to less than one second (lines 20, 28), after a few rounds of the elicitation sequence. The shortened wait time may be due to the teacher’s long silence in line 6, which gives the students time to prepare to respond, or due to the students’ seeing successful responses by their classmates. In other words student participation seems to be encouraged either by the teacher’s wait time or by good models from other students. It is important to note that Ms Ding’s elicitations were modified according to the students’ responses. As can be seen in line 15, Ms Ding not only gives comments on the form of the language Qian provides but also on his feeling: ‘don’t be nervous’. In doing so, she encourages not only Qian but also the following student participants to be confident. It may not be a coincidence that Sun stands up after less than 0.5 seconds (line 20) following Ms Ding’s encouraging comment, perhaps as an orientation to it. After Sun’s turn, Ms Ding’s elicitation is modified again, with added instructional language, ‘the last one’ (line 27), which foreshadows the closing of the present activity and thus projecting the next IRF cycle as the last opportunity for the students to participate in the ongoing activity. Two more students are identified in the following turn, attempting to bid for the last chance. It appears that Ms Ding’s modified elicitation in line 27 may have triggered more students to take the last opportunity. Excerpt 4.2 is a continuation of Excerpt 4.1, and focuses on the last exercise shown on the PowerPoint slide (see Appendix B). Since this last exercise is not on the students’ worksheet, they have less time to prepare for the answer compared to the exercise in Excerpt 4.1.

98

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

Excerpt 4.2 Vocabulary exercise on PowerPoint slides 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Ms Ding:

Students: Liu: Ms Ding: Students: Ms Ding: Students: Ms Ding: Students:

Ms Ding:

let’s come to the last exercise. 最后一道练习. last one exercise the last exercise ‘the mother saw her son get on the train and watched it until it: wa:::s. (0.5) which one? [‘out of’ ((one or two students respond)) [‘in sight of’::: A? or [B. [B. ((almost the whole class responds in a loud chorus)) [C? or D. which one? [B. ((a few students call out but not the whole class)) B ‘out of sight’ Chinese meaning? ‘看不见‘. ((almost the whole class responds in a loud chorus)) ‘see nothing’ ‘out of sight’ =’看不见‘. ‘see nothing’ ‘out of sight’

21 22 23

the whole sentence ‘这个妈妈看着她的儿子上了火车‘ ‘this mother see her son get on train’ ‘the mother saw her son get on the train’

24 25 26

‘然后一直看着火车‘ ::: ‘then keep seeing train’ ‘and watched it until’

27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

Students:

Ms Ding:

(0.5) ‘直到看不见‘. ((almost the whole class responds in a loud chorus)) ‘until see nothing’ ‘until out of sight’ ‘直到她看不见了’. ‘until she see nothing’ ‘until it was out of sight’ ‘out of sight’’在视线之外了’. ‘at sight out’ ‘out of sight’

In lines 4–5, Ms Ding re-initiates the answer-checking activity by repeating the instructions of the exercise on the slide in a similar fashion to what she did in Excerpt 4.1. It seems that the instructions on the materials play a crucial role in starting the activity. After various options provided by the students (lines 8, 9), instead of a feedback move, Ms Ding reformulates her elicitation to refer to multiple-choice options, thus making the response options more specific for the students (line 10). When students provide a response that aligns with this multiple-choice format (‘B’, line 11), rather than offering feedback, again, Ms Ding revises her elicitation move by adding two other options: ‘C or D’ (line 12). This time, only a few students are providing the same answer (‘B’) compared to back in line 11. The decreased number of students who are producing responses may indicate that not all students can or are ready to provide an answer at this point. Ms Ding then acknowledges the students’

Looking Beyond IRF Moves in EFL Classroom Interaction in China

99

response (‘B’) in her feedback move. However, rather than closing the sequence down after this last move in the IRF cycle, she produces an expansion of her elicitation by asking for the Chinese translation of the answer (line 14). When almost the whole class gives the same correct answer in a loud chorus in the following turn (line 15), Ms Ding acknowledges their answer and, again, expands her feedback move to elicit the students’ understanding of the whole sentence. She issues a designedly incomplete Chinese translation of the sentence (lines 21–26) (see Koshik, 2002). The large number of students’ responses (line 28) to complete the translation indicates their active participation. Ms Ding’s feedback move acknowledges the students’ responses with a slight modification, and the sequence closes down. Excerpts 4.1 and 4.2 offer examples of how elicitation sequences in the IRF cycle are co-constructed by the teacher and students in materialsbased activities. Although part of the materials and the students’ answers have been prepared beforehand, the IRF cycle is not simply an answerchecking sequence with the students giving answers and the teacher providing evaluative feedback. As can be seen in these excerpts, Ms Ding constantly modifies her elicitation and feedback moves to respond to the students’ turns at each moment. Although Ms Ding uses similar ways to elicit the students’ self-selected turns, her comments are slightly different when she responds to the students’ different contributions, by (a) encouraging the students (line 15 in Excerpt 4.1), (b) reminding the students to participate (line 27 in Excerpt 4.1), (c) expanding on the students’ turns (e.g. lines 10, 12, 14 in Excerpt 4.2), and (d) delivering a designedly incomplete utterance (lines 21–26 in Excerpt 4.2). It can also be observed that her pedagogical goals are modified in relation to the students’ responses toward her initial elicitations. In order to create opportunities for the students to express their understandings about the answers in the given exercise, she offers modified and expanded elicitations (lines 10, 12, 14, 21–26 in Excerpt 4.2). In addition, when the students show a decreased level of participation (line 13 in Excerpt 4.2), this display of inadequate understanding triggered Ms Ding to modify her subsequent follow-up moves. If Ms Ding’s elicitation moves were to be interpreted as isolated moves, the analysis would fail to capture the co-constructed nature of the IRF cycle’s development and the locally managed nature of opportunities for the students’ participation. Excerpts 4.1 and 4.2 also corroborate Jung’s (2017: 162) fi nding that the third turn is where the teacher can use ‘the relevant response of the student to expand the sequence’. 7.1.2 Elicitation in grammar-relevant activities

Another type of elicitation sequence identified in the observed classes occurs during grammar-relevant activities. Within these activities in the data, the IRF cycle is co-constructed by the teacher and students to understand grammar rules. The collaborative feature of the IRF cycle in its

100

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

sequential context is illustrated by Excerpt 4.3. In this exchange, the teacher is checking the students’ understanding of the grammar rules and structures related to the word remain in the sentence ‘It remains to be seen whether you are honest’. Excerpt 4.3 ‘Remain’ 01 Ms Ding: 02 03

所以我们注意观察 在这个用法当中呢, so we pay attention observe in this usage so think carefully about this usage

04

‘it remains to be done’

05 06 07

再加上从句 more addition clause adding a clause

08 09 10

是一个比较典型的句式. should be a rather typical sentence structure should make it a rather typical sentence structure

11 12 13

整个句子结构里 whole sentence structure in in the whole sentence structure

14 15 16

就像我们昨天讲的那个, just like we yesterday talk that is like the sentence structure that we talked about yesterday

17 18 19

‘it is a pity that’ 做什么? do what what is the function of ‘it’s a pity that’

‘it’

20 Students: 形式主语. ((almost the whole class responds)) 21 FORMAL SUBJECT 22 FORMAL SUBJECT 23 Ms Ding: 24 25

形式主语. 那么我们这个从句就成了什么? formal subject so we this clause then become what formal subject so this sentence becomes what

26 (0.5) 27 Students: 真正°的°::: ((a few students respond)) 28 real 29 real 30 Ms Ding: 31 32

=真正的主语从句. real subject clause real subject clause

33 34 35

也就是说 again so to say in other words, it means

36 37 38

你是否是诚实的有待于被看 被观察吧, you whether honest remain be seen be observed whether you are honest remains to be seen, to be observed

39 40 41

那么这里面咱们的动词 ‘remain’ so this our verb then here our verb

42 43 44

翻译成什么最合适? translate to what best suitable what is the best way to translate

Looking Beyond IRF Moves in EFL Classroom Interaction in China

101

45 Students: ‘°有待°’::: ((a few students respond)) 46 ‘have wait’ 47 ‘remain’ 48 Ms Ding: 49 50

=’有待于’ 或者是 ‘留待怎么怎么 仍然需要怎么怎么‘. ‘have wait for’ or ‘left wait what what still need what what’ ‘remain’ or ‘remain to do something’

51 52 53

然后接下来我们再看 ‘remain’ 有两个词形的变化. then next we again see ‘remain’ also have two inflection then let’s see ‘remain’ also has two inflected forms

54 55 56

在’remain’ 的后方如果我加上’s’ on ‘remain’ behind if I add ‘s’ if I add ‘s’ after ‘remain’

57 58 59

就成了它的:名词‘剩余物’ ((Ms Ding writes on board)) then become its noun ‘remains’ then ‘remain’ becomes a noun

60 61 62

‘剩余的东西’. 还有呢? ‘remaining thing’ what else? ‘remaining thing’ what else?

63 64 65

就是在’remain’的后方咱 加上’ing’ just be at ‘remain’’s back we add ‘ing’ just add ‘ing’ after ‘remain’

66 67 68

它就成了什么词? it just become what part of speech it becomes what part of speech

69 (0.5) 70 Students: 形容词. ((a few students respond)) 71 adjective 72 adjective 73 Ms Ding: 74 75

形容词. 解释是什么? adjective Chinese interpretation is what adjective what is the Chinese interpretation

In this expanded IRF sequence, Ms Ding uses the L1 to explain and elicit the students’ understanding of a certain grammar structure – formal subject (line 1). Almost the whole class is responding and giving the same answer in a loud chorus (line 20). Ms Ding treats their answer as acceptable by acknowledging it, and then she issues a next elicitation based on the students’ current understanding (line 23). At this time, a few students manage to provide the expected answer, ‘real’ (lines 27–29). Ms Ding’s feedback turn incorporates the students’ response and expands it into an explicit explanation (lines 30–38). As the explanation develops, Ms Ding issues another elicitation for a translation of the verb remain (lines 39–44), which receives a response from some students (lines 45–47). It is important to note that the answer for Ms Ding’s prompt (lines 39–44) has been explained in her previous utterance in lines 36–38. Thus, Ms Ding’s later prompt serves as a check on the students’ current understanding and learning of a previously introduced item. As can be seen from lines 45–57, the students’ response is elongated and incomplete. Ms Ding again incorporates the students’ response into her continued explanation (lines 48–50). In a similar fashion, Ms Ding issues another elicitation for the

102

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

students’ understanding during her explanation (lines 51–68). A few students respond and thus display their understanding of the grammatical form of remaining. Ms Ding acknowledges their answer and expands the elicitation by asking for the Chinese meaning of the word. It can be seen from Excerpt 4.3 that the teacher’s explanation of grammar rules – about formal subject (lines 1–23), real subject clause (lines 23–32) and adjective (lines 51–72) – is jointly built by the teacher’s exposition and the students’ responses to her elicitations. It is also important to notice that the teacher’s expositions are interactively modified to guide the students toward a pedagogical goal. Park (2014) reported a similar phenomenon, in which the teacher further elaborated his questions through reformulation, repetition, clarification and clues in order to ‘fit learners’ current level’ (Park, 2014: 209). In brief, the analysis of elicitation sequences in the IRF cycle in these Chinese EFL classrooms reveals that elicitation sequences in the IRF cycle are co-constructed by teacher and students (Sert, 2015) in ways that are sensitive to pedagogical aims (Jung, 2007; Park, 2014). In order to facilitate the students’ understanding of the target language and push the students’ knowledge boundaries, the teachers in the data also used IRF cycles to scaffold the students’ learning. Unlike elicitation sequences, scaffolding sequences do not simply elicit students’ turns, but also aim to link the students’ current understanding to new knowledge so as to assist the students’ learning. An analysis of scaffolding sequences in the observed Chinese EFL classrooms will be presented in the next section. 7.2 Scaffolding in vocabulary teaching

Scaffolding sequences were often found in the data after some silence due to the absence of a response from the students (see also Somuncu & Sert, this volume, on students’ displays of non-understanding). In these sequences, the students’ learning was scaffolded by the teacher to build a link between the students’ displayed understanding and the new information being introduced. Excerpt 4.4 illustrates in detail how scaffolding is achieved through an IRF cycle to promote learning. Excerpt 4.4 is from Ms Cen’s class, where the teacher is seeking the students’ interpretation in Chinese of the phrase take in. The whole exchange contains one IRF cycle with two extended teacher turns and two extended students’ turns. The scaffolding sequence starts after the silence following the teacher’s elicitation turn. Excerpt 4.4 ‘Take in’ 01 Ms Cen: 02 03

and the third one? if you take someone into a situation and want to get something from him or her? you know the meaning?

Looking Beyond IRF Moves in EFL Classroom Interaction in China

04 05 Ms Cen:

(1.0) that means CHEAT somebody.

06 Wang: 07 08

骗, lie lie

09 Ms Cen: 10 Students: 11 12

[CHEAT somebody. [骗某人. ((a few students respond)) lie someone lie to somebody

13 Ms Cen: 14 15

骗某人. lie someone lie to somebody

103

16 yeah, cheat somebody into a consideri::: 17 uh::: sorry, situation, yeah? and want to 18 get something from somebody or something欺骗. 19 cheat 20 cheat 21 Students: ((nodding)) 22 Ms Cen: and the fourth one, the fourth one? if you 23 take in what I said that means you understand 24 me? 25 (0.5) 26 If you take in what I said that means 27 you UNDERSTAND me. 28 Students: 理解. ((almost the whole class responds)) 29 understand 30 understand 31 Ms Cen: 32 33

yes. 理解. understand understand

34 okay that’s all for the meaning of take in 35 and you know as you can see ‘take in’ 36 its meanings are just determined by ‘in’ right? 37 Students: yes. ((a few students respond)) 38 Ms Cen: so can you tell me the meaning::: meanings of 39 ‘take in’? who’d like to have a try? 40 ((using gesture to nominate a student)) 41 Han: 吸入. 令某人住宿. 欺骗. 理解. 42 absorb accommodate cheat understand 43 absorb accommodate cheat understand

After Ms. Cen’s multi-unit elicitation (lines 1–3), there is no response from the students, which possibly indicates the students’ problems with providing an immediate answer. In the next turn (line 5), Ms Cen modifies her elicitation by providing the English expression to answer her own question. This use of the target language may function in a similar way to how meta-comments do, using the students’ existing knowledge (target-language expression of the meaning of take in) to elicit the students’ understanding of new knowledge (another meaning of take in in the students’

104

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

native language) (Hammond & Gibbons, 2005). By providing the answer in English, Ms Cen can be seen as guiding the students toward the expected answer; that is, she is scaffolding the students’ learning. With this scaffolding, Wang manages to produce a response in Chinese, ‘骗 [lie]’ (line 6). However, Ms Cen withholds a feedback turn toward this student’s response, signaling that she is not satisfied with it. To seek more responses from the students, she repeats the key phrase in English (line 9), thus renewing the scaffolding and the opportunities for the students to participate. This time (line 10), more students respond by producing a more elaborate phrase than Wang’s earlier response produced in line 6. Finally, Ms Cen acknowledges the students’ response by repeating it verbatim. She expands her feedback move by repeating the English expression and introducing the Chinese translation for the word cheat. In doing so, she has incorporated the students’ contribution and guided them toward the target answer. In other words, the students’ comprehension of the phrase take in is scaffolded by Ms Cen through a series of supporting turns. Another scaffolding sequence is conducted in a similar fashion (lines 22–37) in which Ms Cen uses linguistic clues to link the students’ existing knowledge in the second language (L2) to new knowledge (another meaning of the phrase take in in Chinese). Han’s responses (line 41) provide evidence of their new knowledge, which became available to them through Ms Cen’s preceding scaffolding turns. As exemplified by Excerpt 4.4, scaffolding sequences incorporate students’ contributions and bridge the gap between their existing understanding and new information. It can be seen that the students moved from not being able to provide a response (as evidenced by the silence in line 4) to being able to produce the two meanings taught through the teacher’s scaffolding (Han, line 41). This may indicate the success of the teacher’s scaffolding. In sociocultural theory’s terms (Vygotsky, 1978), one can say that the teacher’s repetitions and reformulations serve to move students toward new knowledge in their ZPD, where students’ knowledge boundaries can be pushed with the teacher’s assistance. Opportunities for participation were created when students were encouraged to be active contributors in the IRF sequential organization. In summary, the IRF cycle was employed by the teachers in the data for different pedagogical activities: elicitation in materials-based activities, elicitation in grammar-relevant activities, and scaffolding in vocabulary teaching. The functions of these sequences, however, cannot be interpreted separately through isolated moves since they were accomplished contingently in situated classroom interaction. As revealed in the data, students’ participation was encouraged and facilitated in elicitation and scaffolding sequences. Within these sequences, the teacher’s turns were designed in ways that were sensitive to the students’ previous utterances and were facilitative for the students’ contributions. In this sense, an effective IRF sequence requires the teacher’s contingent decision making, appropriate

Looking Beyond IRF Moves in EFL Classroom Interaction in China

105

elicitation and sequentially sensitive scaffolding turns to establish a cooriented learning environment where students play an essential role. 8 Discussion

Rather than categorizing interactional features in different micro-contexts or ‘classroom modes’, as Walsh (2011: 112) proposed, this study explores the details of interactional sequences and how students are directed by the teacher step by step toward a certain pedagogical goal (Koshik, 2002). The analysis above has shown that teachers can design elicitation turns in the IRF cycle to create opportunities for students to participate by acknowledging students’ answers, encouraging students’ confidence, reminding students of the opportunity to participate, incorporating students’ answers into the teacher’s continued explanation, and expanding students’ answers through teacher prompts. The interactional practices used by the teachers were modified contingently in different pedagogical activities to respond to, incorporate and develop students’ previous utterances, guiding them toward a particular learning goal. The findings thus echo Jung’s (2017) and Park’s (2014) conclusion that the teacher’s third turn not only expands students’ turns for interactivity but also focuses on certain pedagogical goals. This study furthers their arguments by elaborating on the functions of teacher talk in teacher-fronted classroom discourse. In addition, student-orientated IRF cycles were also identified in scaffolding sequences. Rather than simply eliciting students’ answers, the teachers also scaffolded students’ learning by building a link between their existing understanding and new knowledge (Gibbons, 2003, 2006; Hammond & Gibbons, 2005; Sharpe, 2006; Vacca, 2008). Unlike the teacher prompts that offered part of the answers in elicitation sequences, linguistic clues were given in the form of the answer in the target language to seek its translation in the students’ L1. It allowed the teacher to scaffold learning, and, at the same time, increased the students’ exposure to the target language (Stern et al., 1992). The analysis of scaffolding sequences in this study provides empirical data to support Hammond and Gibbons’ (2005) conclusion that teacher’s clues in IRF cycles can scaffold learning by giving more opportunities for students to construct knowledge. The analysis has shown that effective elicitation sequences and scaffolding sequences were co-oriented and co-constructed by teachers and students to maximize opportunities for students’ participation. The teachers utilized IRF cycles to orient to the constraints of maintaining order in large classes while also seeking possibilities to promote participation in contingent classroom discourse. The functions of the IRF cycle can only be interpreted through the participants’ local accomplishments. For example, without a consideration of the pedagogical purposes of the activity and without relating them to participants’ previous utterances and following turns, the meaning and functions of the teacher repetitions in Excerpt 4.1 could not

106

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

be seen. In this sense, this study adds weight to Lee’s (2007: 202) argument that the characterization of teaching strategies ‘turns the analytic focus away from the very phenomena of classroom teaching and learning in its practical details’, and teachers’ actions need to be understood in their own right in the local context of classroom interaction. Rather than viewing teaching and learning in classroom interactions as pure cognitive processes, this study demonstrates that learning is co-constructed and constantly shaped and reshaped through ongoing interactions (Gibbons, 2006; Hall, 2010; Hellermann, 2006; Sert, 2015; Waring, 2009). Moreover, it has been shown that although teachers control the IRF cycle in initiating and closing the sequences, they can modify their turns based on students’ preceding responses and shape their next turns contingently according to students’ understanding at the moment. In other words, IRF moves can be manipulated in situ to create opportunities for students to participate in learning activities. The analysis above showed the possibilities of teachers’ expanding and modifying the basic structure of the IRF cycle to deal with and develop students’ emergent contributions. The conclusion of this study thus supports Young’s (2009: 94) assertion that ‘participants create meanings – meanings that are intimately connected to the context in which they are created’ in interactions. Through EMCA, not only the detailed organization of the IRF cycle has been analyzed but also how it is accomplished by teachers and students in situated moments to achieve a particular pedagogical goal. In a broader sense, this study demonstrates the strengths of the EMCA approach to the exploration of the dynamic and co-constructed nature of classroom interactions. This study is not without limitations. Since it only analyzes interactions in a high school in northern China, the findings cannot be generalized into all classroom discourses. In addition, the IRF cycle is the main focus of this study, but it is only part of the myriad of interactions that take place in the studied classes. Further, the analysis only centers on two types of sequences – elicitation sequences and scaffolding sequences. Analysis of other types of sequences may provide a more comprehensive understanding of the coconstructed nature of the IRF cycle. Future studies can further explore different types of classroom interactions with a larger data sample. 9 Practical Implications

The findings emphasize the teacher’s contingent decision-making process during classroom interaction, in contrast to a top-down application of teaching strategies from one context to another, or from training models. As seen in the analysis, the same teaching strategy (such as the utilization of the IRF cycle) may function differently in different pedagogical activities. This study offers evidence to argue that teaching strategies, sequences of the IRF cycle and pedagogical goals are interdependent and reciprocal

Looking Beyond IRF Moves in EFL Classroom Interaction in China

107

(Pekarek Doehler, 2018). It is through the dynamic interactional processes in classroom discourse that teachers can create opportunities for students’ participation. Teacher education should incorporate data-driven and micro analysis of classroom interaction to inform pre- and in-service teachers. Finally, the analysis also gives insights into how teachers may engage students in large classes. As mentioned above, the teachers in the data were teaching English to 60–70 students in the same class. To engage students, they produced encouragement and reminders of the opportunity for participation, acknowledged students’ answers by repeating them, incorporated students’ answers into their own expositions and scaffolded students’ answers in the L1 by providing the answers in the target language. These interactional practices may be helpful for teachers of large EFL classes elsewhere. Note (1) All participants’ names are pseudonyms.

References Biggs, J. (1996) Western misperceptions of the Confucian-heritage learning culture. In D. Watkins and J. Biggs (eds) The Chinese Learner: Cultural, Psychological and Contextual Infl uences (pp. 45–67). Hong Kong: CERC and ACER. Ellis, R. (2015) Understanding Second Language Acquisition (2nd edn). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gardner, D.K. (1990) Learning to be a Sage: Selections from the Conversations of Master Chu, Arranged Topically. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Gibbons, P. (2003) Mediating language learning: Teacher interactions with ESL students in a content-based classroom. TESOL Quarterly 37 (2), 247–273. Gibbons, P. (2006) Bridging Discourses in the ESL Classroom: Students, Teachers and Researchers. London: Continuum. Gourlay, L. (2005) OK, who’s got number one? Permeable triadic dialogue, covert participation and the co-construction of checking episodes. Language Teaching Research 9 (4), 403– 422; doi:10.1191/1362168805lr175oa. Hall, J.K. (2010) Interaction as method and result of language learning. Language Teaching 43 (2), 202–215. Hammond, J. and Gibbons, P. (2005) Putting scaffolding to work: The contribution of scaffolding in articulating ESL education. Prospect 20 (1), 6–30. Harmer, J. (2007) The Practice of English Language Teaching. Harlow: Pearson Longman. Hellermann, J. (2006) Classroom interactive practices for developing L2 literacy: A microethnographic study of two beginning adult learners of English. Applied Linguistics 27 (3), 377–404; doi:10.1093/applin/ami052. Jin, L. and Cortazzi, M. (2006) Changing practices in Chinese cultures of learning. Language, Culture and Curriculum 19 (1), 5–20. doi:10.1080/07908310608668751 Jung, H. (2017) Contingencies in ELF writing tutors’ third turns: A conversation analytic perspective 72 (4), 157–177; doi: 10.15858/engtea.72.4.201712.157 Koshik, I. (2002) A conversation analytic study of yes/no questions which convey reversed polarity assertions. Journal of Pragmatics 34 (12), 1851–1877; doi.org/10.1016/ S0378-2166(02)00057-7. Lee, W.O. (1996) The cultural context for Chinese learners: Conceptions of learning in the Confucian tradition. The Chinese Learner: Cultural, Psychological and Contextual Influences 34, 63–67.

108

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

Lee, Y.A. (2006) Respecifying display questions: Interactional resources for language teaching. TESOL Quarterly 40 (4), 691–713. Lee, Y.A. (2007) Third turn position in teacher talk: Contingency and the work of teaching. Journal of Pragmatics 39 (6), 1204–1230; doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2006.11.003. Lefstein, A., Snell, J. and Israeli, M. (2015) From moves to sequences: Expanding the unit of analysis in the study of classroom discourse. British Educational Research Journal 41 (5), 866–885; doi:10.1002/berj.3164. Mehan, H. (1979) Learning Lessons: Social Organization in the Classroom. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Molinari, L., Mameli, C. and Gnisci, A. (2013) A sequential analysis of classroom discourse in Italian primary schools: The many faces of the IRF pattern. British Journal of Educational Psychology 83 (3), 414–430; doi:10.1111/j.2044-8279.2012.02071.x. Nassaji, H. and Wells, G. (2000) What’s the use of ‘triadic dialogue’?: An investigation of teacher– student interaction. Applied Linguistics 21 (3), 376–406; doi:10.1093/ applin/21.3.376. Norris, J.M. and Ortega, L. (2000) Effectiveness of L2 instruction: A research synthesis and quantitative meta analysis. Language Learning 50 (3), 417–528; doi:10.1111/0023-8333.00136. Pallotti, G. and Wagner, J. (2011) L2 Learning as Social Practice: Conversation-analytic Perspectives. Honolulu, HI: National Foreign Language Resource Center. Park, W. (2014) Examining Korean English teachers’ question-in-interaction with young learners. Korean Journal of Applied Linguistics 30 (3), 197–222. Pekarek Doehler, S. (2018) Elaborations on L2 interactional competence: The development of L2 grammar-for-interaction. Classroom Discourse 9 (1), 3–24; doi:10.1080/ 19463014.2018.1437759. Seedhouse, P. (2004) The Interactional Architecture of the Language Classroom: A Conversation Analysis Perspective. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Seedhouse, P. (2007) On ethnomethodological CA and ‘linguistic CA’: A reply to Hall. The Modern Language Journal 91, 527–533; doi: 10.1111/j.1540-4781.2007. 00620.x Sert, O. (2015) Social Interaction and L2 Classroom Discourse: Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Sharpe, T. (2006) ‘Unpacking’ scaffolding: Identifying discourse and multimodal strategies that support learning. Language and Education 20 (3), 211–231; doi:10.1080/ 09500780608668724. Sinclair, J.M.H. and Coulthard, M. (1975) Towards an Analysis of Discourse: The English Used by Teachers and Pupils. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stern, H.H., Allen, J.P.B. and Harley, B. (1992) Issues and Options in Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Vacca, J.S. (2008) Using scaffolding techniques to teach a social studies lesson about Buddha to sixth graders. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 51 (8), 652–658. Van Compernolle, R.A. (2015) Interaction and Second Language Development: A Vygotskian Perspective. Amsterdam, Netherland: John Benjamins Publishing Company. van de Pol, J., Volman, M. and Beishuizen, J. (2010) Scaffolding in teacher–student interaction: A decade of research. Educational Psychology Review 22 (3), 271–296; doi:10.1007/s10648-010-9127-6. Vygotsky, L.S. (1978) Mind in Society: Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press. Walsh, S. (2002) Construction or obstruction: Teacher talk and learner involvement in the EFL classroom. Language Teaching Research 6 (1), 3–23. Walsh, S. (2006) Investigating Classroom Discourse. Abingdon: Routledge. Walsh, S. (2011) Exploring Classroom Discourse: Language in Action. Abingdon: Routledge.

Looking Beyond IRF Moves in EFL Classroom Interaction in China

109

Waring, H.Z. (2009) Moving out of IRF (Initiation-Response-Feedback): A single case analysis. Language Learning 59 (4), 796–824. Wells, G. (1993) Reevaluating the IRF sequence: A proposal for the articulation of theories of activity and discourse for the analysis of teaching and learning in the classroom. Linguistics and Education 5 (1), 1–37; doi.org/10.1016/S0898-5898(05)80001-4. Wood, D. (1992) Teaching talk. In K. Norman (ed.) Thinking Voices: The Work of the National Oracy Project (pp. 203–214). London: Hodder & Stoughton. Young, R. (2009) Discursive Practice in Language Learning and Teaching. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Zheng, X.-M. and Davison, C. (2008) Changing Pedagogy: Analysing ELT Teachers in China. London: Continuum.

Appendix A: The Exercise on the Worksheet for Excerpt 4.1 (1) Original exercise

1) 最后，我们看不见那之鸟了 the bird. At last, we (一看到警察)，the thief ran away. 2) (第一眼) 3) I recognized him (看见) her hurrying away. 4) I (2) Exercise with English translations in italics

1) 最后，我们看不见那之鸟了 At last, we lost sight of the bird. the bird. At last, we (一看到警察)，the thief ran away. 2) At the sight of the police (第一眼) 3) I recognized him At first sight (看见) her hurrying away. 4) I Catch sight of (3) Answer keys

1) lost sight of; 2) At the sight of the police; 3) at fi rst sight; 4) caught sight of Appendix B: The Exercise on the PowerPoint Slide for Excerpt 4.2

The mother saw her son get on the train and watched it until it was A. in sight B. out of sight C. at fi rst sight D. out of the sight Answer key: B

5 EFL Trainee Teachers’ Orientations to Students’ Non-understanding: A Focus on Task Instructions Dilara Somuncu and Olcay Sert

Using conversation analysis, this chapter explores EFL trainee teachers’ orientations to students’ displays of non-understanding in instructiongiving sequences. The analyses draw on sequential organization of talk as well as on various multi-semiotic resources the participants deploy including orientations to classroom artefacts (e.g. interactive whiteboards). The research utilizes transcriptions of 13 (classroom) hours of video-recordings of 13 different EFL teachers’ classes. The data were collected over a semester in 2013 in a public secondary school in Turkey. The fi ndings show that students’ displays of non-understanding (e.g. through statements like ‘we did not understand’ or by initiating requests for clarification) in instruction-giving sequences are important sites for teachers to ensure clarity, as understanding of these instructions by the students is crucial for task accomplishment. Based on a collection of cases, we demonstrate that teachers may turn displays of non-understanding into understanding by using resources such as multimodal explanations and modelling. However, the majority of cases in instruction-giving sequences include teachers’ lack of or limited orientations to students’ non-understanding. We argue that management of non-understanding in such sequences should be integrated into teacher education curricula in both content and language classrooms, as it plays an important role in ensuring task accomplishment. 1 Introduction

The recognition of the importance of conversation analysis (henceforth CA) in investigating classroom discourse has motivated L2 researchers to investigate learning as contextualized through interaction (Firth & Wagner, 1997; Lee, 2007; Mori, 2002), leading to the adoption of an emic perspective to explore learning, interactional competence and the 110

EFL Trainee Teachers’ Orientations to Students’ Non-understanding

111

dynamics of classroom interaction (Hall, 2004; Hellermann, 2008; Markee, 2008; Seedhouse, 2004; Sert, 2017; see also Malabarba & Nguyen in this volume). Different speech-exchange systems have been explored, including teacher-fronted interaction (e.g. Hazel & Mortensen, 2017; Sert, 2015) and student–student interaction in group work (e.g. Jakonen & Morton, 2015; Mondada & Pekarek Doehler, 2004; Ziegler et al., 2015). These studies have investigated conversational actions with particular foci, ranging from teachers’ use of hand gestures in teaching vocabulary (e.g. Matsumoto & Dobs, 2017; see also Malabarba, this volume) to coconstruction of learner autonomy in music classes (Reed, 2017). Although micro-analytic investigations into many ‘universal’ and commonly found aspects of classroom interaction (e.g. teacher questions, feedback practices) have been carried out, particularly in the last two decades (see also Li, this volume), a common practice that is found in all teacher-fronted classrooms – instruction giving – has received less attention within the scope of CA (St. John & Cromdal, 2016, but see Kunitz & Markee, forthcoming). One of the reasons might be its elusiveness in terms of function and scope. For instance, Lindwall et al. (2015) remarked on three different uses of the term instruction(s): as education, as directives and as written handbooks. In the use of instruction as education, the primary task of schools is to instruct students by ‘getting learners from a state where they do not know to a state where they do know’ (Lindwall et al., 2015: 145). Instructions as directives are the ones ‘designed to get someone to do something’ (Goodwin, 2006: 517, cited in Lindwall et al., 2015), while instructions as written handbooks are ones like a manual, recipe or a guidebook. Against this background, the present study explores a particular understudied aspect of instructions, a combination of instructions as education and instructions as directives: task instructions. Task instructions are not just mechanic directives (e.g. telling students to open their books or raise their hands), but they are ‘delivered live by teachers to the whole class’ and ‘actions of setting up tasks and making them followable’ (St. John & Cromdal, 2016: 253). A general characteristic of task instructions is that they are ‘activity types that our common sense […] does not immediately or generally associate with social interaction’ (Mondada & Pekarek Doehler, 2004: 505). They are assumed as the non-interactional parts of the lesson, described previously in classroom discourse research as procedural contexts (Seedhouse, 2004) and managerial mode (Walsh, 2011). In this chapter, we argue that task instructions are not mere teacher monologues because students’ displays of non-understanding may have an impact on the unfolding of these sequences. In this regard, the present study explores the moments during and immediately after task instruction sequences in which the teachers and students orient to the students’ understanding problems. The latter sequence, when the understanding

112

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

problems immediately follow the instruction, can also be referred to as a post-explanation sequence or an activity boundary. Our data involve interactional practices of English as a foreign language (EFL) trainee teachers, following Markee’s (2015) call for research that closely investigates instructions in teacher education and training. To fi ll this gap in the literature, in this chapter we illustrate Turkish EFL trainee teachers’ employment of a variety of interactional resources (e.g. multimodal explanation, demonstration and modelling) to manage non-understanding (e.g. when a student asks for clarification) and show how some of these resources may play an important role in establishing student understanding and successful task accomplishment. We also show how teachers’ limited orientation to such problems leaves troubles of understanding unresolved. Before we present our analysis, background on instructiongiving sequences and (non)understanding in interaction will be provided. 2 Instruction Giving

Instructions are a significant aspect of classroom discourse as they constitute a large amount of teacher-talk (He, 2000; Waring & Hruska, 2012). Todd (1997: 32) defi ned instructions as ‘a series of directives, possibly mixed with explanations, questions and so on, which as a whole aim to get the students to do something’. Since task outcomes are contingent on instructions, classroom learning may depend on teachers’ effective instructions (Todd et al., 2008). Therefore, it can be argued that teachers should be meticulous in giving instructions, as they are important for effective teaching and learning (Holmes, 1983). Task instructions function as ‘a direction or a request which results later in students’ behaviour, responses, actions, products, and ultimately learning outcomes’ (Ha & Wanphet, 2016: 138), and they are major class activities directing the learning process (Slavin, 2006). They are crucial classroom elements because ‘the success of the activities which follow instructions is often predicated on the effectiveness of these instructions’ (Todd et al., 2008: 26). In order to make instructions effective, language teachers have been observed to use paraphrasing, repetition, translation, examples, emphasis on important information, information division and various language patterns in their instruction-giving sequences (Ha & Wanphet, 2016). In addition, instruction-giving sequences constitute the key components in the management of classroom interaction, such as stating learning objectives and orienting students to the task, reviewing prerequisites and presenting new materials (Slavin, 2006). In one of the prominent studies on instructions, Lindwall et  al. (2015) described four contexts of instructions: textual instructions, oneto-one instructions in craft, feedback on text, and cohort-organized instruction. In the fi rst context, textual instruction, emphasis is placed

EFL Trainee Teachers’ Orientations to Students’ Non-understanding

113

on the adequacy of written instructions for others to follow instructions with specifi c courses of action. In one-to-one instructions in craft, instructions can be used to respond to students’ troubles by the teacher. In the third instructional sequence, feedback on text, teachers benefit from students’ written assignments which provide space for assessment and further instructions. Lastly, in cohort-organized instruction, teacher questions on ongoing instruction can be used as resources to solve particular problems displayed in students’ answers. Consequently, these different contexts show us that instruction is organized in different ways and has practical implications for teachers in terms of classroom interaction. With a more specifi c perspective on instructions, St. John and Cromdal (2016: 253) focused on task instructions by describing them ‘[…] not as the delivery of a docile teacher script or as merely giving procedural information monologically […] but as the distributed coordination of instructional coherence by all or some of those party to the occasion’. In instruction sequences, student questions prompted instructors to clarify uncertainty by making instructions intelligible for the tasks. Student questions were used as resources to compensate for the incompleteness of instructions (Garfi nkel, 2002), and teachers tended to address both individuals and the whole class when confronted with a  student question in instruction-giving sequences. St. John and Cromdal (2016: 273) called this instruction action by the teacher ‘dual addressivity’. Similar to the description of instruction in St. John and Cromdal’s study, Markee (2015) argued that instructions are not monologues; rather, they have an interactional nature evidenced through a close analysis of overlaps between teacher instructions and learner responses. Focusing on how teachers give instructions from an ethnomethodological perspective, Markee illustrated the complexity of giving and following instructions and suggests implications for teacher trainers and trainee teachers. Markee showed that teachers’ instruction-giving sequences consist of six main elements: ‘(1) how [students] will be working (in dyads or small groups); (2) what resources they will need; (3) what tasks they have to accomplish; (4) how they will accomplish the task; (5) how much time they need to accomplish these tasks; (6) and why they should do something’ (Markee, 2015: 120–121). Accordingly, instructions are series in which teachers explain the ways to accomplish a task by introducing, informing, guiding and engaging students. Furthermore, such sequences have a progressive minimization (Kunitz & Markee, forthcoming), including rounds of activities as the instructions unfold. According to St. John and Cromdal (2016), students become a part of task instructions either by intervening for clarification or by displaying attention without interfering, so ‘task instructions are not self-contained monologues but engage the services of other voices in the effort to

114

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

represent and explain tasks meaningfully’ (St. John & Cromdal, 2016: 258). If  teachers can integrate students’ actions into instructional discourse, instructions can be enhanced to meet the needs of the students. Managing this integration is of great importance because successful task accomplishment depends on students’ visualization of the management of a particular task independently (Amerine & Bilmes, 1988). At this point, being able to turn the troubles occurring during task instructions into pedagogic prospects requires timely action on the teacher’s part, since students’ actions provide teachers with clues to assess their own ongoing task instruction. Thus, student questions and responses can shape instruction-giving sequences, in much the same way as questions and responses during instructions are crucial elements for interactants to their understandings (Schegloff, 1984). By looking at such student actions, teachers can shape the agenda for their ‘pedagogical focus’ (Seedhouse, 2004) and set the scene for the main activity. In a study exploring EFL teachers’ use of written instructions and their verbal instructions for the same task, Ha and Wanphet (2016: 138) depicted the relationship between instructions and learning in a continuum: ‘(1) Teacher talk/instructions → (2) Classroom activities → (3) Productions or task accomplishments → (4) Students’ learning’. According to this process, a typical teaching and learning session starts with teacher talk or task instructions, which leads to classroom activities. By working on these activities, teachers and students complete certain tasks, and lastly successful accomplishments of these tasks may result in student learning. The authors argue that learning is facilitated once the students know what to do and how to do it before the task starts. However, as we will illustrate in our fi ndings, some ‘natural troubles’ (Garfi nkel, 2002) may occur during the fi rst step, namely during or immediately after instructiongiving sequences, and this may change the course of the action. If this trouble is not treated by the teacher, it may cause problems in the second and third steps (as reported in Ha & Wanphet’s (2016) study); consequently, it may hinder student understanding and learning at the end. The focus of the present study will be on one particular trouble: students’ displays of their non-understanding, which may interrupt the ongoing talk during and immediately after the instruction-giving sequences and constitute a problem in the flow of pedagogical activities. 3 Understanding/Non-understanding

Inspired by ethnomethodology and CA, studies on ‘understanding’ adopt a collective and indexical perspective as understanding is ‘a fundamental aspect of everyday life and a key issue for social sciences and cognitive sciences alike, defining the basic conditions for mutual communication, joint action and social co-existence’ (Mondada, 2011: 542). CA treats understanding as an interactional matter because interlocutors

EFL Trainee Teachers’ Orientations to Students’ Non-understanding

115

display an understanding of previous turns in observable actions in conversations, and so understanding can be approached analytically (Macbeth, 2011). Similarly, Schegloff (1984) pointed out that the interactive nature of understanding provides ‘a basis in the data for claiming what the co-participants’ understanding is of prior utterances, for as they display it to one another, we can see it too’ (Schegloff, 1984: 38). This view is echoed by Mondada’s (2011: 543) statement that CA focuses on the ‘temporal and sequential nature of understanding within action and interaction’ and ‘understanding is related to the next action achieved by the co-participant and demonstrating her understanding’. Participants can show their understanding by questioning and answering (Sacks, 1992), and for Schegloff (1992) actions such as agreeing, assessing, responding and requesting are other ways of displaying understanding. For progressivity and intersubjectivity in talk-in-interaction (Heritage, 2007; Schegloff, 2007), ‘participants must continually […] demonstrate to one other that they understood or failed to understand the talk that they are party to’ (Moerman & Sacks, 1988: 85). Sacks (1992) made a distinction between different ways of displaying understanding – claims of understanding and demonstrations of understanding – based on the following example: 1 A: 2 B: 3a A: versus 3b A:

where are you staying Pacific Palisades oh at the west side of town oh Pacific Palisades (Sacks, 1992: 141)

He argued that A only claims understanding in 3b by using a change of state token and repetition of the place name provided by B. In contrast, A demonstrates understanding in 3a, evidenced through the reformulation of the place by its location. By building on Sacks’ (1992) distinction on the modes of displaying understanding, Koole (2010) asserted that previous studies on understanding reveal two participant notions of understanding: how something is understood and whether or not something is understood. While the former focuses on participants’ interaction that displays understanding of each prior turn, the latter distinguishes between correct and incorrect understandings. Accordingly, Koole asserted that ‘how understandings can only be demonstrated, not claimed. Whether or not understandings, on the other hand, can both be claimed and demonstrated’ (Koole, 2010: 187). Claiming understanding can be used in negative formulations (‘I don’t understand’) for a complaint or asking for help, and may display resistance to an ongoing activity (Mondada, 2011). In line with this, it can be said that students may perform different recipient actions such as acknowledgment, claim of understanding or repair initiation, and claim  or

116

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

demonstration of non-understanding (Koole, 2010). Lindwall and Lymer (2011) described instruction in educational settings as a means to produce new understandings, as teachers observe whether tasks are accomplished successfully in order to check these understandings. In another study dealing with understanding, Koole and Elbers (2014) examined the interaction between a teacher and an individual student by focusing on students’ displays of not understanding and the ways in which teachers respond to tokens of understanding or non-understanding. With an interest in turning non-understanding or misunderstanding into understanding, Hindmarsh et al. (2011) investigated the discussions between student dentists and their supervisors in training sessions. Their findings showed that ‘if problems of understanding remain it can (1) potentially impact the quality of the care given to the patient and (2) mean that the student misses out on resources to progress their competence in clinical skills’ (Hindmarsh et al., 2011: 490). This may very well be also valid for classroom interaction in language teaching and learning contexts. For effective language teaching and learning, teachers must be responsive to students’ understanding problems, which we will refer to as non-understanding in the present study (see also Li, this volume). There is a link between progressivity and displays of non-understanding, as they ‘address either the teacher’s preceding instruction or a peer’s displayed understanding and thus interrupt the progressivity of the current activity until the problem is resolved’ (Käänta & Kasper, 2018: 4; see also Malabarba, this volume). According to Waring (2002), the showing of non-understanding is related to understanding because a display of non-understanding is a repair practice which can be initiated because of ‘a hearing problem, a request for clarification, or any problem that influences the continuity of talk’ (Sert, 2015: 19). Repairs are used for the treatment of trouble in interaction and are critical to maintain mutual understanding (Seedhouse, 2005; see also Nguyen, this volume). In this regard, repair is used to ensure that ‘the interaction does not freeze in its place when trouble arises, that intersubjectivity is maintained or restored, and that the turn and sequence and activity can progress to possible completion’ (Schegloff, 2007: 14). Further, in an instruction-giving sequence, a teacher’s pedagogical goal also includes turning non-understanding into understanding to ensure successful task output and thus provide learning opportunities. In our study, we will attempt to illustrate EFL trainee teachers’ employment of a variety of interactional resources to manage students’ non-understanding during and immediately after instruction-giving sequences. In the following section, the context, the analytical procedures and the method will be explained. 4 Context

The data for this study come from a corpus of thirteen 45-minute EFL classes video-taped at a secondary school in Ankara (Turkey) in Spring

EFL Trainee Teachers’ Orientations to Students’ Non-understanding

117

2013, with teachers who are enrolled in an initial teacher education programme at a public university. Trainee teachers are senior students in the Department of English Language Teaching, and they are required to take a practicum course in their last year of undergraduate studies. In this course, the aim is to help trainee teachers gain teaching experience before they start their profession the following year. As is common practice in this teacher education programme, these 13 trainee teachers were randomly assigned to three different classes in which they were supposed to complete at least three classroom hours of EFL teaching practice before graduation. School-experience courses require trainee teachers to prepare a lesson plan based on the topics in the course book and conduct the lesson based on this predetermined lesson plan in their teaching practice. As a mandatory course of upper secondary school curricula, English is a high-stakes course for the students. There are 30 students on average in each class, and their ages range between 14 and 16. In these classes, students have six hours of English instruction each week, and they are believed to have the same proficiency level of English (A2), based on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) levels. Space configuration for each class is the classical desk rows facing the teacher and the board. The corpus analyzed for this study includes 13 classroom hours, each featuring one of the 13 trainee teachers. 5 Research Questions

The following research questions guide our analyses: (1) In what ways do students display their non-understanding during and immediately following instruction-giving sequences? (2) How are the emerging understanding problems managed by trainee teachers? 6 Methodology

Consent was obtained from all participants. A video-camera, as well as audio-recorders, were used to capture the ongoing interactions in the classrooms.1 We use CA in this study because the details of language use and classroom interaction entail a meticulous minute-level analysis, and CA methodology provides a proper environment for the analyst to find the distinctive phenomena in the complex nature of classroom talk (Sert, 2015). Further, CA enables us to approach issues of non-understanding as socially constructed in the reality of classroom discourse. A line-by-line examination of sequences revealed unique interactional episodes that unfold during instruction-giving sequences: students’ verbal displays of non-understanding and the teachers’ orientations to these displays. A collection of 13 instruction-giving sequences was built

118

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

based on students’ explicit displays of non-understanding and trainee teachers’ orientations to or the lack of/limited orientations to these nonunderstandings. Based on this collection, we will report troubles originating from students’ non-understanding during and immediately following instruction-giving sequences and how these understanding problems are managed by trainee teachers, based on the subcategories of cases of teachers’ orientations to students’ displays of non-understanding. The excerpts presented in this chapter are representative of the patterns found in the data corpus in terms of what non-understanding projects, teachers’ actions that facilitate understanding, and the deployment of a number of interactional resources to deal with understanding problems. 7 Findings

In this section, we will show how students display their nonunderstanding and how EFL trainee teachers orient to (Excerpts 5.3–5.4) or show limited/lack of orientation to (Excerpts 5.1–5.2) these troubles in task instruction sequences. As will be illustrated in this section, the trainee teachers’ multimodal explanations/demonstrations or the use of a previously prepared material may help solve non-understanding problems, evidenced by displays of student understanding in subsequent turns. On the other hand, a lack of/limited teacher orientation to non-understanding may result in trouble in ongoing task instruction and task completion. 7.1 Teachers’ lack of/limited orientation to students’ displays of non-understanding

Excerpts 5.1 and 5.2 are important in exemplifying typical cases of inadequate/lack of/limited orientation to non-understanding: the teacher completes the instruction-giving sequence with an understanding-check, and the student displays non-understanding either by explicitly notifying the teacher or by asking for peer help, but the teacher does not orient to the understanding trouble and closes the sequence. Excerpt 5.1 exemplifies a teacher’s lack of/limited orientation to students’ non-understanding, which is a typical case in the present data. In this episode, the lesson is about personality traits. The teacher (T1) has just given the instructions to complete a personality test and, following her instructions, a display of non-understanding occurs before the activity starts. Excerpt 5.1 ‘Did you understand the questions?’ ((lines omitted where T1 gives instructions for the task)) 01 T1: oka:y? 02 (3.0) 03 ((S1 leans towards his friend)) 04 S1: hangisini yapıcaz? which one are we going to do?

EFL Trainee Teachers’ Orientations to Students’ Non-understanding

119

05 ((T walks towards S1)) 06 T1: shh::: it is your personality(.) it is your personality. ((T tries to silence the students)) 07 >did you understand< the (.) questions? 08 S1: °some of them° 09 T1: some of them (.) which of them? 10 (2.0) 11 S1: +er:: +looks at his paper 12 T1: +oka:y +nods and walks to the other side of the classroom

The first line starts with T1’s use of ‘oka:y?’, an ‘understanding check’ which generally functions as a question to elicit a claim of understanding (Waring, 2012), but in line 02 it is followed by a long silence. In line 03, one of the students, S1, leans toward his peer, and in line 04, instead of directing his understanding problem to the teacher, S1 solicits help from his peer by asking for information in Turkish (tr: ‘which one are we going to do?’). Although S1’s request for information is directed at a peer, it constitutes a display of non-understanding and limited epistemic access. By asking his peer, he ‘appeals for assistance’ (Waring, 2011) as a solution for his nonunderstanding. T1’s walking toward S1 in line 05 and her attempt to silence students in line 06 may indicate that she treats herself (rather than S1’s peer) as the one licensed and responsible for addressing S1’s question. By using a polar question as an understanding-check (Waring, 2012) in the following line (‘>did you understand< the (.) questions?’), she marks S1’s understanding problem. In line 08, S1’s answer (‘°some of them°’) with a quiet voice can be read as a ‘yes-problem response’ (Waring, 2012: 731), marking his nonunderstanding. Following this, T1 acknowledges S1’s answer and uses a repair initiator which locates the trouble source (‘which of them?’). After a long silence, S1 looks at his paper and produces a hesitation marker (line 11). Although T1 has not received a response from S1 regarding the trouble source, and she has not addressed S1’s trouble with understanding, T1 nods, ends the sequence with a sequence-closing okay (Schegloff, 2007) and walks away, thus leaving the trouble of understanding unattended. In this sequence, T1’s use of understanding-checks and S1’s displays of non-understanding after each understanding-check, long silences and hesitation marker, together, seem to signal to the teacher that s/he has to take action and manage the students’ troubles in understanding as the requisite for S1’s task accomplishment. However, T1 fails to establish intersubjectivity by not treating the student’s trouble after her understanding-check. Another example of the teacher’s lack of/limited orientation to the students’ non-understanding can be observed in Excerpt 5.2, which comes from a different class with a different trainee teacher (T2). In this particular episode, the students are about to start the second phase of a writing activity, and the trainee teacher is giving instructions for this second phase. In the previous phase, the students had started writing a story which they did

120

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

not complete, and now they are required to exchange their stories on paper with other groups and add two more sentences to the previous group’s story. Excerpt 5.2 ‘I couldn’t understand’ 01 T2: please talk to your friends and, er: 02 okay?] 03 Ss: [((incomprehensible student voices))] 04 +((Ss exchange their stories with other groups)) T2: +walks towards the students, clapping her hands 05 T2: ↑please: (0.4) just continue and (.) 06 write your imagination okay?= 07 S4: = ↑i couldn’t understand 08 T2: +>don’t judge< +scans the whole class 09 S4: °i couldn’t understand° 10 T2: really? it doesn’t matter (.) 11 +it doesn’t depend on w- whateve- what they write okay? +showing the other groups ↑just come your own end. 12 13 (1.8) 14 S5: ↑teacher:: what are we going to do now? 15 T2: write two sentences more about your imagination okay? 16 ((T starts walking around the class))

In the first two lines, T2 gives the instructions by ending her turn with an understanding check (‘okay?’) (Waring, 2012; see also Malabarba, this volume), which overlaps with incomprehensible student voices. At this moment, students exchange their stories on paper with other groups. Responding to the noise, T2 claps her hands and walks toward one of the groups while repeating the instructions. Upon T2’s second understandingcheck (‘okay?’, line 06), S4 latches her turn with an explicit claim for not understanding (‘=↑i couldn’t understand’, line 07), which also functions as an implicit request for explanation. With the utterance and gaze movements in line 08, T2 is probably addressing the whole class as a continuation of her instructions, referring to the activity in which the students are expected to build on the other groups’ stories rather than evaluating or judging them. Given T2’s lack of response, S4 then repeats her statement of non-understanding with quiet voice in line 09. It should be noted here that ‘I couldn’t understand’ is also a learner-initiated utterance (Boulima, 1999) that seeks clear input from the teacher. In line 10, T2 expresses surprise and provides further instructions in lines 11 and 12 (‘really? it doesn’t matter (.)’). Following the long silence in line 13, another student, S5, explicitly demonstrates his non-understanding with an other-initiated repair: ‘↑teacher:: what are we going to do now?’. His way of addressing the teacher directly with the use of stress, high pitch and lengthening (‘↑teacher::’), together with the question format indicate that he seeks understanding with a request for clarification. In response to S5’s request, T2 briefly repeats the same instruction in line 15 and cancels a slot for S5 and S4 to display understanding by starting walking around the class.

EFL Trainee Teachers’ Orientations to Students’ Non-understanding

121

In a typical language classroom, learner initiatives may take place with students’ use of confi rmation checks and requests for clarification (Walsh, 2002). However, the essential question is whether the teacher is in pursuit of establishing students’ understanding by making use of these initiatives. Although in the excerpt above the trainee teacher attempts to orient to a student’s display of non-understanding by repeating the same instruction, it may not be adequate for student understanding and hence successful task completion. 7.2 Teachers’ successful management of students’ displays of non-understanding

In contrast to the examples in Excerpts 5.1 and 5.2, displays of nonunderstanding may result in different teacher actions depending on the resources used and the pedagogical goals of the teacher. Our collection of students’ displays of non-understanding in instruction-giving sequences reveals specific cases in which some trainee teachers make use of some interactional resources to manage students’ displays of non-understanding in such sequences. The excerpts that follow are distinctive and represent a small set of samples of trainee teachers’ deployment of two interactional resources: multimodal explanation and demonstration and use of previously prepared materials. These resources can be considered as effective, as their deployment leads to student confirmation and displays of understanding related to ongoing task instruction. Moreover, by employing these resources, trainee teachers address the ‘collective instructional need’ (St. John & Cromdal, 2016: 266) and try to make the instructions salient to all students. Excerpt 5.3 will be presented in two parts for readability. It comes from a task-oriented lesson on the importance of lifelong education. After the warm-up session, the teacher (T3) gives the instructions for the fi rst activity which is to put the words seen on the interactive whiteboard into correct order (see Figure 5.1).

Figure 5.1 Material for the task in Excerpt 5.3

122

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

Immediately after T3 completes her instruction-giving sequence, a student claims non-understanding (Excerpt 5.3a). Excerpt 5.3a ‘We don’t understand’ (I) 01 T3: °you can ask me, if ↓you: (.) >need any helptwo times< (0.8) oka:y 07 +shows ‘two’ with her fingers 08 and th- >let me give you a clue< er: the ↑first word is >educating< 09 10 S3: er:: can you: 11 T3: +hnm? +turns towards student 12 S3: er: give (.) use ↑example? 13 (2.4) 14 T3: how? 15 (2.2) 16 S3: we ↑don’t under↓stand.

Excerpt 5.3a starts with the trainee teacher’s offer to help with the task, and she highlights the important points of the instruction from lines 02–09. In these lines, T3 uses stress (work), sound stretching (twi:ce.), rising and falling intonation (↑sentence), increased tempo (>two times°↓is it correct?°< yea:h. Sx: °okay° T3: >i go: to schoo:l< (0.8) ( ) (1.3) yea:h please (1.8) +with your ↑part↓ner +scans the class and points at the students

In line 17, T3 makes a move to give an example by orienting to a classroom artefact, looking for the board marker. Following 4.2 seconds of silence, she starts writing on the board (line 20) and at the same time utters what she writes by stretching the word (schoo:l.). In line 22, S3’s utterance (‘okay’) signals ‘a realized attempt at following the instruction’ (Lindwall et al., 2015: 149), and T3 continues writing and uttering the words in line 23. While she is pointing at the words in the same turn, S3’s change of state token (Heritage, 1984) and confirmation (‘[hu:h oka:y]’) overlap with T3’s action. Next, in line 25, T3 gives the instruction based on the example written on the board, and utters the words in the correct order as an example by also stretching and pointing at the words on the board (Figure 5.2). S3’s minimal token ‘hnm::.’ in overlap with the teacher’s example in line 26 displays her understanding. As T3 checks the example on the board using quiet voice in line 27,

124

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

the example is also confirmed by one of the students in line 28 (‘°okay°’), thus claiming understanding. After repeating the example in line 29 for the last time, T3 invites students to work on the task in lines 30 and 31. In this excerpt, after the learner initiative as a display of nonunderstanding in the instruction-giving sequence, the trainee teacher employs a multimodal explanation and demonstration. By using the board as a resource to manage non-understanding, T3 orients to multilogue (Schwab, 2011) and makes the explanation visible to all learners by addressing the collective instructional need. Furthermore, T3 uses deictic gestures (Sert, 2011; Sert & Walsh, 2013; see also aus der Wieschen & Eskildsen, this volume) by pointing at the written words on the board, and she marks these words by stretching them. With the employment of multilogue, deictic gestures and suprasegmentals to give an example for the non-understood task, the teacher generates an environment for understanding for all learners. In this way, she may have a chance to turn nonunderstanding to understanding of the task instruction. In Excerpt 5.4, there is a different interactional resource, using previously prepared material, employed by another trainee teacher (T4) to manage non-understanding. In this specific activity, students watch a video about a love story but do not see the end of it. T4 stops the video and gives instructions for the activity about writing an end to the story. She informs the students that it is a writing activity, and that they will imagine an end for the story and write it in groups of three. She assigns the groups and helps students in space configuration while still repeating the instructions. However, at that point of the instruction-giving sequence, one of the students raises a hand, and the following excerpt takes place. Excerpt 5.4 ‘My ending’ 01 02 03 04 05 06 07

sorry, what are we ↓doing? >okay, i will say< (.) er: we watched (.) the beginning of the ↑video, S5: °yes°. T4: you will write an end: to it. °oka:y° i’ll- i have (.) an (.) example for you: (1.2) #5.3 ((opens the example slide on the smart board)) S5: T4:

Figure 5.3

EFL Trainee Teachers’ Orientations to Students’ Non-understanding

08 S5: 09 T4:

Figure 5.4 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

125

↑hu::h +>what +will happen next< +points to the slide #5.4#5.5#5.6 +makes a hand gesture signalling next

Figure 5.5

Figure 5.6

S5: S6: T4:

we will try to: ((inaudible voices)) °okay° i have an exam↓ple, who wants to read? (1.0) +°can you read it?° +points to a student S6: T4: this is my ending, i write it (.) and you will write an end (.) okay. (0.7) >you can start< you have five minutes. OKay? Ss: okay.

Excerpt 5.4 starts with S5’s repair initiator (Drew, 1997) (‘sorry, what are we ↓doing?’) indicating her non-understanding of the teacher’s instructions and, by extension, of the task. At the same time, it attempts to ‘establish mutual orientation’ (Mortensen, 2009). T4 immediately aligns with the student’s request with a confi rmation, and starts explaining in line 03. After getting a quiet confirmation from S5 (line 04), T4 finishes her explanation with a transitional okay, and announces that she has an example by opening the related slide at the same time in lines 06 and 07. After the appearance of the example on the board, S5 produces a change of state token, ‘↑hu::h’ in line 08 (Heritage, 1984), indicating a change of state from non-understanding to understanding (also see Koivisto, 2015, for a similar change of state token). Next, T4 continues her explanation with deictic gestures based on the example slide, which is followed by S5’s display of understanding and S6’s confirmation in lines 10 and 11. From line 12 to line 19, T4 engages a student in reading the example aloud. Then T4 gives a brief instruction based on the example and informs students about the allocated time for the task in lines 20, 21 and 22. Subsequently, she uses an understanding-check seeking for students’ understanding and confirmation, and receives a ‘no-problem response’ (Waring, 2012) that embodies confirmation of understanding from the students in line 24.

126

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

This excerpt exemplifies that non-understanding can be in the form of a learner initiative (Waring, 2011), and the teacher’s use of material resources may lead to understanding and a successful activity. S5’s display of non-understanding in line 01 changes the flow of the classroom interaction and interrupts the ongoing course of procedural action because of a trouble on the part of the recipient in understanding (Schegloff, 1997). As a learner initiative (Waring, 2011), it projects a further turn in instruction-giving sequence, and creates a space for clarification and understanding. At such a crucial point, the teacher must be aware of the possibility and the advantages of turning non-understanding into understanding, and attending to the problem to solve it will create learning opportunities for the students. In this regard, how T4 in Excerpt 5.4 employs interactional resources is a good example of successful management of students’ display of non-understanding. By using previously prepared material, T4 engages in an effective and time-saving strategy leading to understanding. Furthermore, by demonstrating the example on the slide and having one of the students read it aloud, the teacher creates orientation to multilogue by making the explanation public to everyone in the class. It is certain that a multimodal explanation like the one employed in Excerpt 5.3b could work well in this situation as well; however, foreseeing a possible understanding problem and preparing a contingency plan beforehand is something that requires competent teaching skills. Therefore, by training prospective language teachers on how to employ resources to manage non-understanding in instruction-giving sequences, we can help them create space for student understanding. 8 Discussion

By using representative excerpts from our corpus, we hope to have illustrated the ‘organizationally collaborative and complex’ (St. John & Cromdal, 2016: 275) structure of task instructions as opposed to its common association with solo and non-interactional contexts. Teachers’ instruction-giving sequences are critical for task completion, and they can take an interactive form with students’ displays of non-understanding. Displays of non-understanding in our data have been observed either in invited positions, after a teacher’s use of understanding check, defi ned as ‘the teachers’ use of yes-no questions to seek confi rmation on whether the just-prior activity or talk has been received without any problems’ (Waring, 2012: 724–725), or in uninvited positions as a learner initiative during or after instruction-giving sequences (e.g. Excerpt 5.4). The fi rst type of non-understanding display is the most common case in our corpus. As seen in the literature (e.g. Waring, 2012) and the data above, understanding-checks are a natural part of instructions as they aid teachers to assess learner understanding (also see Can Daşkın, 2017). Upon receiving an understanding-check from the teacher, students may respond

EFL Trainee Teachers’ Orientations to Students’ Non-understanding

127

in two ways: ‘yes-problem’ or ‘no problem’ (Waring, 2012). If it is a noproblem response, the teacher can start the task, but in the case of a yesproblem response, students expect the teacher to solve the problem as they display their non-understanding with this type of response. As a second way of the students’ showing non-understanding in our data, learner initiatives can be observed in raising questions or providing comments (Waring, 2011). These initiatives are considered useful because they create opportunities for receiving input and producing output (Boulima, 1999). Displays of non-understanding in the form of learner initiatives in the present data are requests for clarification (e.g. Excerpts 5.3a, 5.3b and 5.4). An important question is whether teachers are responsive to students’ non-understanding displays. Depending on the resources and the pedagogical focus of the lesson, teachers may choose different ways of handling displays of non-understanding in instruction-giving sequences. Our data revealed that trainee teachers show different practices subsequent to student non-understanding: (1) inadequate/limited/lack of orientation to non-understanding (e.g. Excerpts 5.1 and 5.2); (2) multimodal explanation and demonstration (e.g. Excerpt 5.3a/5.3b); and (3) modelling by using a previously prepared material (e.g. Excerpt  5.4).  Inadequate or no orientation to the non-understanding constitutes the majority of examples in our corpus. In these cases, the trainee teachers do not attempt to solve the trouble by ignoring or downgrading it (e.g. Excerpts 5.1 and 5.2), so they miss the opportunity for turning non-understanding into understanding. The other two interactional resources are in fact examples of successful management of nonunderstanding as we observe displays of understanding as a result of on-site treatment in Excerpts 5.3a, 5.3b and 5.4. The examples in the present study indicate that students’ nonunderstanding may constrain the flow of the instruction-giving sequence. These may cause breakdowns in the tasks that are planned to be conducted. However, the examples also show that teachers may turn these constraints into possibilities of successful task accomplishment by being responsive to students’ non-understanding displays. These successful examples reflect the importance of making task instructions accessible to the whole class by being responsive to the collective instructional need. However, the ensuing task must be analyzed in future research in order to understand whether teachers’ extended multimodal explanations and modelling a previously prepared material lead to successful task accomplishment and language learning. 9 Practical Implications

It is clear that claims of non-understanding may create space for interaction during and immediately following task instructions, and teachers

128

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

can turn this situation into a learning opportunity by ‘assessing students’ knowledge and understanding to see if elaboration is needed’ (Ha & Wanphet, 2016: 154) in instruction. However, it may not be an easy pedagogical goal to manage for trainee teachers. In a pioneering study on classroom interaction and teacher training, Seedhouse (2008) compares an experienced and a trainee teacher and shows how and why the instructions given by the trainee teachers confused students. His findings indicate that trainee teachers did not always convey the pedagogical focus in their instructions, and students were unclear about what to do. In the Turkish EFL classes analyzed in this chapter, then, it is not surprising to see that the most frequent cases are trainee teachers’ problematic handling and management of students’ non-understanding, depicted in the fi rst two excerpts. At the same time, the last two examples of management formats (multimodal explanation and demonstration and modelling by using a previously prepared material) indicate that there are ways in which trainee teachers can manage non-understanding successfully by employing effective resources. While providing effective instructions is certainly a goal in teacher training, it is important to recognize that problems in understanding by students are unavoidable. In this regard, this study points to the importance of not only training on instruction-giving for teachers (for both novice and experienced ones), but also raising teachers’ awareness about the turn-by-turn management of students’ displays of non-understanding during instructions. The fi ndings of the study, then, can be incorporated into language teacher education programmes that use video-recordings, micro analyses, and reflection in and on action (Sert, forthcoming a, forthcoming b). Note (1) Non-verbal displays of non-understanding through facial expressions were not available to us because of the placement of the camera. Yet we found no explicit orientation to non-understanding by the teacher without the students’ verbal orientations.

References Amerine, R. and Bilmes, J. (1988) Following instructions. Human Studies 11, 327–339. Boulima, J. (1999) Negotiated Interaction in Target Language Classroom Discourse. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Can Daşkın, N. (2017) A conversation analytic investigation into L2 classroom interaction and informal formative assessment. ELT Research Journal 6 (1), 4–24. Drew, P. (1997) ‘Open’ class repair initiators in response to sequential sources of troubles in conversation. Journal of Pragmatics 28 (1), 69–101. Firth, A. and Wagner, J. (1997) On discourse, communication, and some fundamental concepts in SLA research. The Modern Language Journal 81, 285–300. Garfi nkel, H. (2002) Ethnomethodology’s Program. Working out Durkheim’s Aphorism. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

EFL Trainee Teachers’ Orientations to Students’ Non-understanding

129

Goodwin, M.H. (2006) Participation, affect, and trajectory in family directive/response sequences. Text and Talk 26 (4–5), 513–542. Ha, C.B. and Wanphet, P. (2016) Exploring EFL teachers’ use of written instructions and their subsequent verbal instructions for the same tasks. Nordic Journal of English Studies 15 (4), 135–159. Hall, J.K. (2004) Language learning as an interactional achievement. The Modern Language Journal 88, 607–612. Hazel, S. and Mortensen, K. (2017) The classroom moral compass – participation, engagement and transgression in classroom interaction. Classroom Discourse 8 (3), 214–234. He, A.W. (2000) The grammatical and interactional organization of teacher’s directives: Implications for socialization of Chinese American children. Linguistics and Education 11 (2), 119–140. Hellermann, J. (2008) Social Actions for Classroom Language Learning. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Heritage, J. (1984) Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Heritage, J. (2007) Intersubjectivity and progressivity in person (and place) reference. In N.J. Enfi eld and S. Levinson (eds) Person Reference in Interaction: Linguistic, Cultural, and Social Perspectives (pp. 255–280). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hindmarsh, J., Reynolds, P. and Dunne, S. (2011) Exhibiting understanding: The body in apprentices. Pragmatics 43, 489–503. Holmes, J. (1983) The structure of teachers’ directives. In J. Richards and R. Schmidt (eds) Language and Communication. New York: Longman. Jakonen, T. and Morton, T. (2015) Epistemic search sequences in peer interaction in a content-based language classroom. Applied Linguistics 36 (1), 73–94. Käänta, L. and Kasper, G. (2018) Clarification requests as a method of pursuing understanding in CLIL physics lectures. Classroom Discourse 9 (3), 205–226; doi.org/10.1 080/19463014.2018.1477608. Koivisto, A. (2015) Displaying now-understanding: The Finnish change-of-state token aa. Discourse Processes 52 (2), 111–148. Koole, T. (2010) Displays of epistemic access: Student responses to teacher explanations. Research on Language and Social Interaction 43 (2), 183–209. Koole, T. and Elbers, E. (2014) Responsiveness in teacher explanations: A conversation analytical perspective on scaffolding. Linguistics and Education 26, 57–69. Kunitz, S. and Markee, N. (forthcoming) Teachers’ instruction sequences in Italian as a foreign language classes: An ethnomethodological conversation analysis perspective. In S. Kunitz, O. Sert and N. Markee (eds) Classroom-based Conversation Analytic Research: Theoretical and Applied Perspectives on Pedagogy. New York: Springer. Lee, Y.A. (2007) Third turn position in teacher talk: Contingency and the work of teaching. Journal of Pragmatics 39, 180–206. Lindwall, O. and Lymer, G. (2011) Uses of ‘understand’ in science education. Pragmatics 43, 452–474. Lindwall, O., Lymer, G. and Greiffenhagen, C. (2015) The sequential analysis of instruction. In N. Markee (ed.) The Handbook of Classroom Discourse and Interaction (pp. 142–157). Malden, MA: John Wiley. Macbeth, D. (2011) Understanding understanding as an instructional matter. Journal of Pragmatics 43 (2), 438–451. Markee, N. (2008) Toward a learning behavior tracking methodology for CA-for-SLA. Applied Linguistics 29, 404–427. Markee, N. (2015) Giving and following pedagogical instructions in task-based instruction: An ethnomethodological perspective. In P. Seedhouse and C. Jenks (eds) International Perspectives on the ELT Classroom (pp. 110–128). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

130

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

Matsumoto, Y. and Dobs, A.M. (2017) Pedagogical gestures as interactional resources for teaching and learning tense and aspect in the ESL grammar classroom. Linguistics and Education 23 (3), 289–300. Moerman, M. and Sacks, H. (1988) On ‘understanding’ in the analysis of natural conversation. In M. Moerman (ed.) Talking Culture (pp. 180–186). Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Mondada, L. (2011) Understanding as an embodied, situated and sequential achievement in interaction. Journal of Pragmatics 43, 542–552. Mondada, L. and Pekarek Doehler, S. (2004) Second language acquisition as situated practice: Task accomplishment in the French second language classroom. Modern Language Journal 88, 501–518. Mori, J. (2002) Task design, plan, and development of talk-in-interaction: An analysis of a small group activity in a Japanese language classroom. Applied Linguistics 23, 323–347. Mortensen, K. (2009) Establishing recipiency in pre-beginning position in the second language classroom. Discourse Processes 46 (5), 491–515. Reed, B.S. (2017) Creating space for learner autonomy: An interactional perspective. Classroom Discourse 8 (2), 175–190. Sacks, H. (1992) Lectures on Conversation [1964–72] (2 Vols). Oxford: Blackwell. Schegloff , E.A. (1984) On some questions and ambiguities in conversation. In J.M. Atkinson and J. Heritage (eds) Structures of Social Analysis (pp. 28–52). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schegloff, E.A. (1992) Repair after next turn: The last structurally provided defense of intersubjectivity in conversation. American Journal of Sociology 97 (5), 1295–1345. Schegloff, E.A. (1997) Practices and actions: Boundary cases of other-initiated repair. Discourse Processes 23, 499–545; doi:10.1080/01638539709545001. Schegloff, E.A. (2007) Sequence Organization in Interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schwab, G. (2011) From dialogue to multilogue: A different view on participation in the English foreign language classroom. Classroom Discourse 2 (1), 3–19. Seedhouse, P. (2004) The Interactional Architecture of the Language Classroom: A Conversation Analysis Perspective. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Seedhouse, P. (2005) Conversation analysis and language learning. Language Teaching 38 (4), 165–187. Seedhouse, P. (2008) Learning to talk the talk: Conversation analysis as a tool for induction of trainee teachers. In S. Garton and K. Richards (eds) Professional Encounters in TESOL: Discourses of Teachers in Training (pp. 42–57). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Sert, O. (2011) A micro-analytic investigation of claims of insufficient knowledge in EAL classrooms. Unpublished PhD thesis, Newcastle University. Sert, O. (2015) Social Interaction and L2 Classroom Discourse. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Sert, O. (2017) Creating opportunities for L2 learning in a prediction activity. System 70, 14–25. Sert, O. (forthcoming a) Classroom interaction and language teacher education. In S.  Mann and S. Walsh (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Language Teacher Education. New York: Routledge. Sert, O. (forthcoming b) Transforming CA fi ndings into future L2 teaching practices: Challenges and prospects. In S. Kunitz, O. Sert and N. Markee (eds) Classroombased Conversation Analytic Research: Theoretical and Applied Perspectives on Pedagogy. New York: Springer. Sert, O. and Walsh, S. (2013) The interactional management of claims of insufficient knowledge in English language classrooms. Language and Education 27 (6), 542–565.

EFL Trainee Teachers’ Orientations to Students’ Non-understanding

131

Slavin, R. (2006) Educational Psychology. Boston: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon. St. John, O. and Cromdal, J. (2016) Crafting instructions collaboratively: Student questions and dual addressivity in classroom task instructions. Discourse Processes 53 (4), 252–279; doi:10.1080/0163853X.2015.1038128. Todd, R.W. (1997) Classroom Teaching Strategies. London: Prentice Hall. Todd, R.W., Chaiyasuk, I. and Tantisawatrat, N. (2008) A functional analysis of teachers’ instructions. RELC Journal 39, 25–50. Walsh, S. (2002) Construction or obstruction: Teacher talk and learner involvement in the EFL classroom. Language Teaching Research 6 (1), 3–23. Walsh, S. (2011) Exploring Classroom Discourse: Language in Action. London: Routledge. Waring, H.Z. (2002) Expressing noncomprehension in a US graduate seminar. Journal of Pragmatics 34, 1711–1731. Waring, H.Z. (2011) Learner initiatives and learning opportunities in the language classroom. Classroom Discourse 2 (1), 201–218. Waring, H.Z. (2012) ‘Any questions?’: Investigating the nature of understanding-checks in the language classroom. TESOL Quarterly 46, 722–752. Waring, H.Z. and Hruska, B. (2012) Problematic directives in pedagogical interaction. Linguistics and Education 23 (3), 289–300. Ziegler, G., Durus, N., Sert, O. and Family, N. (2015) Analysing ELT in the European arena: Multilingual practices. In C.J. Jenks and P. Seedhouse (eds) International Perspectives on ELT Classroom Interaction (pp. 188–207). Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

6 Handling Unprepared-for Contingencies in an Interactional Language Test: Student Initiation of Correction as a Collaborative Accomplishment Eric Hauser

This chapter examines how students handle a particular contingency in interactional language tests. This contingency is the need to correct the teacher’s instructed action. In the test performance, the students have epistemic primacy and the interaction is organized in adjacency pairs, with student instruction as the fi rst pair part and teacher-embodied instructed action as the second pair part. This organization allows for student monitoring of the teacher’s instructed action, which the teacher facilitates. Student initiations of correction are accomplished through various linguistic and non-linguistic resources, usually produced as a package of multiple resources. They may occur prior to, during or following an instructed action. Through facilitation of monitoring and his responses to initiations of correction, the teacher collaborates in the accomplishment of initiation of correction, and thus in the co-construction of the student as interactionally competent. A few implications for language teaching and testing are discussed. 1 Introduction

This chapter analyzes data from interactional language tests. In interactional language tests – that is, tests that involve interaction between the test-taker and tester or between test-takers – the interactional competence 132

Handling Unprepared-for Contingencies in an Interactional Language Test

133

of the test-taker (and of other participants) is co-constructed by the participants (He & Young, 1998). While interaction in general involves regularities and much of interaction is projectable, as it unfolds, the interaction as it has been produced so far in real time provides the local context for its continued production. As a result, interaction is inherently contingent. One major aspect of interactional competence involves being able to handle the contingencies that thus inevitably arise in interaction. The handling of a contingency is an accomplishment situated within the unique configuration of interactional particulars at the point in interaction at which the contingency arises and is handled. As such, this situated accomplishment is unique, while also involving the regularly occurring practices through which participants construct their actions. In this chapter, I will focus on how students handle one particular contingency, namely how they initiate correction when they fi nd a problem in how the teacher has followed an instruction. 2 Context

The interactional language test data that will be the focus in this chapter come from a corpus of 30 English language tests at a Japanese university specializing in engineering and applied science. The university maintains a genre-based curriculum (Paltridge, 2001) for the first year and second year required academic English classes. In the first year, one of the genres covered is the genre of procedure, that is, a set of instructions for doing something. The student participants in the corpus are all being tested on their mastery of this genre. In class, procedures for the construction of geometric figures using a compass and a straightedge (Birkhoff & Beatley, cited in Livingston, 2008) were used for teaching the language and organization of the procedure genre. This type of procedure was chosen in order to build on the students’ perceived strength in mathematics. For the test, each student prepared notes for a geometric figure of their choice. They came to the teacher’s office at their assigned time and, using their notes, instructed the teacher in how to construct the figure, with the teacher attempting to follow the instructions. The students thus had epistemic primacy (Stivers et al., 2011) in relation to the teacher with regard to how to construct the geometric figure, in that they and not the teacher could be expected to understand this construction prior to and in the midst of the test performance. 3 Conceptualizing Interactional Competence as Co-constructed

In theory, interactional competence is co-constructed by all participants in interaction, rather than brought to the interaction by the participants as individuals. According to He and Young (1998: 7), for example,

134

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

it ‘is not an attribute of an individual participant’. Rather, it ‘is jointly constructed by all participants’ (He & Young, 1998: 7). The coconstructed nature of interactional competence is something that clearly distinguishes it from what would appear to be the similar concept of communicative competence, as explicated, for example, by Hymes (1974; see, however, Jacoby & Ochs, 1995, on communicative competence as co-constructed). In practice, though, this distinction is difficult to maintain. One example of the difficulty of maintaining this distinction in research on interactional competence and language testing is Tominaga (2013), who investigates ‘how two L2 speakers of Japanese developed their interactional competence to produce stories in extended turns in the Japanese OPI [oral proficiency interview] after participating in summer language programs’ (Tominaga, 2013: 250). While this research very clearly shows the development of the resources drawn on by these two participants, it also treats interactional competence to tell stories as something that the participants brought to the test interaction. The difficulty of maintaining in practice the idea of interactional competence as co-constructed is also very clearly shown in van Compernolle (2013), an in-depth study on how student–tutor pairs co-construct mediation sequences as part of dynamic assessment (DA)1 activities in L2 French. While emphasizing the theoretical importance of viewing interactional competence as co-constructed, and while also showing how it is co- constructed within the interaction, van Compernolle writes of ‘… interactional competence on the part of both participants, namely knowledge of what it means to participate in DA interaction’ (van Compernolle, 2013: 342), which seems to equate interactional competence with knowledge possessed by individuals. Quite often, interactional competence is treated in practice as brought to the test encounter by the test-taker, where it is implicated in their test performance, even in those cases where it is also argued to be co-constructed and this co-construction is the object of analysis. In contrast, in this chapter I attempt in practice to treat interactional competence as wholly co-constructed, rather than as in any way belonging to individual participants. One thing that follows is that there is, and can be, no direct connection between L2 proficiency and L2 interactional competence as co-constructed on a particular occasion of interaction. There is likely to be an indirect connection, as an L2 user does participate in the co-construction of his/her L2 interactional competence, and presumably a more proficient L2 user would have greater access to L2 resources that can be drawn on to participate in this co-construction. However, because a conversation involves more than one participant, a relatively limited proficiency L2 user may be co-constructed as interactionally competent (Hauser, 2017; see also Nguyen, this volume), while a relatively high proficiency L2 user may be co-constructed as interactionally incompetent (Hauser, 2016). It also makes no sense to talk of the

Handling Unprepared-for Contingencies in an Interactional Language Test

135

development of an individual’s interactional competence. It should be noted that this is a theoretical, rather than an empirical, argument. Interactional competence is not something that can fi rst be located in interaction and then examined to see whether it is co-constructed or brought to the interaction (or some combination of both). Rather, I am trying to argue that it should be used to refer to competence that participants co-construct within interaction and that the knowledge or ability that they bring to the interaction, while possibly drawn on in this co-construction, is not itself what is meant by interactional competence. In this chapter, I hope to show that treating interactional competence as co-constructed is useful for developing a clear analytical understanding of empirical materials, but whether interactional competence is co-constructed within interaction or brought to interaction is not itself an empirical question. 4 Students’ Embodied Noticing and Initiation of Correction

As discussed above, although the students have prepared for the test, the inherently contingent nature of interaction means that it is very likely that unprepared-for contingencies will arise, one of which is the need to correct the teacher’s errors in following their instructions. In a study of classroom interaction, Kääntä (2014) analyzed students’ embodied noticing and initiation of correction on a teacher’s error. A major difference, though, between the data in Kääntä and the data used in this chapter is that those in Kääntä involved teacher-fronted classroom instructions in which the teacher could claim epistemic primacy, a primacy which the students needed to orient to. As mentioned above, the students in these interactional language tests had epistemic primacy with regard to the geometric figure being constructed, one consequence of which is that they had primary responsibility to initiate correction on any problem that they noticed. This is an issue that I will return to in the fi nal section of this chapter. In addition, as will be made clear below, the sequential organization of these language tests and of the classroom interaction in Kääntä are different. 5 Analytic Focus

The analytic focus of this chapter is on student initiation of correction as a collaborative accomplishment. Below, analysis will show (1) the sequential organization of instruction in this test, which provides the local sequential context within which corrections are initiated; (2) how the teacher facilitates student monitoring of his instructed actions; (3) the resources that students draw on to initiate correction; (4) the locations of initiation of correction; and (5) how the teacher responds to initiation of correction.

136

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

6 Methodology

This chapter uses conversation analysis (CA) to understand the collaborative accomplishment of student initiation of correction in tests. Based on the 30-test corpus, a collection was built of 27 cases of correction initiation, including one case in which the correction itself is abandoned. Each test was recorded, with the knowledge of the students, for evaluation purposes. For the 30 tests in the corpus, permission to use the recordings for research purposes was obtained at the end of the semester. In the transcripts below, talk is transcribed based on the standard CA transcription system (Jefferson, 2004). Relevant non-verbal actions are shown beneath the talk, with symbols (e.g. *, +; see Additional Transcription Conventions) used to show where such an action begins in relation to the talk and, sometimes, arrows used to show how long the action continues. 2 Frames, sometimes annotated with arrows, are also used to show non-verbal action. This system for transcribing non-verbal action is based on the work of Mondada (e.g. Mondada, 2009). Students occasionally use Japanese expressions. These expressions have not been translated in the transcripts but are translated when they are mentioned as part of description or analysis. 7 Analysis

With the focus on initiation of correction, some interactional practices will be shown through which the students are co-constructed as interactionally competent to participate in this interactional test. 7.1 Sequential organization of instruction

Excerpt 6.1 shows an overwhelmingly common sequential pattern in which the student instructions are followed by the teacher’s embodied instructed actions. Excerpt 6.1 Instruction/instructed action adjacency pair organization

01

S8: an’ se+cond +↓uh: (0.9) +draw a ((gaze on T’s paper)) +LH index fi nger point +raises LH +opens LH T: ((gaze on S, pencil in RH)) 02 +line seg*ment, * +LH gesture T: *starts moving BH *LH to pencil on table, RH pencil to paper 03 T: mhm, 04 S8: +*through *oh:? + LH index fi nger point and fi nger wiggle T: *LH to ruler *picks up ruler 05 (0.5)

Handling Unprepared-for Contingencies in an Interactional Language Test

06

T: S8:

137

*okay,#+ #Frame 6.1.1 *ruler to paper +lowers LH

Frame 6.1.1

07

(1.8)*(1.0) *sets ruler 08 S8: *and labe+:l+(0.3)*(0.8)+*(0.9)#(0.2) #Frame 6.1.2 +gaze to notes +lowers LH +raises LH to hair T: *draws------------------->*LH moves ruler, RH lifts pencil *withdraws BH, leans back T:

Frame 6.1.2

09 10

11 12 13 14

+the point? (.)+↓o:f (0.3) +LH index fi nger wiggly point, gaze to T’s paper +lowers LH, gaze to notes inter+section+*↑ay +and +*bee, +gaze to T’s paper, raises LH index fi nger extended +point +LH left +point, lowers LH T: *lifts RH *pencil to paper T: o*kay, *writes---> (0.2)+*(0.6) *(0.2) S8: +gaze to notes T: --------> *RH right *writes---> T: (so point) ay an’ bee. *↑okay,= -----------------------------------> *lifts RH S8: =.nhh’n’ thir:d …

Much of the interaction in these tests is organized as instruction/ instructed action adjacency pairs (Mondada, 2014), 3 in which the student, usually making use of his or her notes, produces an instruction and the

138

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

teacher produces an embodied instructed action, usually accompanied by talk. However, as the second part of the adjacency pair is primarily an embodied action, it can begin before the completion of the first part, without this constituting an interruption of the fi rst part. In Excerpt 6.1, the student produces an instruction in lines 01–02 and 04. While the teacher’s ‘mhm’ in line 03 can be heard as a continuer, his embodied production of the instructed action begins in line 02, as the student is articulating the word ‘segment’. This involves the teacher moving his hands to position the tools that he needs – a pencil and a ruler – in order to follow the instruction. The teacher continues the instructed action as he brings the ruler to the paper (lines 04–06) (Frame 6.1.1), sets the ruler in position for use (line 07), and draws (line 08). The instructed action is accompanied by talk, the word ‘okay’ in line 06, with which the teacher claims understanding of the instruction. This understanding is displayed in how the teacher follows the instruction. Not only can the embodied instructed action begin before the completion of the instruction, but the next instruction can also begin before the completion of the prior embodied instructed action. This is what happens here, as the student begins the next instruction in line 08 while the teacher is drawing. While there is a fairly long silence in line 08, this seems not to indicate a problem with the next instruction being started while the prior instructed action is in progress. Instead, it seems to be related to the student consulting her notes. The teacher does not have a problem following this instruction, as he produces an embodied instructed action in lines 10–13, accompanied by talk in lines 11 and 13. While the teacher is producing an embodied instructed action, the student is able to monitor this production. In Excerpt 6.1, the student is, from the start of the excerpt, gazing toward the paper on which the teacher is constructing the geometric figure. She maintains her gaze on the teacher’s paper during most of the embodied instructed action, as shown in Frame 6.1.1, and can thus monitor the performance of this action. She ceases to monitor prior to the completion of the instructed action, as she shifts her gaze to her notes while the teacher is drawing. As I have discussed elsewhere (Hauser, 2015), this cessation of monitoring indexes the student’s satisfaction that the instruction has been adequately followed and projects the next instruction. The sequential organization within which the students initiate correction is thus an adjacency pair organization, in which the student produces the fi rst pair parts and the teacher produces the second. 7.2 Doing being monitored

The teacher also does things to facilitate monitoring. That is, he does being monitored. In Excerpt 6.1, when the teacher finishes drawing in line 08, he moves the ruler forward, withdraws both hands and leans back

Handling Unprepared-for Contingencies in an Interactional Language Test

139

(Frame 6.1.2). Although the student is gazing at her notes as he does this, this provides her with an unobstructed view of the result of the instructed action when she brings her gaze back to the teacher’s paper in lines 09 and 10. This sort of facilitation of the observability of the result of an instructed action is something that happens quite regularly throughout the corpus. The teacher also uses talk to facilitate the monitoring of the embodied instructed action. In lines 06 and 11 of Excerpt 6.1, the teacher claims understanding of the instruction with ‘okay’. In line 13, he displays his understanding by repeating part of the instruction as he nears completion of the instructed action. In the same line, he also indicates his readiness for the next instruction, and thus claims the adequacy of his prior instructed action, by again saying ‘okay’. This use of talk serves as a commentary on the instructed actions being performed, and can thus facilitate the students’ monitoring of the instructed actions. This sort of commentary is also something that happens quite regularly throughout the corpus. The teacher also uses talk to produce something that calls for either a confi rmation or correction or, following Sacks, a correction-invitation device (Sacks, 1995: Lecture 3, Fall 1964–Spring 1965, and Lecture 15, Spring 1966). An example is shown in Excerpt 6.2. Excerpt 6.2 Correction invitation

01

S11: an’ uh +↑fourth ↓you will (.) ((gaze on notes)) +glances at T T: ((gaze on paper, compass in RH)) 02 *perform (.) ↓uh: *↑six times *the T: *gaze to S11 *gaze to paper *compass to paper 03 method of second and +third. +gaze to T 04 T: *+okay. (.) *+s’ like this¿ *compass vertical *draws------------> S11: +gaze to T’s paper +leans forward 05 (0.5) T: -----> S11: +n. ↑okay. 06 +nods T: ------->

In Excerpt 6.2, the student produces an instruction in lines 01–03. As in Excerpt 6.1, the teacher begins his embodied instructed action before the instruction is complete, bringing his compass to the paper at the end of line 02. In line 04, as he claims understanding with ‘okay’, he brings the compass into vertical position and then starts to draw. Meanwhile, the student has brought his gaze to the teacher’s paper and leans forward. As he starts to draw, the teacher says ‘so like this’ with slightly rising intonation and the demonstrative pronoun referring to what he is drawing. It is this that is being called a correction-invitation device. The student responds to this

140

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

with a confirmation token and nodding in line 06. By calling on the student not just to confirm or correct something, but to confirm or correct something that the teacher is about to do, is doing or has done as part of his embodied instructed action, a correction-invitation device calls on the student to monitor the performance of the instructed action. One difference between a correction-invitation device and simple repetition of part of the instruction is that the correction-invitation device is the teacher’s formulation of something that he is supposed to do. As such, it more strongly calls for some sort of response from the student, although in fact these correction-invitation devices are often simply ignored. In addition, correction-invitation devices are usually articulated with rising intonation and often contain a demonstrative pronoun or other deictic term (Fillmore, 1997), such as ‘here’, which refers to something the teacher is doing or has done. Although they may be confirmed or ignored, correction-invitation devices also often precede initiation of correction. In slightly more than half the cases of initiation of correction in the collection, there is some sort of correction-invitation device. Whether or not a correction-invitation device is followed by a confirmation or correction, or simply ignored, the use of such devices and other means of facilitating monitoring of the instructed actions displays the teacher’s orientation to the students’ epistemic primacy. 7.3 Initiation of correction

As with the organization of repair for conversation (Schegloff et al., 1977), it is possible to distinguish between the initiation of the correction and the correction itself.4 In the next subsection I focus on how, when they fi nd through their monitoring of the teacher’s instructed action some problem with this action, the students initiate correction and the resources they use to accomplish this. 7.3.1 Resources for initiation of correction

In almost all cases in the collection, the student initiates the correction through some sort of noticing, that is, some sort of public display that something has been noticed (Kääntä, 2014). Various resources are used to do the noticing. One common resource is what is often called a changeof-state token (Heritage, 1984), usually the Japanese ‘ah’ (Tanaka, 1999) but occasionally the English ‘oh’. Excerpt 6.3 shows an example of the former and Excerpt 6.4 an example of the latter. Excerpt 6.3 Noticing with ‘ah’

01

T:

02 T:

connect *connect these four? *RH pencil point to four locations on paper---> S15: +yeah. +half-nod ((head forward only)) ---------->

Handling Unprepared-for Contingencies in an Interactional Language Test

03

T: 04 05 06 T:

141

(0.5) -----> T: *okay. *pencil to paper, LH sets ruler (0.5) S15: ah.+*(0.6) +↑ah: sorry. +leans forward+leans back, BH up *pencil off paper

In Excerpt 6.3, after the student confirms the teacher’s correction invitation, the teacher puts his pencil to his paper and starts to set the ruler to perform the instructed action in line 04. However, in line 06, the student initiates correction with ‘ah’ and then a second ‘ah’ and an expression of apology. Excerpt 6.4 Noticing with ‘oh’

01

S2: +okay, uhm .hh draw a line (0.2) ↓uh ((gazing at T’s paper)) +RH point to T’s paper------------------------------> 02 (0.7) ↑ay ((A))+↓oh ((O)) ------------------> +sweeps RH left 03 (8.3) T: ((drawing)) S2: ((moves RH back right, then retracts)) S2: +oh: ↓no uhm .hh 04 +RH point to T’s paper--->

In lines 01–02 of Excerpt 6.4, the student uses talk and gesture to perform an instruction and the teacher performs the instructed action during the silence in line 03. In line 04, the student does a noticing with ‘oh’ followed by the word ‘no’. Another resource for doing a noticing of something to be corrected is an apology, as in line 06 of Excerpt 6.3. An apology can be considered a resource for doing a noticing in that the act of apologizing implies the existence of something being apologized for. A second example of an apology being used to do a noticing and initiate correction is shown in Excerpt 6.5. Excerpt 6.5 Noticing with an apology

01

T:

e*x ((X)) here, *+why ((Y)) over here? *pencil off paper *pencil on paper S18: +gaze to notes, RH to shirt pocket 02 S18: +°(hai.)°*↑yeah. +gaze to T’s paper, RH pen from pocket T: *writes--> 03 +(0.8) +(0.6) S18: +pen click +leans right T: -------------------------->

142

04

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

S18: +*ah ah::+(0.2) +↓ah sorry (0.8) +RH forward, pen point +RH forward, pen extended---> +point held *pencil off paper

As in Excerpt 6.3, the student fi rst confi rms a correction invitation. The teacher prepares to start the instructed action in line 01 and then writes in lines 02 and 03. While monitoring in line 03, the student leans in closer to the teacher’s paper and then does a noticing in line 04 which includes two ‘ah’s and then a third ‘ah’ combined with an expression of apology. Use of an apology is one means through which students may take responsibility for a problem that they have noticed. A third resource for doing a noticing is to use a negator, as in the use of ‘no’ in line 04 of Excerpt 6.4. This implies noticing the existence of something that is being rejected. A second example of the use of an English negator is shown in Excerpt 6.6. A possible example of the use of a Japanese negator is shown in Excerpt 6.7. Excerpt 6.6 Noticing with a negator

01

through *oh. ((O)) *oh ↑o↓kay, like here, *BH reorient paper and ruler *pencil to paper 02 (0.4)*(0.3) T: *LH positions ruler 03 S10: +uhm *not. +euh +.hh +RH up +RH back+LH up T: *LH slides ruler left T:

While the teacher’s correction invitation seems at first to be ignored, he prepares to perform the instructed action by positioning his paper, pencil and ruler in lines 01–02. However, the student then initiates correction with the English negator ‘not’, preceded and followed by variants of ‘uh’. Excerpt 6.7 Noticing with a Japanese negator

04

T:

*okay, +(.) but how- how wide should *gaze to paper S15: +RH retracted, down the compass be.=like *this? 05 *gaze to S15 06 (1.2) S15: +(y/iya)- +(0.8) +m07 +RH up +RH gesture +LH up

This is somewhat ambiguous, but it is possible that what the student says at the start of line 07 is the Japanese negator ‘iya’, which is used to reject

Handling Unprepared-for Contingencies in an Interactional Language Test

143

a presupposition or understanding displayed in the prior turn (Hayashi & Kushida, 2013). Assuming that what the student says is ‘iya’, then a Japanese negator is being used to notice a problem with the teacher’s understanding expressed in his correction invitation (lines 04–05) and displayed in the current width of the compass. Students also occasionally do a noticing by explicitly stating that a problem has occurred. Excerpt 6.8 shows an example of such a statement in English, while Excerpt 6.9 shows an example of such a statement in Japanese. Excerpt 6.8 Explicitly referencing a problem in English

01 S2: .m +oh +*↓oops .hh↑uh (0.2)I forget ((gazing at T’s paper, RH raised and still, index fi nger extended)) +RH forward +points to T’s paper-----------------------> T: ((drawing)) *fi nishes drawing, BH withdrawn, leans back 02 t’ say that .h uh: +(1.0) ---------------------------> +moves point right

In Excerpt 6.8, following ‘oh’ in line 01, the student indicates that he has made a mistake by saying ‘oops’ and then states that there is something that he forgot. By using an explicit statement that a problem has occurred, this student is able to take responsibility for a problem with the teacher’s instructed action. Excerpt 6.9 Explicitly referencing a problem in Japanese 01 S7: T: 02 T: 03 04 05 T:

(6.5) +(1.5)*(1.2) *(5.2) ((gaze on T’s paper)) +gaze to notes ((sets compass and draws, gaze on paper)) *compass from paper *gaze to S7 S7: +°(xxx)° machigaet(h)a. [*hn .h= +gaze to T’s paper *gaze to paper S6: [h S7: =+↑m(h)ach(h)igai +.h ((sniff))+uh so↓rry +RH to mouth +gaze to T +RH nose wipe +*(0.7) +sorry ano- (.)+sorry +RH cheek scratch +RH down +gaze to notes, RH to notes *gaze to S7

In line 01 of Excerpt 6.9, the teacher performs the instructed action, most of which the student monitors. In lines 02 and 04, though, the student indicates that there is a problem by saying, in Japanese, ‘machigaeta’ (made a mistake) and ‘machigai’ (mistake). Unlike in Excerpt 6.8, as there is no explicit grammatical subject articulated, it is somewhat ambiguous who, the teacher or the student, made the mistake. However, similar to Excerpt 6.5, the student then apologizes, fi rst in

144

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

line 04 and then twice more in line 05. Through the apology, this student also takes responsibility for a problem with the teacher’s instructed action. There are also what could be called embodied noticings (Kääntä, 2014), such as in Excerpt 6.10. Excerpt 6.10 Embodied noticing 01 S18: uh *yeah. (.) *and outside.* ((gaze on T’s paper)) T: *LH off paper *LH on compass *LH off compass 02 *(2.4) *(2.8) *(2.1) *(0.5) T: *draws—> *stops drawing, LH on compass *LH off compass, draws—> *compass off paper 03 T: °(li’ ‘at one) _ ° 04 +*(0.1) +(1.4) S18: +knits eyebrows+gaze to notes, BH drop notes T: *gaze to S18

In line 03 of Excerpt 6.10, the teacher says quietly something which may be a correction invitation. While he says this, as while he is performing an instructed action in lines 01–02, the student’s gaze is on the teacher’s paper. Then, during the silence in line 04, the student knits his eyebrows together slightly, gazes back at his notes, and drops his notes from his hands, so that they land on the table. These embodied behaviors seem here to indicate that the student has noticed a problem with the teacher’s instructed action. Kääntä distinguishes embodied noticing from verbal initiation of correction. This is appropriate for her data, as the embodied noticing, produced by a student who is currently not one of the primary participants in the teacher–student interaction, does not interfere with the ongoing instructional interaction, while the verbal correction initiation does. However, I do not make this distinction as the noticings, even when they have no verbal components, are produced by one of the two participants in the test interaction and serve to initiate the correction. In addition to doing a noticing, another common resource for initiating correction is the use of ‘uh’ (or a variant such as ‘uhm’) or the Japanese ‘ano’ or ‘eto’. An example of the former is shown in Excerpt 6.11 and an example of the latter is shown in Excerpt 6.12. Excerpt 6.11 Initiating correction with ‘uh’

01 T:

like *this¿ *compass pencil off paper 02 S20: .hh +uh: +left side. *↑>right side please.< +gaze to notes +gaze to T’s paper T: *sets compass----------------->

Handling Unprepared-for Contingencies in an Interactional Language Test

145

In line 02 of Excerpt 6.11, the student responds to the teacher’s correction invitation with a correction of the teacher’s instructed action. The initiation of this is minimal, consisting of an inbreath and the fi ller ‘uh’. Excerpt 6.12 Initiating correction with ‘eto’

06 S3: on ay. ((A)) 07 (0.5) 08 S3: eh- ↑and draw an arc. (.) eeto .hhh

In line 08 of Excerpt 6.12, the student gives an instruction. After a micropause, he then initiates correction with a version of the Japanese ‘eto’. One fi nal resource for initiating a correction is the use of hand, arm and/or body movements that can, at least in retrospect, be seen as preparatory to gestures that are used to do the correction. An example is shown in Excerpt 6.13. Excerpt 6.13 Initiating correction with preparation for corrective gesture

01

T:

02 S7:

from the top? ↓okay,* ((drawing)) *pencil off paper (1.4)+(1.1)#(0.7) #Frame 6.13.1 +leans forward, RH to T’s paper

Frame 6.13.1

03

S7: +kore?# ↓kore #Frame 6.13.2 +RH index fi nger point to T’s paper

Frame 6.13.2

146

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

In line 03 of Excerpt 6.13, the student corrects the teacher’s instructed action by pointing to something on the teacher’s paper while saying ‘kore’ (this) twice, as can be seen in Frame 6.13.2. Prior to this, during the silence in line 02, the student has leaned forward and extended her arm, bringing her right hand to the top of the teacher’s paper, but not yet pointing to anything on the paper, as can be seen in Frame 6.13.1. This leaning forward and bringing her hand to the teacher’s paper can be seen as preparation for the pointing which she uses as part of her correction, and thus as a resource for initiating correction. It should be noted that none of these resources is exclusive of any of the others and, as can be seen in several of the examples so far, different resources are often used together as part of a correction initiation package. 7.3.2 Location of initiation with respect to problematic instructed action

Within the collection of 27 cases, examples can be found of: (1) the student anticipating a problem with the teacher’s instructed action and initiating a pre-emptive correction; (2) the teacher suspending preparation for an instructed action and providing the student with an opportunity to initiate correction; (3) the student initiating a correction while the teacher is performing an instructed action; (4) the student initiating a correction immediately after the performance of an instructed action; and (5) the student initiating a delayed correction of an earlier instructed action. It may seem strange to say that an instructed action can be corrected before it is performed. This can sometimes happen, though, because the preparations for an instructed action make visible how it will be carried out, as in Excerpt 6.14, or because the preparations reveal a perceived obstacle to performing the instructed action, as in Excerpt 6.15. Excerpt 6.14 Initiating pre-emptive correction

01

S3: ↑place the- (0.4) place the point ((gaze on T’s paper)) T: ((gaze on paper)) *↑of the compass (0.4) 02 *(0.2) ↓eh (0.5) T: *RH to compass, picks up *compass horizontal in RH 03 on *ay. T: *compass to paper 04 (0.6) 05 T: *on ay? *compass to new position 06 S3: on ay.# #Frame 6.14.1

Handling Unprepared-for Contingencies in an Interactional Language Test

Frame 6.14.1

07 08 T:

(0.5) S3: eh- *↑and draw *an arc. #(.) eeto .hhh #Frame 6.14.2 *RH index fi nger to top of compass *RH other fi ngers to top of compass

Frame 6.14.2

147

148

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

09

T:

+more longeh. +*↓eh+*↑above +and below. +RH sweeping gesture +RH left point +RH obscured +RH retracted, then RH beat *LH to compass *RH to compass pencil------>

In lines 01–03 of Excerpt 6.14, the student gives an instruction related to where to place the compass. As such, it projects a next instruction about what to draw with the compass. The teacher begins responding to the instruction in line 02, as he picks up the compass, but then holds the compass in his right hand and waits for more of the instruction. He then follows the instruction about where to place the compass in lines 03–06, with this involving the teacher asking for a confi rmation of where to place it and the teacher’s self-correction of the placement (line 05). The teacher’s placement of the compass can be seen in Frame 6.14.1. As the student produces the projected next instruction, the teacher prepares to begin drawing, moving first the index fi nger of his right hand to the top of the compass and then the rest of the fi ngers of this hand to the top of the compass. The compass held in position to begin drawing is shown in Frame 6.14.2. However, the student then initiates correction with ‘eeto’ and then produces the correction in line 09. (The correction work continues after this for several more seconds.) Although the teacher has not begun to draw the arc as instructed, he has completed preparations to do this, which allows the student to see that there is a problem. The student then corrects the problem pre-emptively, before the teacher actually begins to draw. Excerpt 6.15 Suspending preparation for instructed action 01

S15: ↑please +*make +an- (.) *↓uh ((gaze on T’s paper, RH index fi nger point down)) +RH circle gesture +RH loosely closed T: ((gaze on S15, holding compass on paper with LH)) *gaze to paper *gaze to S15 02 +↑please +make +four +arc. +RH right +RH left +RH right, opened, index finger extended +RH left, then right 03 (0.2) 04 *okay, +(.) but how- how wide should T: *gaze to paper, LH turns compass S15: +RH retracted, down 05 the compass be.=like *this? # #Frame 6.15.1 *gaze to S15

Handling Unprepared-for Contingencies in an Interactional Language Test

149

Frame 6.15.1

06 07

(1.2) S15: +(y/iya)- +(0.8) +*m- +*little h +little small. +RH up +RH gesture +LH up +BH gesture +BH gesture T: *turns compass *gaze to paper, RH to compass 08 T: *+small[er¿ T: *RH adjusts compass S15: +BH down 09 S15: [okay yeah. 10 T: like *this?* *RH off compass *gaze to S15 11 S15: +yeah. ‘kay.* +nods T: *gaze to paper

The student produces an instruction in lines 01–02 of Excerpt 6.15. However, rather than starting on the instructed action, the teacher asks for clarification in lines 04–05, and then immediately produces a correction-invitation device in the form of a candidate answer while shifting his gaze from his paper to the student. The candidate answer (‘like this?’) refers to the size of the compass setting as it is being held in position on the teacher’s paper visible for the student’s monitoring, as shown in Frame 6.15.1. Similar to what happens in Excerpt 6.14, the student can thus see that there is a problem and initiates correction in line 07 before the instructed action is performed. Problems, though, are not always anticipated by either the student or the teacher. In some cases, problems are noticed while the teacher is performing the instructed action and, as in Excerpt 6.16, the student initiates correction during the instructed action. Excerpt 6.16 Initiating correction during instructed action

01

S10: and draw (0.4) arc. ((gaze on T’s paper)) T: ((RH on compass))

150

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

02

(1.0)*(0.9) *sets compass to draw 03 T: *the same size¿ *drawing-------------> 04 (1.9) T: -----> 05 S10: ih- mo- more °smoath.° T: -----------------------------------> 06 *(0.2) T: *gaze to S10 07 T: [hm¿ 08 S10: [+more (.)+big. +RH up +RH right sweep gesture T:

In Excerpt 6.16, the teacher starts to perform the instructed action during the silence in line 02. As he starts to draw, he invites correction in line 03, but the student does not respond to this and he continues to draw. However, while he is still drawing, the student initiates correction in line 05. Students also sometimes initiate correction just after the completion of an instructed action. An example is shown in Excerpt 6.17. Excerpt 6.17 Initiating correction immediately following instructed action

01 02 03

04 05 06 07 08

S2: +okay, uhm .hh draw a line (0.2) ↓uh ((gazing at T’s paper)) +RH point to T’s paper------------------------------> (0.7) ↑ay ((A))+↓oh ((O)) ----------------> +sweeps RH left *(0.8)*(1.2) *(1.1) *(2.6) T: *LH to ruler, RH to paper, gaze to paper *sets ruler and pencil *RH turns paper*LH ruler on paper S2: ((moves RH back right, then retracts)) *(1.6) *(1.0) T: *draws *RH pencil off paper, gaze to S2 S2: +oh*: ↓no uhm .hh +RH point to T’s paper---> T: *gaze to paper, RH pencil to paper T: +all the way through? S2: +sweeps RH left--------------> +*(1.0) S2: +moves RH right T: *draws S2: +more long +er. +sweeps RH left + moves RH right

In Excerpt 6.17, during the silence in lines 03 and 04 that follows the student’s instruction, the teacher picks up the ruler, orients the paper,

Handling Unprepared-for Contingencies in an Interactional Language Test

151

sets the ruler and pencil in preparation to draw, draws, and finally lifts the pencil from the paper and looks at the student. It is at this point that the student initiates correction in line 05 through talk and gesture. Finally, there are a few cases where the initiation of correction is delayed. That is, the teacher performs an instructed action and the interaction proceeds to the next instruction before any problem is noticed. Excerpt 6.18 Initiating delayed correction 01 S30: third +.hh (0.5) draw a perpendicular ((gaze on notes)) +glance up 02 bisector +of line ay bee ((AB)) an::d (.) label +glance at T’s paper 03 it +s:ee dee:.((CD))+ +gaze to T’s paper +gaze to notes 04 (0.3) 05 T: +okay, S30: +LH self groom 06 +(20.5) S30: +gaze to T’s paper ((gazes back at notes twice, gazes to right once)) T: ((draws with compass, then pencil and ruler)) 07 T: so see dee? 08 S30: yes. +hxm ((throat clearing)) +gaze to notes 09 (1.0)+(0.9) S30: +gaze to T’s paper 10 S30: +fourth ↑draw a line: bee see. ((BC)) +gaze to notes 11 (0.9) 12 T: [draw (a line to) _ 13 S30: [ah (soso tomo). 14 S30: +kh ahn +(0.3) .h ((sniff)) +(.)+↑she +glance at notes +glance at notes, LH to nose +LH off nose +gaze to notes 15 dee ((CD)) i:s (0.4) ah ↑in+tersectio:n (0.6) +gaze to T’s paper 16 [line (1.0)+↓uh ↑perpendicular +gaze to notes= 17 T: [*oh=h *pencil to paper 18 S30: =bi+sector: (0.2) an:d (.)+ ↑circle. +gaze to T’s paper +glance right

During the silence in line 06, the teacher performs the instructed action based on the student’s instruction in lines 01–03. The student then starts the next instruction in line 10. However, he then notices a problem and initiates correction in line 13 (in overlap with the teacher’s turn in line 12), and in line 14. Here, it seems that the student notices that an earlier

152

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

mislabeling by the teacher, in line 06, will cause problems with the teacher’s following of the current instruction. He therefore backtracks and corrects how the teacher labeled two points as part of the previous instructed action. Although there is variation in when the students initiate correction with respect to the production of the instructed action, a common feature is that the adjacency pair organization provides opportunities for students to initiate the correction. This can come before or at the start of the instructed action as in Excerpts 6.14 and 6.15, during the instructed action as in Excerpt 6.16, immediately after the instructed action as in Excerpt 6.17, or after the next instruction when it becomes clear that this instruction cannot be followed correctly as in Excerpt 6.18. 7.3.3 Teacher response to initiation of correction

Finally in this subsection, I look once more at each of Excerpts 6.14– 6.18, focusing on how the teacher responds to the initiation of correction. Starting with Excerpt 6.14, just after the student does the fi rst part of the correction itself with ‘more long’ in line 09, following the initiation of correction in line 08, the teacher moves his left hand to the compass and his right hand to the compass pencil in order to adjust the compass. Even before this, though, the teacher displays through his embodied action his understanding of a need not to progress with the performance of the instructed action. As the student is producing the instruction in line 08, the teacher prepares to draw with the compass, moving his right hand to the top of the compass in two steps. As can be seen in Frame 6.14.2, by the time the student has completed the instruction of what to draw, the teacher is holding the compass in position to start drawing. However, he then holds the compass in this position, rather than starting to draw, across the initiation of correction and inbreath in line 08 and the fi rst part of the correction itself in line 09, all the while maintaining his gaze on the compass and paper. That the student has initiated correction in line 08 is a sufficient reason for the teacher to postpone performance of the instructed action made relevant by the instruction in line 08. Excerpt 6.15 is similar, but here the teacher is already holding the compass in ready position when the student initiates the correction. While holding the compass in ready position, he shifts his gaze to the student during his articulation of ‘like this’ in line 05. He then maintains his gaze and the position of the compass as the student initiates correction. Finally, he shifts his gaze back to the compass and starts adjusting it after the student has started the correction itself through talk and gesture. Here, the teacher has recognized a need to postpone performance of the instructed action prior to the initiation of correction. The initiation of correction is then sufficient reason to postpone the performance of the instructed action a bit longer.

Handling Unprepared-for Contingencies in an Interactional Language Test

153

Excerpt 6.16, on the other hand, is quite different, and it seems that the initiation of correction comes as more of a surprise to the teacher. Here, the teacher starts performing the instructed action of drawing an arc in line 03, as he invites correction of the instructed action. He continues drawing during the almost two seconds of silence in line 04, which the student is monitoring, and continues drawing across the initiation of correction and the correction itself in line 05. The student’s initiation of correction is minimal, consisting of a fi ller (‘ih’) (and possibly a false start, although it is not completely clear whether this should be considered part of the initiation). Although he uses a gesture during the second correction in line 08, the student does not include any kind of gesture as part of the initiation or the correction itself in line 05. The teacher seems not to recognize until the end of line 05 that there is a problem, as this is when he stops drawing. He then shifts his gaze to the student and initiates repair in line 07, in overlap with the student’s redone correction in line 08. The teacher’s initiation of repair may simply be related to what the student means by saying ‘more smoath’, but can also be understood as related to a treatment of the student’s initiation of correction as sequentially inapposite, coming after the student has apparently ignored a correction invitation and interrupting the teacher’s performance of the instructed action (see Drew, 1997, on the use of open class repair initiators in next turn to initiate repair on turns that are treated as sequentially inapposite). In Excerpt 6.17, the teacher has completed the instructed action and moved his hand to facilitate the observability of the result of the instructed action before the student initiates correction in line 05 with talk and a pointing gesture. Before the student completes the initiation, the teacher shifts his gaze back to the paper and positions the pencil to resume drawing. While the initiations of correction in Excerpts 6.14 and 6.15 indicated to the teacher the need to postpone or further postpone the start of the instructed action, the initiation of correction here indicates to the teacher the need to modify the completed instructed action. The teacher then, in line 06, suggests a candidate correction while the student uses a gesture to depict the correction. (It is interesting to note that the student then produces his own formulation of the correction while repeating the gesture in line 08.) In Excerpt 6.18, unfortunately, the camera angle is such that not much can be seen of what the teacher is doing, although it is possible to get some idea of this. In line 12, the teacher seems to indicate some problem with performing the instructed action, in overlap with the student’s initiation of correction in line 13. Rather than pursue his talk, the teacher then halts his turn, which allows the student to continue the initiation of correction in line 14. Almost always, the teacher responds to the initiation of correction in ways that display his understanding that the student is doing something which is relevant for the instructed action that the teacher is about to

154

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

perform or has fi nished performing. Such a response thus aligns with the initiation of correction and again displays the teacher’s orientation to the student’s epistemic primacy. An exception is Excerpt 6.16, when the initiation of correction seems to be less expected. A possibility is that initiations of correction that occur during the instructed action are more likely to be treated as problematic than those which occur before or after the instructed action. 8 Discussion and Practical Implications

While interactional language tests of various sorts have become more common, this particular test is somewhat unusual, as it involves the students having epistemic primacy and instructing the teacher. 5 The organization of the interaction into student instruction/teacher-instructed action adjacency pairs creates opportunities for students to correct the teacher that are likely to be absent in other forms of test interaction with different sequential organization, such as in oral proficiency interviews in which (much of) the interaction is organized as interviewer question/test-taker answer adjacency pairs (Kasper, 2013; Seedhouse, 2013), or in peer test interaction in which two or more test-takers interact with one another (Greer & Potter, 2008), or in tests involving role play (Okada & Greer, 2013; Ross & O’Connell, 2013). One constraint in the use of interactional language tests is the institutional nature of the test itself, which places limits on the extent to which such a test can measure the test-takers’ ability to participate in interaction in which the sequential organization is unaffected by institutional context, such as in mundane conversation in their L2. As this chapter shows, though, it is also possible to manipulate the sequential organization of the test interaction. In addition, the students have epistemic primacy with regard to the geometric figure that they are instructing the teacher to construct, as they have chosen the figure and written the notes in advance. Unlike in the teacher-fronted instruction in Kääntä (2014), the students’ epistemic primacy, along with the fact that the interaction generally does not involve participants other than the student and teacher, 6 means that if the student does not initiate correction of a problem he or she notices, then nobody will initiate the correction. When a student notices something to correct, the continued progression of the test performance depends on the student initiating correction. In a teacher-fronted classroom, though, the instruction can continue to progress even if a student does not initiate correction on a noticed problem. For example, in Kääntä (2014), when a student notices something to correct in what the teacher has written but initiates correction in interaction with her peers instead of with the teacher, the instructional interaction apparently continues to progress. Also, in Kääntä’s data, when a student addresses a correction initiation to the teacher, this comes at a point where the interaction has already moved on to something next, indicating that

Handling Unprepared-for Contingencies in an Interactional Language Test

155

the instruction could continue without the correction initiation. Students’ epistemic primacy can also account for why they sometimes accept responsibility for a noticed problem through apologizing and/or stating that they have made a mistake. The sequential organization of the test interaction and the epistemic primacy of the students thus create not only opportunities for correction initiation, but also its necessity. What I have looked at may thus be very specific to this particular test. Nevertheless, through looking at student initiation of correction in this particular test, it has been possible to show some of the resources that students use to handle one sort of unprepared-for contingency and how the initiation of correction, although performed by the student, can also be seen as a collaborative accomplishment. Although students occasionally seem to rely on gesture or talk alone to initiate correction (see, for example, Excerpt 6.11), they much more often perform initiation of correction as a package with verbal, gestural and embodied components (see Kendon, 2004, on the concept of utterance package). One thing this shows is the students’ own contribution to the co-construction of their interactional competence to participate in this second language (L2) test interaction. As I have argued above and elsewhere (for example, Hauser, 2016), there is no direct connection between co-constructed L2 interactional competence and L2 proficiency and these students are able to competently participate in this test with even fairly limited L2 proficiency. Also, while their L2 proficiency may be a constraint on these students’ participation in the test interaction, the use of a test that draws on their strength in mathematics seemed to be effective in helping to overcome this constraint. In the language classroom and during interactional language tests, it is important to recognize the variety of semiotic resources that students can use to make meaning. These include, in addition to talk (whether in the L2, the L1 or a different language), gesture, gaze and material objects. In addition, the students show an orientation to English as the proper language to use in this test interaction. With the exception of ‘ah’, the students rarely use Japanese resources to initiate correction, and when they do, as in Excerpts 6.7/6.15 (possibly), 6.9, 6.12/6.14 and 6.18 (possibly), they quickly switch back to English, doing this without the teacher engaging in any practices of language policing (Amir & Musk, 2013; see also Malabarba, this volume) (see Hauser, 2013, on English as the proper language to use in L2 English discussions). As for ‘ah’, it is likely that most students orient to this as a transparent and language-neutral response cry (Goff man, 1981), rather than as a resource linked to Japanese.7 The one exception is the student that I have labeled in the transcripts as ‘S2’, who uses the English ‘oh’. While it is thus possible for students to treat ‘ah’ and ‘oh’ as language specific, it is also not unusual for them to treat ‘ah’ as language neutral. One practical implication is that students may benefit from having their attention drawn to the language specificity of such response cries.

156

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

Also important for the students’ interactional competence to participate in this interactional test is that the initiations of correction are collaborative accomplishments. As stressed in theory, although not always in practice, interactional competence is co-constructed by participants within the interaction, rather than something which the participants bring with them to the interaction (He & Young, 1998). Although it is the students who initiate correction, the teacher also collaborates, both through the ways that he does being monitored and through the ways that he aligns with initiation of correction by indicating his recognition that he is being corrected. In the one case above in which there does not seem to be such alignment – Excerpt 6.16 – this itself is treated as a problem to be repaired. One practical implication of this is that, as the concept of interactional competence continues to gain interest among language teachers and language testers, it continues to be important to stress the situated and coconstructed nature of L2 interactional competence. 8 In particular, the situated nature of any given co-constructed display of interactional competence means that this display is unique in its configuration of interactional particulars. It is a unique configuration, though, of regularities, such as, for the initiations of correction examined in this chapter, regularities related to monitoring and the facilitation of monitoring, regularities related to the various resources used to initiate correction, and regularities related to how initiation of correction is responded to. 9 Additional Transcription Conventions

In addition to the transcript conventions presented in Chapter 1, this chapter uses the following notations: ---> arrows are used to indicate continuation of non-verbal action.

# + *

sharp symbols are used to indicate the timing of a frame in relation to the talk. plus symbols are used to indicate the start of a non-verbal action by the student currently taking the test. asterisk symbols are used to indicate the start of a non-verbal action by the teacher.

Notes (1) According to van Compernolle (2013: 330), in DA, ‘assessment and instruction form a dialectical relationship in which assessments are made on the basis of learners’ responsiveness to instructional intervention … and instruction is delivered on the basis of the mediator’s ongoing assessment of a learner’s at-the-moment needs as the two interact’. (2) In the descriptions of non-verbal actions, the following notations are used: BH (both hands), RH (right hand) and LH (left hand). (3) As in Mondada (2014), the instructions and instructed actions during this language test form adjacency pairs. However, there are at least two possibilities for the relationship between an instruction and instructed action to be different from an adjacency

Handling Unprepared-for Contingencies in an Interactional Language Test

(4)

(5)

(6)

(7) (8)

157

pair relationship. As in Garfi nkel (2002), there can be temporal, spatial and/or interpersonal separation between the production of an instruction and the sense-making involved in producing an instructed action based on the instruction. Also, an action not produced as an instruction can be treated by an observer as an instruction and used as the basis for the production of an instructed action. While there are certainly similarities between conversational repair and correction of instructed actions, in order to focus on what is particular about the students’ initiation of correction of the teacher’s instructed action, I have chosen not to subsume this sort of correction within the category of repair. It is an intentional design feature of this test to have the students produce fi rst pair parts, in order to reverse the more common situation of a teacher/tester producing mostly fi rst pair parts and a student/test-taker producing mostly second pair parts. For the test, students usually came to the teacher’s office in pairs, so that there was often another student seated next to the student doing the test performance. However, it was rare that another student participated in any way other than observing the interaction between the teacher and the student currently taking the test. It is for this reason that I have chosen to transcribe it as ‘ah’, rather than in italics as ‘a’. When such co-construction is shown, through analysis of the details of the interaction, to occur in an interactional test, this does not demonstrate a flaw in test design or testing procedure. Rather, it demonstrates that such co-construction is an inherent part of interaction.

References Amir, A. and Musk, N. (2013) Language policing: Micro-level language policy-in-process in the foreign language classroom. Classroom Discourse 4 (2), 151–167; doi:10.1080/ 19463014.2013.783500. Drew, P. (1997) ‘Open’ class repair initiators in response to sequential sources of troubles in conversation. Journal of Pragmatics 28 (1), 69–101; doi:10.1016/ S0378-2166(97)89759-7. Fillmore, C.R. (1997) Lectures on Deixis. Stanford, CA: Center for the Study of Language and Information. Garfi nkel, H. (2002) Ethnomethodology’s Program: Working out Durkheim’s Aphorism. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Goff man, E. (1981) Forms of Talk. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Greer, T. and Potter, H. (2008) Turn-taking practices in multi-party EFL oral profi ciency tests. Journal of Applied Linguistics 5 (3), 297–320. Hauser, E. (2013) Beyond intersubjectivity: Task orientation and fi rst language use in foreign language discussions. Pragmatics and Society 4 (3), 285–316; doi:10.1075/ ps.4.3.02hau. Hauser, E. (2015) Monitoring an instructed action and projection of the next instruction through gaze shift. Paper presented at Instruction and Instructed Action: Embodied Reciprocity in Interaction Workshop, Shonan, Japan. Hauser, E. (2016) The construction of interactional incompetence in L2 interaction. Paper presented at Symposium on the Teaching and Testing of L2 Interactional Competence, Rice University, Houston, TX. Hauser, E. (2017) Avoiding initiation of repair in L2 conversations-for-learning. Pragmatics 27 (2), 235–255; doi:10.1075/prag.27.2.03hau. Hayashi, M. and Kushida, S. (2013) Responding with resistance to wh-questions in Japanese talk-in-interaction. Research on Language and Social Interaction 46 (3), 231–255. He, A.W. and Young, R. (1998) Language proficiency interviews: A discourse approach. In R. Young and A.W. He (eds) Talking and Testing: Discourse Approaches to the Assessment of Oral Profi ciency (pp. 1–24). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

158

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

Heritage, J. (1984) A change-of-state token and aspects of its sequential placement. In J.M. Atkinson and J. Heritage (eds) Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis (pp. 299–345). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hymes, D. (1974) Foundations in Sociolinguistics: An Ethnographic Approach. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Jacoby, S. and Ochs, E. (1995) Co-construction: An introduction. Research on Language and Social Interaction 28 (3), 171–183; doi:10.1207/s15327973rlsi2803_1. Jefferson, G. (2004) Glossary of transcript symbols with an introduction. In G.H. Lerner (ed.) Conversation Analysis: Studies from the First Generation (pp. 43–59). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Kääntä, L. (2014) From noticing to initiating correction: Students’ epistemic displays in instructional interaction. Journal of Pragmatics 66, 86–105; doi:10.1016/ j.pragma.2014.02.010. Kasper, G. (2013) Managing task uptake in oral proficiency interviews. In S.J. Ross and G. Kasper (eds) Assessing Second Language Pragmatics (pp. 258–287). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Kendon, A. (2004) Gesture: Visible Action as Utterance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Livingston, E. (2008) Ethnographies of Reason. Aldershot: Ashgate. Mondada, L. (2009) The embodied and negotiated production of assessments in instructed actions. Research on Language and Social Interaction 42 (4), 329–361; doi:10.1080/08351810903296473. Mondada, L. (2014) Instructions in the operating room: How the surgeon directs their assistant’s hands. Discourse Studies 16 (2), 131–161; doi:10.1177/1461445613515325. Okada, Y. and Greer, T. (2013) Pursuing a relevant response in oral proficiency interview roles plays. In S.J. Ross and G. Kasper (eds) Assessing Second Language Pragmatics (pp. 288–310). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Paltridge, B. (2001) Genre in the Language Learning Classroom. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Ross, S.J. and O’Connell, S.P. (2013) The situation with complication as a site for strategic competence. In S.J. Ross and G. Kasper (eds) Assessing Second Language Pragmatics (pp. 311–326). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Sacks, H. (1995) Lectures on Conversation, Vols I and II. Oxford: Blackwell. Schegloff, E.M., Jefferson, G. and Sacks, H. (1977) The preference for self-correction in the organization of repair in conversation. Language 53 (2), 361–382; doi:10.2307/413107. Seedhouse, P. (2013) Oral proficiency interviews as varieties of interaction. In S.J. Ross and G. Kasper (eds) Assessing Second Language Pragmatics (pp. 199–219). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Stivers, T., Mondada, L. and Steensig, J. (2011) Knowledge, morality and affi liation in social interaction. In T. Stivers, L. Mondada and J. Steensig (eds) The Morality of Knowledge in Conversation (pp. 3–24). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tanaka, H. (1999) Turn-taking in Japanese Conversation: A Study in Grammar and Interaction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Tominaga, W. (2013) The development of extended turns and storytelling in the Japanese oral profi ciency interview. In S.J. Ross and G. Kasper (eds) Assessing Second Language Pragmatics (pp. 220–257). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. van Compernolle, R.A. (2013) Interactional competence and the dynamic assessment of L2 pragmatic abilities. In S.J. Ross and G. Kasper (eds) Assessing Second Language Pragmatics (pp. 327–353). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

7 Closing Up Testing: Interactional Orientation to a Timer During a Paired EFL Oral Proficiency Test Tim Greer

This chapter explores the ways in which oral proficiency test-takers in an EFL context orient to multiple involvements due to the institutional nature of the talk, particularly during the closing moments of the test. The data set consists of 51 four-minute discussion tests video-recorded among pairs of first-year students at a Japanese university. Each test aims to engage the students in free discussion about one of seven topics covered in class. A timer on the desk signals the end of the four-minute discussion and the participants often orient to the timer by adjusting their talk to it, either by refraining from initiating topic shifts or by delaying a turn-in-progress so that it fi nishes just as the timer rings. As such, these participants manage multiple involvements (Raymond & Lerner, 2014) within the test situation. However, it was also found that certain test-takers prioritize the topic talk and largely ignore the timer, displaying greater engagement with the test activity than with the test procedures. The chapter draws on multimodal interactional analysis to address issues of task authenticity and institutionality in learner talk within EFL contexts (Guariento & Morley, 2001). 1 Introduction

One vexatious aspect of assessing oral proficiency is that the test situation itself can impact the nature of the talk that goes on there: the participants orient to the interaction as institutional rather than mundane, and the talk that is being tested is therefore no longer strictly ‘natural’. Conversation analysis (CA) researchers have investigated this phenomenon in oral proficiency interviews (OPIs), for example, with regard to the one-sided nature of talk in which the interviewer asks questions but does not respond to them (Kasper & Ross, 2007), is not required to pursue 159

160

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

intersubjectivity (Seedhouse, 2013) or at times treats the test-taker’s contribution as an inapposite or irrelevant response (Kasper, 2013; Okada & Greer, 2013). This has led to claims that such asymmetrical interaction is unable to adequately assess the very thing it is aiming to measure, i.e. everyday conversation (Lazaraton, 1996). Although closer to ‘real life’ conversations, even in group or paired tests in which test-takers talk to each other rather than to an expert speaker of the target language, the institutional nature of the interaction becomes apparent through the micro-details of the interaction, such as turn-taking (Greer & Potter, 2008), topic development (Galaczi, 2014; Gan et al., 2008) and sequence and repair (Sandlund & Sundqvist, 2011). This chapter explores how pairs of oral proficiency test-takers in an EFL context orient to and make public the institutional nature of the assessment task through the details of their talk. Of particular interest is the closing moments of these tests, in which the participants frequently orient to a timer that is placed on the desk in front of them by adjusting their talk to it, either by refraining from initiating a topic shift or delaying a turn-in-progress so that it fi nishes as the timer rings. As such, the participants manage multiple involvements (Raymond & Lerner, 2014) within the test situation, in that they are simultaneously paying attention to both the ongoing discussion and the upcoming timer. The study draws on multimodal CA address issues of task authenticity and institutionality in learner talk (Guariento & Morley, 2001), and explores what the test ending reveals about the test-takers’ engagement in the activity. The fi ndings are of pedagogical significance to teachers in that they show how the test setting can prevent the talk from being completely natural. They also address issues relating to the practicalities of testing interaction in an artificial setting.

2 Interactional Engagement

Sfard (1998) views learning as the ability to increasingly participate by making use of the interactional practices that are routinely used in the target community, and evidence of this growing participation can be demonstrated through the sequential details of actual talk. The notion of interactional competence as ‘knowing what to do next’ is also captured in the CA notion of progressivity (Schegloff, 2007), and it is a fundamental assumption in interaction between proficient members of any community (see also Nguyen, this volume). Engaging, or being actively involved in the conversation, then, is a precursor to learning. Recent CA studies set in L2 classrooms are beginning to pay renewed attention to this notion of engagement from an interactional perspective (Ishino, 2017; Waring & Hruska, 2011; Waring & Yu, 2018), although the focus in these studies has been chiefly on the teacher’s attempts to engage the student(s) in

Closing Up Testing

161

learning-relevant interaction. As such, there is a need to address engagement between learners themselves as well, and that is one of the concerns of the present study. 3 Closings in Mundane and Institutional Interaction

Despite their ubiquity in language assessment situations, to the best of my knowledge, the closing moments of paired oral proficiency tests have yet to be studied from a CA perspective. As the analysis in this chapter shows, such tests can end rather abruptly when the timer goes off and the test-takers stop their conversation, often mid-turn, and then return to their first language (L1) as they stand up and leave the room. This is distinctly at odds with the way that interactants generally accomplish closings in mundane talk. Early CA research by Schegloff and Sacks (1973) showed that participants work together to end a conversation via a series of pre-closing sequences (such as announcing closure, mentioning future arrangements, formulating summaries, appreciations, back references, solicitudes, and the like) before initiating a departing action that is locally timed and sequentially projectable (see also Button, 1987, 1991; and Liddicoat, 2007, for a concise summary). The turn-taking system and the sequential nature of most action formulations mean that silence within interaction is often attributable and noticed; however, the aim of closing sequences is to jointly accomplish a point in the talk where silence is not uncomfortable, allowing the participants to amicably disengage from the conversation. Recent scholarship has also documented the embodied methods co-present interactants use in conjunction with talk to close a conversation as they walk away from each other (Broth & Mondada, 2013; Tuncer, 2015). Coming at this issue from a different tack, Dersley and Wooton (2001) and Llewellyn and Butler (2011) have shown that when people do withdraw from conversations abruptly without initiating proper pre-closing sequences (such as during argumentative blow ups and walkouts), the departure is seen as non-normative and is taken by the participants to indicate antagonism or indignation. However, such withdrawals are not necessarily relevant in institutional talk, especially in situations where the length of the interaction is predetermined via the use of a timer, chime or bell, such as classroom contexts (Tyagunova & Greiffenhagen, 2017), OPIs (Seedhouse & Egbert, 2006), paired writing consultations (Thonus, 2016), or even in speeddating activities (Stokoe, 2010). Even in these somewhat fabricated situations, though, the participants routinely orient to the end of the conversation via pre-closings, such as by saying something like, ‘I’m sorry, it looks like we’re almost out of time’ (when they have been monitoring the clock) or ‘Oh, there goes the bell’ (in situations when the timer interrupts the talk). Although the former is done pre-emptively and the latter retrospectively, they can both be considered forms of multi-activity

162

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

(Haddington et al., 2014), in that the participants orient to the timer as a separate (sub)involvement that signals their imminent disengagement from the current conversation. The aim of this chapter is to examine the interactional implications of using such a timer in an EFL oral proficiency test, and to document the practices the participants use to monitor the timer and orient their spoken and embodied interaction to it during the fi nal moments of the test. A further aim is to reflect on how paying attention to the timer influences their engagement in the interaction at hand. 4 Context

The Kobe Test of Oral Proficiency (KTOP) data set is a corpus of EFL oral proficiency tests video-recorded at a national university in western Japan. The subset of that corpus analyzed in this chapter consists of 51 tests recorded in June 2015. The test-takers were all second-year Japanese students from one of three departments (economics, engineering or human development) and the test was used to determine 20% of their fi nal grade in a required class entitled English Communication. At the point at which the data were collected, the test-takers were in their eighth week of an oral English class that focused on developing their spoken fluency through discussion. The following seven topics had been covered in class, and also became the topics given during the test: (1) yourself, (2) your extended family, (3) travel, (4) marriage, (5) share-housing, (6) jobs and (7) your hometown. At the beginning of the test, the test-takers were randomly assigned one of these topics by selecting a card with the topic written on it, and were then asked to talk freely about this topic for four minutes. The test took place in a room near the students’ regular classroom. Throughout the data transcripts, the test-taker on the left is designated as A and the test-taker on the right is B, as shown in Figure 7.1. There was also a camera operator (C) in the room whose job was to manage the test and video-record it for the instructor, who later graded the test-takers’ conversation skills in terms of fluency, accuracy and complexity. The camera operator was an ancillary staff member who was not otherwise involved with the students’ classes and who was completely unknown to them prior to the test. While the test was taking place, the instructor and the remaining students were continuing class in a nearby classroom. The next pair was waiting in the corridor outside the test room and when the test had fi nished, the test-takers returned to the classroom. In addition to the topic card, on the table there was an Apple iPad that was open at the Clock app (similar to the one seen in Figure 7.2), which was used in timer mode. The timer was set to four minutes, and at the start of the test the camera operator (C) pressed the start button to indicate that the test had begun. The app featured a visual display of the remaining time, represented as a

Closing Up Testing

163

Figure 7.1 The seating arrangement during the paired oral proficiency test

Figure 7.2 A representation of the countdown-style timer visible via the iPad screen

progressive red circle and as a numeric countdown. This was visible to the participants throughout the test, and they were familiar with the app prior to the test since the teacher also used it during class on occasion. After four minutes, the iPad chimed, signaling the end of the test. The current analysis is thus concerned with the fi nal moments of each of these tests. In some cases this involved identifying points in the interaction at which the participants noticeably oriented to the timer, while in cases where they did not do this, the focus was on the post-chime talk. 5 Research Questions

The study was guided by the following grounded research questions which emerged through extensive unmotivated examination (Sacks, 1984: 27) of the data: (1) How do Japanese EFL test-takers in a paired oral proficiency assessment context orient toward the presence of a timer in the closing moments of the test? (2) How does such orientation reflect their engagement in the conversation?

164

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

6 Methodology

In adopting a CA approach, the study aims to account for the range of interactional practices from an emic perspective as demonstrated through the sequentially unfurling details of the test-takers’ talk. Since the data are based on face-to-face interaction, the analysis is a multimodal one, including details from both the vocal and visuospatial modalities (Stivers & Sidnell, 2005). As such, the transcripts include not just the prosodic and lexicosyntactic channels of talk, but also notations of embodied features including gestures, posture, facial expression, gaze direction, and the like, and framegrabs are used where relevant to illustrate points particularly germane to the commentary. In addition, the iPad (here being used as a device for timing the test) is also of central interest to the analysis, so multimodal CA scholarship on interacting with objects (Nevile et  al., 2014) has informed the investigation. 7 Findings

An extensive review of the 51 test endings uncovered a range of testtakers’ orientations to the timer. Broadly speaking, there were four possible trajectories: (a) ending talk noticeably earlier than the chime; (b) ending talk at approximately the same time as the chime sounded; (c) ending talk abruptly at the chime; and (d) talking past the chime. Based on detailed transcripts from the tests, this section will examine each of these trajectories in turn. The process of analysis began by identifying the moment that the iPad chimed (marked in the transcripts with an arrow) and undertaking a careful sequential account of the participants’ actions prior and subsequent to the chime. It appears that there was no strict normative expectation for what should take precedence, the talk or the chime, with some pairs stopping immediately mid-word or mid-TCU (and mid-gesture), others stopping after a complete TCU but without giving a response or signaling uptake, and still others continuing slightly after the chime to come to a smooth close. Aspects of the post-chime talk that did seem highly systematic included: (1) a switch from English to Japanese, usually initiated by the camera operator via the Japanese closing formulation hai otsukaresama deshita (‘Okay, good job’) and/or arigato gozaimashita (‘Thank you’); (2) one of the participants turning off the chime; and (3) the testtakers’ departure from the room. The test-takers’ actions prior to the chime were more varied, and seemed to depend largely on whether or not they had been monitoring the timer throughout the test. Such pre-chime monitoring generally took the form of embodied attention to the visibly available progression of the clock on the iPad screen, and involved one or both of the test-takers looking at the iPad, whether with a quick sideways glance or a more on-record gaze shift accompanied with articulated noticings (see Schegloff, 2007).

Closing Up Testing

165

The verbal noticing of an imminent ending to the test was, however, routinely delayed well beyond the initial embodied noticing of the timer, indicating that there was an optimal time for articulating their attention and therefore incorporating it into the closing sequence as a pre-closing account. Conceivably, if this announcement were done too early, the participants would be left with a good deal of silence or off-topic talk, which could prove detrimental to their test score. Conversely, in cases where the pair did not appear to monitor the timer, there was often an abrupt ending to the topic (and the test), and little attempt was made to initiate a closing sequence in English. However, it was those cases where the timer chimed and the participants kept talking in English for a couple of extra turns that offered a favorable impression of being more engaged in the topic. This section, therefore, will center on the ways in which the participants adapt their talk in relation to the timer. The analysis first considers situations in which one or both of the test-takers is monitoring the timer prior to the chime, and then examines excerpts from the data in which the pair seem to have been ignoring the timer in favor of the on-topic talk. It is this prioritized involvement that provides interactional evidence for their engagement in the activity. 7.1 Monitoring the timer

In situations when the test-takers have been following the iPad’s countdown of the closing moments of the test, their divided attention becomes visible via their delayed production of further on-topic talk. These delays were manifested through refraining from further talk or timing a turn to fit the clock more or less precisely. 7.1.1 Refraining from further topical talk

After an embodied noticing of the remaining time (usually with fewer than 20 seconds left before the chime), one option available to participants is simply to stop talking, although this displays a low level of engagement and holds the potential to negatively impact their grade. Therefore, talk that orients to the end of the test, such as ‘Oh, that’s all’, becomes hearable as an account for not progressing the topic, and also works to fi ll up any silence prior to the chime. Excerpt 7.1 is a case in point, in which A responds to B’s initiation of a sequence by saying ‘oh it’s time over’ (line 15). Excerpt 7.1 Time over (KTOP 15.42)

A and B have been talking about travel. A has been glancing at the iPad throughout the test. 01 A |I can(‘t) speak in english ve[ry well. |((A and B are looking at each other))

166

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

02 B [mghmm! 03 ah |yes yes yes. |((B nods)) |((A looks down at iPad)) 04 (.) 05 B now-class is very difficu(h)lt 06 oh-h[ah HAh HAh HOh hoh] hah hah = 07 A [ ah(h) hah ye(h)s] 08 B =[heh h]eh hah hah 09 A [|’tss] |((A looks down)) 10 A |yes I am the [same opinion. °of this°] |((A looks at iPad, B looks at A)) 11 B [hah h’ h’ h’ h’ >|mm- ] mm< |((B nods)) 12 B |but.o (0.5) do you want to:: (.) |((A looks up to B)) 13 ah wha- where do oversea.

14 (0.2) 15 A $o::h |it’s time ov|er.$ |((A points to iPad))

|((iPad chimes))

Closing Up Testing

167

16 B |hooh hooh [h’h h’] h’ h’ |((B puts head to desk, hides face)) 17 A [tss(h)]

18 A |th(h)ank you. |((A turns off iPad))

19 A thank you. 20 B ↑$|thank ↓ you$ |((B looks up)) 21 C >hai< |otsukaresama de::s. yes HON-tired-HON CP-POL Okay, good job. |((A bows to C))

Although A’s ‘time over’ in line 15 is produced as an interactional noticing, complete with a change-of-state token ‘oh’, it occurs later than his embodied noticing, as evidenced by his observable glance at the iPad in lines 3 and 10. The gaze shift in line 3 comes just as A is providing uptake to B’s self-deprecating assessment (line 1), a point at which a second assessment becomes sequentially relevant (Pomerantz, 1984). But before A can deliver it, B gives a specification of her assessment, claiming that their English class is difficult (line 5) and following this with laughter. A joins in this laughter, but also shifts his gaze to the iPad again as he produces a rather directly worded agreement (line 10) that holds the potential to close the sequence, or at least adds little further to the topic. Perhaps in recognition of this, in lines 12 and 13, B initiates a new sequence by returning to the topic determined by the test conditions (i.e. travel). As a fi rst pair part (a question), B’s formulation makes relevant a type-fitted response from A in the next turn; however, after a brief gap of silence, B instead produces ‘oh, it’s time over’, in effect forgoing the opportunity to

168

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

respond and showing deference to the predetermined rules of the test. This leads to further laughter from both participants and a reciprocal post-chime exchange of appreciation in English (lines 18–20) which serves to further close down the test before C signals the official end of the test by switching back to Japanese. It seems that for A at least, line 10 constituted a possible closing to the test, in that it was a complete TCU and the end of a longer spate of talk, but B (who was not monitoring the timer) instead initiated a new topic that A evidently judged as impossible to develop within the confi nes of the remaining allotted time. In this sense, the test-takers were misaligned with regard to the closing, and this may have partly accounted for B’s unabashed laughter in line 16. Although the participants’ embodied orientations to the timer were minimal in the case above, consisting primarily of one person’s momentary shifts in gaze, this was not always the case. In Excerpt 7.2, for instance, Speaker A literally counts down the clock using both talk and his fi ngers and then shifts his gaze directly to the camera. Excerpt 7.2 Countdown (KTOP 15.1)

The pair has been talking about travel. 01 B 02 A 03 04 A 05 06 B 07 08 A 09 10 B 11 A 12 13 14 A 15 B

[yeah yeah] yeah. taiwan is very popular. very popular. (1.9)/((A glances at iPad)) |hmm |((hand on chin)) (1.2)/((A glances at iPad)) in the |future |((B gestures to A)) |((A looks to B)) (1.0) mm. (1.4) wi::ll you:: (0.4) #go::# I (.) want to go to |(2.2) |((A looks right)) |.shhh mm: (2.2) °tch tch° |yoo kay. ((UK)) |((A tilts head)) |((A looks to B)) (0.5) yoo kay yoo kay?

Closing Up Testing

16 17 18 19 20 21

B A B A

22 B 23 24 25 A

|(0.2) |((A nods)) AAh YE[Ah yeah yeah ye]ah. [°united kingdom°] (0.2) buckingham.u |yeah=HAHahah hah |((A nods)) yeah |bu(h)kingham.u? |((B points to A)) >yeah yeah yeah< (0.7) |I- (1.4) |mm. |((A moves hand to chest)) |((A nods))

26

(1.3)/((A looks down then left))

27 B 28

°ah° |(2.8) |((A looks to B)) |((B leans back swinging legs))

29 B

°°|soh ya na:°° that COP IP That’s right, yeah.

169

170

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

30

31 A 32 33 A a GZ

|((B looks| to iPad)) |((A looks to iPad))

oh! (2.5) |two (0.6) |one |(1.5)= |iPad—————––––––|Camera––|((A raises two fingers)) |((A raises one finger)) |((A looks to camera))

Closing Up Testing

34

=((iPad chime |rings)) |((B looks to C))

35 36 C

(3.5)/((A turns off timer)) hai otsukaresama de:s yes HON-tired-HON CP-POL Okay, good job.

37

(2.3)/((A and B gather papers and stand))

171

As one topic draws to a conclusion in line 2, Speaker A glances at the iPad, makes a thinking face and then takes another look at the iPad, presumably considering how best to extend the topic or introduce something new (lines 3–5). By looking at the iPad here, A is aware that there is not much time left in the test. However, it is B that introduces a new topic in lines 6 to 10, leading the pair to reestablish mutual gaze as they discuss A’s purported desire to visit the UK (lines 11– 24). In line 25, A appears to be about to extend this topic further but soon abandons it: he begins his turn with a self-referential ‘I’ that is subsequently left unfinished with silence and a self-addressed uptake token along with a nod. What exactly A is self-receipting here is unprojectable (and therefore unclear), but B makes a claim of understanding in the next turn with ‘ah’ in line 27 and soh ya na (‘That’s right, yeah’) in line 29. At this point the test-takers are facing each other as the conversation appears to peter out, and in line 30 they both look to the iPad, B slightly earlier than A. It is from here that A begins his countdown. He starts with a change-ofstate token ‘oh!’ in line 31, which is followed by a clear silence in which neither participant works to extend the talk. At line 33, the timer apparently displays the remaining time as two seconds and A raises two fingers as he says ‘two’, takes down one finger as he says ‘one’, then looks directly to the camera for a moment before the chime rings. Therefore, A displays that he is aware that he has only about five seconds remaining at the point when he says ‘oh’ in line 31, and turns the progression of the timer into the main business at hand by orienting to it and the camera rather than extending the topic by completing the sentence he started in line 25. In one sense this is a logical decision, but at the same time he does not make any effort to specify the time as an account for his abandonment of the topical talk, which would have served as a proper closing of sorts under the circumstances. However, by counting down the clock, he is at least making an effort to keep talking in

172

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

English for the assigned length of the test, demonstrating his orientation to the institutionality of the interaction, and the countdown does accomplish a kind of humorous ending to the test. In another rather extreme case (Excerpt 7.3), the pair do not even wait for the chime to sound before they fi nish the test and then start to leave just as it rings. Excerpt 7.3 I don’t know (KTOP 15.22)

A and B have been talking about their families. 01 B eh you: see: the sister is because 02 you: (.) want to office worker. 03 A |yah. |((A nods)) 04 B [ah: ] 05 A [°sis]ter° she is very study hard now 06 so (0.8) uh I will be: (1.4) do07 °I |will do her° (almost) (.) (same). |((A tilts head)) 08 B ↑ sister |(what’s make her) |((B moves both hands back and forth)) 09 A |o:h? |((A shifts gaze up)) 10 (1.0) 11 A I don’t know. [hah hah hah 12 B [HOh hoh hoh 13 A °I do(h)n’t kno [(h)w]° 14 B [.tss] |yes. |((B nods, looks down)) 15 |(0.9) |((A and B look at the iPad) 16 B °aa:::h° 17 |(4.0) |((A and B look at the iPad)

18 ((A gives a brief nod)) 19 A °°|thank you°°= |((A looks up to B))

20 B

[th(h)ank yo(h)u]

Closing Up Testing

21 A

173

=[h’ h’ h’ hah ha] (0.3) .hh

22 (.) 23 B ((sniffs)) 24 |(2.6) |((A leans into table, bows)) 25 → ((A and B both stand as iPad chimes))

26

|(2.0) |((B moves chair with foot, A turns off timer)) 27 C >hai< otsukaresama de::s yes HON-tired-HON CP-POL Okay, good job. 28 B |( ) |((A and B leave))

The first nine lines of the excerpt come at a point where intersubjectivity is beginning to break down, although neither participant works to repair it significantly. In lines 1 and 2, Speaker B seems to be asking if A plans to be an office worker like her sister, a turn that is not obviously linked to the talk that came immediately before it, which was about the sister’s hobby (not shown). Even so, A provides affirmative uptake in line 3 and goes on to formulate a term that is hearably related to the topic of her future ambitions (lines 5–7), although the speaker herself treats it as syntactically lacking by tilting her head to the side and delivering parts of the turn at a lower volume. B’s response in line 8 is even less clear, coming in a mumbled voice and with nonstandard grammar. Speaker A first receipts it in line 9 with a change-of-state token, but does not provide any further post-expansion to demonstrate how exactly she has understood B’s question. Instead they both remain silent for a second (line 10), after which A produces a repeated claim of negative epistemic status (‘I don’t know’) along with laughter that is co-produced by B and seems to orient to the fact that mutual understanding has broken down. Rather than attempting to repair it, the test-takers both look toward the iPad, perhaps initially as a means of withdrawing from the topic by shifting their gaze away from each other. They then spend an extended

174

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

silence staring at the timer with almost no interaction (lines 15–17), apart from B’s sotto voce ‘ah’ (line 16), which appears to be primarily selfaddressed and displays a withdrawn stance. After around five seconds of looking at the timer, B’s brief nod in line 18 seems to propose an ending to the tableau, and A aligns to this understanding by looking back up to B and initiating a quiet pre-closing ‘thank you’ in line 19, which immediately receives a more audible laughed-through reciprocation from B (lines 20–21). After a further silence, A initiates an embodied pre-closing consisting of a seated bow and both speakers stand as the chime sounds. Although in one sense this ending is also perfectly timed, in order to accomplish it the test-takers have had to use several noticeable seconds prior to the chime in which they were clearly monitoring the clock and not progressing the test talk at all. In other words, they have abandoned the main activity of pursuing topical talk in order to orient to another involvement. In terms of their engagement with the test talk, then, giving priority to the activity of monitoring the timer displays an apparent lack of enthusiasm for the test activity. By refraining from topical talk as they watch the clock, they are not attending to the test task of discussing the assigned topic, and they are therefore making an implicit claim that the conversation they produced up until this point is sufficient for the purposes of the tester’s assessment sample. While their clear orientation to the timer and abandonment of talk may be negatively evaluated from the teacher’s standpoint, from an interactional standpoint it does restore intersubjectivity, as evidenced by the visible synchrony in their standing up. They are ‘back on the same page’, but to do so they have had to abort pursuit of the test content in favor of its logistics. 7.1.2 Timing a turn to fit the clock

Other test-takers were able to continue the assigned topic while still clearly monitoring the timer. However, in these cases there was still a great deal of delay used to fit the fi nal turn to the time display on the iPad, including repetition of just-prior talk and incremental turn-segments that extended a turn without significantly progressing the interaction itself. In Excerpt 7.4, for example, B refrains from extending a topic while monitoring the timer with his gaze. Excerpt 7.4 Thank you (KTOP 15.9)

B has just told A that he is from Hokkaido, Japan’s largest prefecture. A has stated that it is cold there and B has added that it is ‘big’.) 01 B 02 A 03 04 B

[|so big. |((B circles both hands widely, palms raised)) [|un big |((A nods, mirrors B’s gesture)) (1.5) |e::h |((B glances at iPad, then back to A))

Closing Up Testing

05 A 06 07 08 09 10 11 12

B A B→ A

13 B→ 14 A 15 16 17 18 19

A B→ A B→

20 21 B→ 22 A 23

175

do ↑you: (0.4) °s-° do ski. |>ah did you do ski?< |((A shakes head)) yeah. every year (.) I ski. o::::h (0.5) I like ski very much. (1.0) |o(h)n >°heh ha°< |((A nods)) ski- like- like ski very much uh HAH Hah |(1.0) |((B looks at iPad, then back to A)) ↑.hhhhh it’s good. $thank you$. uh h’ hah °$|thank you$ |((B glances at iPad)) (1.2) $TH|Ank YOU$ |((B looks from iPad to C)) ah hah ((iPad chimes))

B repeats his own turn in line 13 even though A has just voiced a display of receipt, then looks to the iPad after a significant gap of silence. In line 16, A then produces a positive assessment ‘it’s good’, which is hearable as further receipt of B’s recycled telling. B treats A’s assessment as a compliment, receipting it with ‘thank you’ in line 17. His orientation to both the test talk and the timer can be seen in his repetition of ‘thank you’ in line 19 while looking at the timer. By recycling ‘thank you’ here, he superficially maintains engagement with A’s test talk, yet does not further it, thus orienting to the imminent closing dictated by the timer. This dual involvement continues when B says ‘thank you’ once more in line 21 as he looks up to the camera and the chime sounds. The major difference between this sequence and those shown in the earlier excerpts is that the participants do not abandon the test talk as they continue to watch the timer. Although they clearly have multiple involvements, the on-topic talk takes priority over talk related to the task of monitoring the timer. In Excerpt 7.5, the pair has drawn the topic of share-housing, a subject that the test-takers generally find difficult to discuss. By the end of the test, A and B have run out of things to say, and the question that A initiates in lines 2 and 3 is very similar to one that they have already discussed earlier in the test. Excerpt 7.5 Yeah (KTOP 15.7)

01 02 A

(3.1) ah how do you imagine (0.2)

176

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

03 04 05 B 06 07 08 09 A 10 11 B 12 13 B 14 15 A 16 B

about (0.2) share housing. (0.8) a::::h. (.) it is very °ah° hard and °very° difficult to: |(1.1) to live (.) |wi:th (.) |((B knocks on table |((B looks to A)) |other people. |((A looking at iPad)) |why. |((A looks up to B)) (0.8) |w(h)hy? |((B looks down)) (.) |.hhh .hh |it’s not (.) family. |((B looks back to A)) |((B moves hand back and forth)) (.) ↓ah-ah-[ah]. [°nn°] y-ye-yeah mm [it]’s [(.) ] frie|nd. |((A glances at iPad))

17 18 A

(1.2)/((B leans back in chair)) ye|ah, >me tookana< already that CP Q finishPST maybe It that like, finished, I guess? |((B leaves)) 14 A owa[ri de]s ne end CP IP It’s over, yeah? 15 C

16 C

[ soh ] that That’s right. |kyoshitsu ni modotte moratte classroom to return-receive-and You can go back to the classroom. |((A slowly leaves))

In line 2, A has her hand to her head (where it has been doing a kind of thinking/grooming gesture), but as she delivers the response cry ‘oh!’ in line 3 she then drops her arm as she shifts to Japanese to specify an account for the ‘oh!’, namely that the test is over. The abandonment of the headtouch in conjunction with that of the turn-in-progress, the gaze shift and the codeswitch all work together to suggest (1) that the participants have not been monitoring the timer and (2) that they are not going to continue with any further test talk. They do, however, go on to accomplish a closing sequence that is suited to the context, with A giving a brief assessment in line 6 and then an expression of appreciation in response to C’s closing move in line 9, and a confirmation check concerning the post-test procedure in lines 13 and 14 that all orient to the test as fi nished. 7.2.2 Continuing to talk after the chime

While A did produce a post-chime English turn in Excerpt 7.7 (line 6, ‘very short’), that turn referred to the test itself, and the topic that was in progress was left unfi nished. Other test-takers, however, spoke in English for a couple of turns after the chime sounded about the topic they were discussing, demonstrating greater involvement with the topic talk and less

Closing Up Testing

183

concern for the test setting. Such actions contribute to a sense of greater engagement with the topic-driven talk over the institutionality of the situation. Consider Excerpt 7.8, in which the chime comes at an incomplete TCU, but the speaker takes the turn to completion and the recipient extends the talk a little further. Excerpt 7.8 Future (KTOP 15.48)

01 B 02 03 A 04 B 05 06 A 07 08

→

09 B 10

11 A 12 13 C

do you like- >eh< ↑what do you::: want to: (0.9) °oshigoto°=jobs °shorai° HON-job future job future oh °do::° (0.5) in future. (0.4) ↑I (0.3) I don- |(1.2) I don’t thi:nk |((A looks down at desk)) (0.5) future but ↑I:: (.) >I don’t want< to be: |a teacher. |((iPad chimes)) a tea(h)cher? h’h |(0.2) |((A shakes head)) |((B nods)) |°I don’t want to be |a teacher°. |((A shakes head)) |((A looks at iPad)) |(2.3) |((iPad chimes again)) |((A and B look to C)) >hai< otsukaresama des yes HON-tired-HON CP-POL Okay, good job.

In line 8, A is part-way through his turn when the chime is heard, having said ‘I don’t want to be’, but he does not stop at that point and instead finishes his sentence with ‘a teacher’. Even though the chime is sounding, B then initiates repair in line 9 by repeating the chime-overlapped portion of A’s just-prior turn with rising intonation. This allows the agenda to continue past the chime, with B showing interest in the content of A’s turn. A then shakes his head (line 9), possibly as a means of responding without language and therefore minimally orienting to the test’s completion. He then repeats his sentence from lines 7 and 8 at a lower volume, which constitutes a response to B’s confirmation request and thus completes the adjacency pair, but also does so in a way that is less interrupted by the onset of the chime. The test-takers then look to the camera operator who initiates the post-chime closing with ‘Good job’ (line 13). By prioritizing the trajectory of the turn-in-progress and bringing it to a complete and logical ending, these participants display their engagement with the topic rather than with the test conditions.

184

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

The test-takers in Excerpt 7.9 were another pair who were highly engaged in the talk, providing immediate uptake and on-topic expansion throughout the test, so it was perhaps no surprise to see that they continue speaking in English after the chime. Excerpt 7.9 Gifu (KTOP 15.33)

A and B have been talking about their home towns in an animated way and have not looked at the iPad during the test. 01 A |ah do you have (.) |((A shakes head)) 02 hometown have (.) shopping center? 03 (0.6) 04 B |very small. |((B nods slightly)) 05 A small! 06 B |ve(h)ry sma(h)ll. → |((iPad chimes)) 07 A heh hah hah gifu. 08 B gifu is very small 09 A >okay okay.< 10 (0.3) 11 A |THAnk you. |((A moves hand toward iPad)) 12 B >$TH|Ank you very MUch.$< |((A turns off timer)) 13 A okay. 14 C >hai< otsukaresama des. yes HON-tired-HON CP-POL Okay, good job. 15

|(0.5) |((A stands)) 16 B °hai a|rigatoh gozai:mas° yes thanks COP-POL Yes, thanks very much. 17 C

|((B turns and stands)) ja tsugi no hito to kohtai shite kudasai okay next LK person with change do-CONT please Okay, please bring in the next pair.

In a way that was typical for this pair, the talk involves significant postexpanding confirmations that are reworked into subsequent versions of earlier turns, leading to topics that are very much co-accomplished. In response to A’s question about shopping malls in B’s hometown, B produces ‘very small’ (which in this context can be understood to mean that they do have malls, but they are very small). A then repeats this as a form of receipt (Greer et al., 2009) and B restates a laughed-through version of the same formulation in line 6 which coincides with the point at which the timer begins to

Closing Up Testing

185

chime. However, neither participant orients to the chime, either by stopping their talk or by shifting their gaze to the iPad. Instead, they go on to specify the name of B’s hometown (‘Gifu’) and relate it to the prior talk by calling it small, again by incorporating other repetition and collaborative turn building into a two-part sequence in lines 7 and 8. It is only after this that they begin to orient to the timer. Interestingly, they do so in English with A producing a sequence-closing third in line 9 (‘okay okay’), that may also work as a multiple saying (Stivers, 2004) to close down the talk in general. The pair then reciprocate thank-yous in lines 11 and 12 followed by another third pair part from A in line 13. Unlike in some other cases, here it is C who initiates the shift back to Japanese in line 14: the test-takers remain in English until B responds to C in line 16, displaying that this turn is directed toward C while the English thank-yous were meant for each other and therefore constitute a continuation of the test just beyond the chime. Although the post-chime turns were shorter than the one A produced in line 10 of Excerpt 7.8, here the number of turns was higher and involved multiple well-timed initiations and receipts that were used to initiate a new sub-topic, leading to an even greater show of active engagement with the topic. 8 Discussion

A paired conversation test like the one reported here offers participants the chance to demonstrate a broader range of their interactional competence (Hall et al., 2011; see also Nguyen and Hauser, both in this volume) by affording them opportunities to initiate actions, manage topic development and negotiate intersubjectivity in ways that are less possible in interviewstyle oral proficiency tests (Sandlund et al., 2016). However, this format also holds additional challenges in managing the test process, as we have seen in the excerpts above. In an interview-based test, it would be the interviewer who would initiate the test closing, and arguably they would be able to invoke their institutional identity to help accomplish that via endorsed monitoring of the clock. In paired tests, that responsibility falls largely to the test-takers themselves, and results in a variety of closing styles that ultimately reflect on the participants’ level of engagement with the test task. On the whole, the students who displayed a greater sense of engagement with the topic rather than the mechanics of the test process were those who did not actively monitor the timer and particularly those who kept talking just beyond the onset of the chime in order to bring their discussion to a natural close. Over-monitoring of the timer, on the other hand, led to pre-chime delaying, such as avoiding initiation of new topics, giving only minimal expansion on proffered topics or abandoning talk altogether. Only in some of these cases did the pre-chime talk take the form of a closing. Continuing the talk for a couple of turns after the chime displays an interest in the talk, whereas cutting it off mid-turn, not responding to the other person’s completed turn or abandoning the talk

186

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

prior to the chime all demonstrate less involvement with the main task of developing a conversation. Although further research is needed, these observations suggest that engagement within this context involves showing interest in the topic and downplaying the logistical constraints in the institutionality of the talk (as physically manifested in the timer). Engaged test-takers concentrated instead on developing the topic, which at a micro level meant extending the talk by expanding on a justprior turn in a cohesive manner just enough that it could be brought to a smooth ending. At the time when these videos were taken, the test was graded according to only three criteria: accuracy, fluency and complexity. However, after careful consideration it was decided to add a fourth measure called engagement, since actively interested test-takers do indeed tend to generate more talk from both themselves and their partner. How best to operationalize this concept remains a task for future research, but the current analysis offers a preliminary insight into some of the ways engagement becomes discernible in the closing moments of the test. 9 Practical Implications

This chapter has sought to investigate the issue of participant engagement by focusing on the closing moments of a paired EFL discussion test. In doing so it has broadly demonstrated that those test-takers who pay less attention to the timer are more actively engaged in the conversation, at least at this point in the test. This leads to a number of practical implications for teachers, testers and test-designers. Although it may initially seem like a rather minor consideration, it is worth reflecting on the question of whether or not to have a timer on the table in the first place. As a low-stakes proficiency test designed to process a class of more than 40 students within a period of 90 minutes, there is a need to be strict about the time allotted for each test, so using a timer ensures that the entire class is efficiently tested. However, as we have seen, placing the iPad on the table makes the time an available source of testrelated information, and for some test-takers this becomes an omnirelevant concern throughout the test, leading to multiple involvements that must be managed via the practices of interaction. Ultimately, even those students who attempted to end their talk exactly on time were rarely able to do so in a completely natural fashion. Time is one of the major constraints with any assessment activity, and consequently test-takers must have access to specific interactional practices in order to adjust their interaction to the limitations of the test setting. This suggests that teachers may want to provide EFL students with opportunities to reflect on pre-closings as an action generally, and more specifically ways to adapt them to the test situation. Formulations like ‘Oh, it looks like we are just about out of time’ are eminently teachable, and would no doubt have been invaluable to those test-takers who were wont to monitor the

Closing Up Testing

187

clock. In addition, the test instructions could be adapted to instruct them to bring the conversation to a natural close after the chime has sounded, which would encourage them to stay in English and to ignore the clock. Credit for doing this could also be built into the assessment rubric. However, this could also potentially lead to a new set of problems if test-takers do not finish soon enough. As seen throughout the analysis, the camera operator also served as a proctor in that she regulated the postchime closings, such as by saying things like ‘Good job’ and ‘Thanks very much’ in Japanese, which prompted the test-takers to stand and leave. Her role in doing this was not given much initial consideration, but in fact it was an essential part of both the interaction and the smooth running of the test. If the test were adapted to allow participants to close it down more naturally after the chime, the camera operator may end up having to interrupt them anyway, and would therefore have to make decisions about how long to allow them to ignore the timer and how to close down the closing talk. Finally, the students’ different levels of orientation to the timer also introduce a variable into the test condition that affects their performance and hence evaluation. Teachers should be more explicit about ways students orient to the timer in order to ensure more uniformity and raise test reliability. Such considerations are also an outcome of the test design, which is a largely open-ended paired conversation, as opposed to an interview-style test in which an expert English speaker directs the talk. As research has shown, this allows test-takers to direct the conversation by initiating topics rather than simply responding to them (Galaczi, 2014), and better approximates the negotiation of meaning that is found in everyday interaction (Seedhouse, 2013). Even so, there is a need for the proctor to direct the test-takers, such as at the beginning and end of the test, and this change in the participant constellation must be locally managed by the speakers themselves. Here again, an interventionist CA approach (Antaki, 2011) such as the conversation analytic role-play method (CARM; Stokoe, 2014) may be of value in instructing both the students and the proctor in how to close down the test. Appendix: Additional Transcription Conventions

The talk has been transcribed with standard Jeffersonian conventions. Japanese talk has been translated based on the three-tier system used by Nguyen and Kasper (2009): First tier: original talk (plain text in Courier New) Second tier: gloss translation (Courier New italics) Third tier: prose rendering (Times New Roman italics) Embodied elements of the interaction are noted in gray font and the onset of the action is indicated in the talk via a vertical bar. Where the

188

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

physical action does not coincide with talk, the silence is timed and appears on the same line as the description, separated by a forward slash. Abbreviations used for Japanese morphemes in the word-by-word gloss tier are as follows: CP H IP LK N Q CS NEG PST CONT POL HON

copula (e.g. da, desu) hesitation marker (e.g. e::, ano) interactional particle (e.g. ne, sa, yo) linking particle (no) nominalizer (no, koto) question marker (ka and its variants) change of state token (ah) negative morpheme (-nai) past tense morpheme continuous tense morpheme polite form honorific form

When the translations in the second and third tiers are identical, only one tier is listed. Where framegrabs are used, they are positioned in the transcript relative to the talk. A triangle above transcribed talk within the framegrab indicates the precise moment relative to the talk at which the video was paused. Arrows indicate gaze direction, with curved arrows denoting that a shift is in progress. Musical notes show that the timer is chiming. Acknowledgments

This study was made possible in part through JSPS Grant 17K03011. My thanks go to the participants of the 2016 CAN-Asia Hattoji Retreat for their early observations on the data analyzed in this chapter. Note (1) Short turns and increments are ubiquitous throughout this data set and B is recycling an earlier answer because A has asked him the same question he had already asked; therefore none of these actions projects a closing.

References Antaki, C. (2011) Six kinds of applied conversation analysis. In C. Antaki (ed.) Applied Conversation Analysis: Intervention and Change in Institutional Talk (pp. 1–14). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Broth, M. and Mondada, L. (2013) Walking away: The embodied achievement of activity closings in mobile interaction. Journal of Pragmatics 47 (1), 41–58. Button, G. (1987) Moving out of closings. In G. Button and D. Zimmermann (eds) Talk and Social Organization (pp. 101–151). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Closing Up Testing

189

Button, G. (1991) On varieties of closings. In G. Psathas (ed.) Studies in Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis. Lanham, MA: University Press of America. Dersley, I. and Wooton, A. (2001) In the heat of the sequence: Interactional features preceding walkouts from argumentative talk. Language in Society 30 (4), 611–638. Galaczi, E.D. (2014) Interactional competence across proficiency levels: How do learners manage interaction in paired speaking tests? Applied Linguistics 35 (5), 553–574. Gan, Z., Davison, C. and Hamp-Lyons, L. (2008) Topic negotiation in peer group oral assessment situations: A conversation analytic approach. Applied Linguistics 30 (3), 315–334. Greer, T. and Potter, H. (2008) Turn-taking practices in multi-party EFL oral proficiency tests. Journal of Applied Linguistics 5 (3), 297–320. Greer, T., Bussinguer, V., Butterfield, J. and Mischinger, A. (2009) Receipt through repetition. JALT Journal 31 (1), 5–34. Guariento, W. and Morley, J. (2001) Authenticity and institutionality in learner talk within EFL contexts. ELT Journal 55 (4), 347–353. Haddington, P., Keisanen, T., Mondada, L. and Nevile, M. (eds) (2014) Multiactivity in Social Interaction: Beyond Multitasking. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Hall, J.K., Hellermann, J. and Pekarek Doehler, S. (eds) (2011) L2 Interactional Competence and Development. Basingstoke: Multilingual Matters. Ishino, M. (2017) Subversive questions for classroom turn-taking traffic management. Journal of Pragmatics 117, 41–57. Kasper, G. (2013) Managing task uptake in oral proficiency interviews. In S. Ross and G. Kasper (eds) Assessing Second Language Pragmatics (pp. 258–287). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Kasper, G. and Ross, S. (2007) Multiple questions in oral proficiency interviews. Journal of Pragmatics 39, 2045–2070. Lazaraton, A. (1996) Interlocutor support in oral proficiency interviews: The case of CASE. Language Testing 13 (2), 151–172. Liddicoat, A. (2007) An Introduction to Conversation Analysis. London: Continuum. Llewellyn, N. and Butler, C. (2011) Walking out on air. Research on Language and Social Interaction 44 (1), 44–64. Nevile, M., Haddington, P., Heinemann, T. and Rauniomaa, M. (eds) (2014) Interacting with Objects: Language, Materiality, and Social Activity. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Nguyen, H.t. and Kasper, G. (eds) (2009) Talk-in-interaction: Multilingual Perspectives. Honolulu, HI: National Foreign Language Resource Center. Okada, Y. and Greer, T. (2013) Pursuing a relevant response in OPI roleplays. In S. Ross and G. Kasper (eds) Pragmatics and Language Testing (pp. 294–316). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Pomerantz, A. (1984) Agreeing and disagreeing with assessments: Some features of preferred/dispreferred turn shapes. In J. Atkinson and J. Heritage (eds) Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis (pp. 57–101). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Raymond, G. and Lerner, G.H. (2014) A body and its involvements. In P. Haddington, T. Keisanen, L. Mondada and M. Nevile (eds) Multiactivity in Social Interaction: Beyond Multitasking (pp. 227–245). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Sacks, H. (1984) Notes on methodology. In J. Atkinson and J. Heritage (eds) Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis (pp. 21–27). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sandlund, E. and Sundqvist, P. (2011) Managing task-related trouble in L2 oral proficiency tests: Contrasting interaction data and rater assessment. Novitas-ROYAL (Research on Youth and Language) 5 (1), 91–120. Sandlund, E., Sundqvist, P. and Nyroos, L. (2016) Testing L2 talk: A review of empirical studies on second language oral profi ciency testing. Language and Linguistics Compass 10 (1), 14–29.

190

Part 2: Teaching and Testing Practices as Dynamic Processes

Schegloff, E. (2007) Sequence Organization in Interaction. A Primer in Conversation Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schegloff, E. and Sacks, H. (1973) Opening up closings. Semiotica 8 (4), 289–327. Seedhouse, P. (2013) Oral proficiency interviews as varieties of interaction. In S. Ross and G. Kasper (eds) Assessing Second Language Pragmatics (pp. 199–219). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Seedhouse, P. and Egbert, M. (2006) The interactional organisation of the IELTS speaking test. IELTS Research Reports 6, 161–206. Sfard, A. (1998) On two metaphors for learning and the dangers of choosing just one. Educational Researcher 27 (2), 4–13. Stivers, A. (2004) ‘No no no’ and other types of multiple sayings in social interaction. Human Communication Research 30 (2), 260–293. Stivers, T. and Sidnell, J. (2005) Introduction: Multimodal interaction. Semiotica 156, 1–20. Stokoe, E. (2010) ‘Have you been married, or …?’: Eliciting and accounting for relationship histories in speed-dating interaction. Research on Language and Social Interaction 43 (3), 260–282. Stokoe, E. (2014) The conversation analytic role-play method (CARM): A method for training communication skills as an alternative to simulated role-play. Research on Language and Social Interaction 47 (3), 255–265. Thonus, T. (2016) Time to say goodbye: Writing center consultation closings. Linguistics and Education 33, 40–55. Tuncer, S. (2015) Walking away: An embodied resource to close informal encounters in offices. Journal of Pragmatics 76, 101–116. Tyagunova, T. and Greiffenhagen, C. (2017) Closing seminars and lectures: The work that lecturers and students do. Discourse Studies 19 (3), 314–340. Waring, H.Z. and Hruska, B. (2011) Getting and keeping Nora on board: A novice elementary ESOL student teacher’s practices for lesson engagement. Linguistics and Education 22 (4), 441–455. Waring, H.Z. and Yu, D. (2018) Life outside the classroom as a resource for language learning. The Language Learning Journal 46 (5), 660–671.

Part 3 Sociocultural and Ideological Forces in Language Teaching

8 The ‘Power Game’: Interactional Asymmetries in EFL Collaborative Language Teaching Josephine Lee

This study examines South Korean EFL classrooms with an interest in revealing the hierarchical relations of power and status in co-teaching partnerships. To investigate how diff erent teacher roles and possible issues of dominance are engendered and negotiated in each teacher pair, I focus on what conversation analytic studies have conceptualized as interactional asymmetries, a temporally unfolding process through which participants are positioned and portrayed in relation to each other (J.-E. Park, 2007; Robinson, 2001). The data involve video-recordings of co-taught elementary EFL lessons wherein two teachers – a Korean and an American teacher – are present in the classroom. The analysis shows that while the teachers are institutionally granted an equal co-teacher status, their actual classroom practices exhibit an asymmetry in teacher authority regarding the management of classroom contingencies and student discipline. Focusing on these interactions, I will demonstrate how the participants orient to asymmetric teacher roles and relationships during the lessons, and consequently what those moments reveal about the interactionally occasioned co-teacher rights, responsibilities and expectations. 1 Introduction

Since 1995, the government-sponsored English Program in Korea (EPIK) has actively employed ‘native speakers’ of English to teach at elementary and secondary schools. The EPIK program was modeled after the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) program which was initiated earlier in 1987 to improve foreign language education and promote internationalization in Japan (JET Program USA, 2014). Whereas numerous critiques on the category of ‘native speakers’ (e.g. Cook, 1999; 193

194

Part 3: Sociocultural and Ideological Forces in Language Teaching

Firth & Wagner, 1997; Rampton, 1990) have led second language acquisition (SLA) research to shy away from using this term, weneminkyosa (the literal translation being ‘native-speaking English teacher’, and hereafter referred to as ‘ET’) is nonetheless a local category term used in Korean school settings to refer to English teachers of foreign nationality (N. Kim, 2012). The motivation for recruiting ETs is to promote the students’ development of communicative language skills, provide opportunities for cross-cultural learning, improve English teaching materials and methodologies and enhance teacher training opportunities for local English teachers (EPIK, 2014a; Lee & Seong, 2011; Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology, 2006). The growing number of ETs has also resulted in an increase in coteaching situations, as they are often partnered up with English teachers of Korean nationality to carry out English lessons in the same classroom. The current English program in Korea promotes co-teaching between Korean English teachers (hereafter referred to as ‘KT’) and ETs (Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology, 2006) and, as stated on the EPIK website, such teaching partnerships require the ETs to ‘assist Korean teachers with their English classes, and/or jointly conduct English classes with Korean teachers, and/or extracurricular activities or English camps’ (EPIK, 2014b). With collaborative teaching formats being the default of many English classes in Korea, the success of co-teaching requires teachers to effectively communicate and share their expertise as they work toward delivering co-taught lessons, managing classroom discipline and achieving curricular goals. Tajino and Tajino (2000) argue that teaching partners should have distinctive roles in the classroom while maintaining an open mind in learning from each other. Although this logic sounds intuitively appealing, studies have reported that this is rarely the case. Much of the coteaching literature reveals that the individual roles of the teachers are often left undefi ned, leaving the teachers confused about what they are expected to do and how far they should collaborate (Carless, 2006; Davison, 2006). For example, Hang and Rabren (2009) found that the majority of the teacher pairs viewed themselves as being more responsible for managing student behavior than the other teacher, which suggests that disagreements about teacher roles and responsibilities exist. Studies in the context of Korea also show gaps in the teachers’ perception of co-teacher roles (Jeon, 2010; M. Kim, 2010b; N. Kim, 2012). KTs commonly perceive co-teaching as a practice where ETs take the leading role while KTs simply monitor the lesson or provide incidental grammar or vocabulary instruction. In contrast, ETs prefer the equal division of roles and desire KTs to become more active in the collaborative planning and actual implementation of the lessons. To maximize the potential of both teachers, it has been suggested that a clear set of roles and expectations needs to be provided to both ETs

The ‘Power Game’: Interactional Asymmetries in EFL Collaborative Language Teaching

195

and KTs (Carless, 2006; Chung et al., 1999; J.-O. Kim & Im, 2008), but such improvements require governmental and institutional support whose implementation has lagged in the local context (M. Kim, 2010a). Co-teachers, then, without much guidance, are continuously faced with the reality of discovering, coordinating and adjusting their roles as they move on with the local contingencies of their lesson. Whereas the studies described in this section have explored this topic via surveys and interview data focusing on what the teachers perceive or report as being their desirable responsibilities, this chapter approaches the current reality of teacher roles by viewing it as an interactional phenomenon – a participant concern that is made relevant as the teachers proceed through an unfolding course of instructional actions (Y. Park, 2014). In this chapter, I will employ conversation analysis (CA) to examine those particular moments when interactional asymmetries are made relevant in the ongoing classroom talk. I will focus on the teachers’ practices of legitimating unequal orders of authority, through which one teacher is constructed as the more dominant figure in dealing with student discipline and classroom management. 2 Power in Co-teacher Relationships

Regarding teacher roles1 and partnership, one strand of co-teaching research has predominantly focused on issues of power and status in teacher collaboration. Most of this literature has focused on English as a second language (ESL) contexts to disclose the unequal treatment of ESL teachers in co-teacher relationships. Collaborative teaching practices between ESL and mainstream teachers have been promoted by educational policy developers in the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States as a way of supporting the language learning needs of ESL students as they learn their content-specifi c subjects. While such collaboration may, at fi rst, come across as a simple, straightforward matter, the reality is that ESL teachers and mainstream subject specialists fi nd working together challenging. In DelliCarpini’s (2009) interview study, for instance, ESL teachers reported feeling marginalized and powerless in their co-teaching assignments, saying they were treated more like aides than as co-teachers with equal teacher status. The ESL teachers in Peercy and Martin-Beltran’s (2012) study also confi rmed that their contributions were often viewed as being valueless and that they were expected to run errands for the mainstream teachers rather than to teach together. Other studies that explored teacher talk in classrooms and planning conversations have similarly found that the ESL teachers’ knowledge and skills were positioned as a peripheral matter compared to the general education teachers’ expertise (Arkoudis, 2006; Creese, 2002; Flores, 2012; Martin et  al., 2006). The institutional and societal discourses

196

Part 3: Sociocultural and Ideological Forces in Language Teaching

surrounding ESL associate the subject with the ‘category of deficit’ and view it as an adjunct to the mainstream curriculum (Creese, 2010; McClure & Cahnmann-Taylor, 2010; Talmy, 2008). While subjects such as science and mathematics are valued as established academic subjects, the status of ESL as a subject is often questioned, which results not only in the ESL teacher having a lower status in the co-teaching partnership but also in the classroom. The ESL teacher’s authority to influence the academic curriculum is thus marginalized (Arkoudis, 2007), and despite joint presence and equally divided responsibilities and lesson time, students view the subject teacher as the ‘proper teacher’ and ESL teachers as being only there to help. The context in Korea is different from ESL in that English education is not viewed under a label of deficit, but is rather a subject to which a prestigious status is attributed (Shin, 2007). The hierarchical relations of power and status in co-teaching partners have thus been relatively less investigated, but a few studies suggest that the Korean context has its own issues. In Choi’s (2009) survey study, the ETs reported that coteaching seems like a ‘power game’ of who is going to gain dominance in the lesson. They also indicated that they do not feel like independent teachers whose teaching styles and philosophies are respected, and that when it comes to class management, students are often confused with regard to whom to turn to and whom to listen to. KTs, on the other hand, unanimously voiced their concerns that ETs are mostly unqualified or inexperienced teachers who fall short in their understanding of student needs and the local culture (Jeon, 2010). These reports suggest that teacher partnerships in the Korean context may also involve an unequal distribution of teacher status, roles and rights, but not much understanding has been reached beyond anecdotal reports and teacher perceptions which have been collected through survey and interview data. Before any assertions of dominance and asymmetry can be made, this chapter takes a CA perspective to analyze how the teachers may or may not make relevant such issues in their unfolding courses of classroom interaction. 3 Asymmetry in Interaction

Aside from the interactional asymmetries that are ‘normalized’ as part of the institutional structure, one challenge for CA analysts has been if and how issues of inequality related to institutional roles, stances and constraints can be grounded in a fi ne-grained analysis of social interaction. Schegloff (1991) contended that although social identities (e.g. gender, ethnicity, class, etc.) can be potentially relevant to members in a given setting, an immediate connection between identity ascriptions and any particular episode of interaction is unwarrantable. While Schegloff was not against the possibility of CA addressing sociopolitical

The ‘Power Game’: Interactional Asymmetries in EFL Collaborative Language Teaching

197

issues of power and inequality, he was concerned with analyses that started off with a priori assumptions without regard to what is actually made relevant and consequential in the interaction. According to Schegloff (1997: 166), it is after considering foremost the ‘orientations, meanings, interpretations, understandings, etc. of the participants’ that any analysis of the exogenous forms of power and inequality should follow. Until we are able to pin down the very mechanisms by which the participants themselves orient to and make relevant in the unfolding of the interaction, what we are left with is ‘a sense of how the world works, but without its detailed specification’ (Schegloff, 1992: 106). Once a sequential analysis has been conducted, the data will illuminate the kind of political issues that deserve the analyst’s attention. In doing so, the participants’ orientations may reveal that the sociopolitical is already ‘a constitutive element of the object in the fi rst instance’ (Schegloff, 1997: 170) and that the analyst does not need to import a sociopolitical analysis at all. By far, asymmetries in co-teaching have been discussed in terms of power relations that are attributed to imbalance in teacher status, content expertise, teaching experience and responsibilities (Arkoudis, 2006; Creese, 2010; Flores, 2012; McClure & Cahnmann-Taylor, 2010). Such issues of power, however, have been addressed predominantly through interview studies where teachers were asked to share about the relationship with their co-teacher. Several discourse-analytic studies that looked at the actual discourse of teacher meetings and classroom interaction raise our awareness about the distinct functions and characteristics that emerge from the respective teachers’ talk (Arkoudis, 2006; Creese, 2002, 2005, 2006). For instance, Creese (2002), drawing on semiotic functional approaches, points out that in the classroom the subject teachers discursively performed ownership over their subject area and classroom authority by using the fi rst-person pronoun I to identify with their instruction and the pronoun you to tell the student to act (e.g. ‘I want you to look for three things’). Creese argues that such discursive patterns position the subject teacher ‘as the agent and self-nominated controller of classroom themes and action’ in directing the curriculum focus (Creese, 2006: 608), whereas the frequent absence of I in the ESL teacher’s discourse (e.g. ‘What you must do now’) removes him or her from the ownership of the task (Creese, 2006). Such research foregrounds classroom settings as a potential site, other than interviews, for investigating power asymmetries in teacher partnerships. However, the data are presented as decontextualized strips of sentences, which obscure the context from which the talk emerged. Not only are the teachers’ interactions analyzed as disconnected episodes, but the connection between the pronoun use in the talk between the teachers and the power structures of the institution remains elusive. Therefore, adhering to CA’s theoretical principles, this study examines

198

Part 3: Sociocultural and Ideological Forces in Language Teaching

the interactional relevancies of differential teacher roles and authority as they are invoked by the participants themselves. Despite numerous interview studies that have discussed the existence of power differentials in co-teacher relationships, this study does not preconceive issues of inequality to bear relevance prior to the analysis of the data. Any type of dominance will be explicated in fi ne-grained detail based upon the participants’ own orientations. To investigate how different teacher roles and possible issues of dominance are engendered and negotiated in each teacher pair, I focus on what CA studies have conceptualized as interactional asymmetries, a temporally unfolding process through which participants are positioned and portrayed in relation to each other. This helps us consider the differential roles of the teachers as a momentary, social phenomenon rather than taking them for granted as a predefi ned set of identities that exist a priori in relation to the interaction (J.-E. Park, 2007; Robinson, 2001). 4 Context

The research setting was a private elementary school located in a city of Gyeonggi Province, South Korea. This school can be considered as belonging to the upper edge of elite programs, as it has a high reputation for their innovative teaching approaches and especially for its specialized English education sector. At the time of data collection, the school had been implementing a bilingual education program for two years, and from kindergarten to second grade, two homeroom teachers – one Korean and one American teacher – were assigned per class. Other than sharing a joint oversight over their homeroom students, the two teachers were also required to co-teach content subjects such as math, science and art. The Korean teacher would use both Korean and English during these lessons while the American teachers – despite their possible knowledge of Korean – were only permitted to use English in the school. The rationale for this teaching arrangement was to promote the use of both languages and to ensure ‘a safe and supportive bilingual environment for the students’. 2 5 Research Questions

This study analyzes the teachers’ practices of portraying authority in the classroom, especially in matters of conducting student discipline and classroom management. The data center on the interactional episodes when KT enters ET’s ongoing instructional sequence to insert a revision. Focusing on these interactions, the analysis will demonstrate how the participants orient to asymmetric teacher roles during the lessons, revealing the specific practices through which one teacher becomes constructed as the more dominant figure.

The ‘Power Game’: Interactional Asymmetries in EFL Collaborative Language Teaching

199

6 Methodology 6.1 Data

The entire data corpus was collected across two school years and consists of classroom video-recordings of 97 lesson hours involving six teacher pairs (see Lee, 2015). The focal participants of this study are three teacher pairs from the second grade classes, as the issue of ‘asymmetry’ was a central interactional pattern emerging from these pairs. In the second grade classes, the KTs were mostly experienced senior teachers while the ETs were young, novice teachers in the fi rst or second year of their teaching career. 3 Pair 1 and Pair 2 involve the same Korean male teacher (KT1) but, as each pair was recorded during different school years, the Korean teacher was partnered to work with a diff erent American teacher (ET1, ET 2). Likewise, Pair 3 and Pair 4 have the same Korean female teacher (KT 2), who worked with two different American teachers (ET3, ET4). Table 8.1 summarizes the background information of each teacher. Table 8.1 Description of participants

Pair 1

Pair 2

Pair 3

Pair 4

Gender

Nationality

Teaching experience on site 10 years

KT1

M

Korean

ET1

F

Chinese-American

2 years

KT1

M

Korean

10 years

ET2

F

Korean-American

2 years

KT2

F

Korean

19 years

ET3

F

Korean-American

0.5 years

KT2

F

Korean

19 years

ET4

F

Korean-American

1.5 years

Notes: KT: Korean teacher; ET: American teacher. The numbers in subscript indicate the different individuals.

6.2 Method of analysis

From the classroom data of three second grade teacher pairs, only teacher-led, whole-class interactions of the co-taught science and math lessons were of analytic focus. The data were examined to locate moments that involved the management of classroom contingencies and student discipline, which at the end yielded three hours and four minutes of recordings and 41 interactional episodes. The turn-taking organization, sequential development and turn design of co-teacher talk were then analyzed in detail.

200

Part 3: Sociocultural and Ideological Forces in Language Teaching

Whereas these sequences usually involved a single teacher regulating the interaction, the resulting analysis revealed 19 cases where a coteacher interrupted the other teacher’s instructional activity. One important feature of these cases is that these turns were produced solely by KT. Not a single case, on the other hand, consisted of ET intervening with KT’s ongoing activities in the class. KT’s incursive turns were thereby examined with an interest in the participants’ orientations to the institutional, social or moral order that organizes their momentary coteacher relationships. One recurrent pattern involved KT constructing interactional dominance by means of suspending ET’s current actions and inserting remedial proposals through declaratives and imperatives. ET, in the meantime, would comply with KT’s orders and suggestions. Here, the interaction comprises an asymmetrical distribution of epistemic stances, entitlements and control toward a proposed activity, but they are not generally contested by the participants. A few cases, however, show ET’s disaffi liation with the trajectory suggested by KT, which makes visible the participants’ tension in negotiating their respective institutional roles, rights and responsibilities. Based on this fi nal collection, the analytic fi ndings will be discussed in the next section with selected excerpts. The analysis draws on the principles and methodology of applied CA (e.g. Antaki, 2011; Heritage, 2004; Seedhouse, 2004; see also Greer, this volume) and is also informed by the growing body of research on embodied interaction (e.g. Goodwin, 2000; Mondada, 2014; Nevile, 2015; Streeck et al., 2011; see also aus der Wieschen & Eskildsen, this volume). The participants’ talk was transcribed according to the CA transcription conventions for English (Jeff erson, 2004) and Korean (Y. Kim, 2009). The Korean transcriptions are provided in three-tier lines that involve Yale romanizations of Korean, interlinear glossings and idiomatic translations. The participants’ embodied conduct was also added on a separate line beneath the vocal line of the transcript (Have, 1999).

7 Findings

The analysis shows that the participants deploy verbal, sequential and nonvocal resources to orient to an asymmetrical distribution of teacher roles, authority, and rights to regulate classroom contingencies at that particular instructional moment. The analysis will be presented alongside two sections: fi rst, I will present (a) three cases of asymmetry where KT’s incursive turns are met with ET’s reluctant compliance; then I will show (b) two other cases of asymmetry where ET more explicitly shows resistance toward KT’s intervention.

The ‘Power Game’: Interactional Asymmetries in EFL Collaborative Language Teaching

201

7.1 Asymmetries with compliance

The first excerpt involves a second grade classroom where rewards are offered in the form of heart stickers when a student group completes the prescribed work and behaves well according to the teacher’s directions. The group with the most hearts at the end of the semester has been promised a prize. Excerpt 8.1 starts with ET issuing a directive and an announcement that she will be distributing hearts to those student groups that exhibit the desired behavior. Here, ET performs the leading teacher role in the sense of independently regulating student activities. The focus of this second grade lesson is to teach the students how to count in tens. The students have been practicing the counting through a choral chant, and in this excerpt ET announces that she will offer a heart to the student group that shows the best performance in saying the chant. KT is not captured in this camera angle, but she is standing on the right side of the heart sticker chart. Excerpt 8.1 I’ll give a heart [2H-120709-M062-56:38] 256 ET3: 257

I’ll give a heart (.) to one group °that has best° +(3.3) +((Ss sitting up straight)) 258 te:n, (.) twenty, (.) thirty=forty=fifty! 259 ((points both index fingers to Ss)) 260 Ss: te:n, (.) twenty, (.) thirty=forty=fifty! 261 Bin: tteli=tteli=tteli 262 +(1.2) +((ET maintains gaze at Ss))

#8.1.1

#8.1.2

263→ ET3: okay:: +((moves toward chart)) +(IMG #8.1.1) 264→ KT2: I don’t think::, +Joy group ++has a (.) heart. +((ET looks at KT)) (IMG #8.1.2) +((KT points at Ss)) ++((ET looks at Ss)) 265 266→ 267 268 269 270

(0.5) one more. +one more time= +((ET looks at KT)) ET3: =+one more time? okay ++(0.6) +((ET looks at Ss)) ++((moves toward center of classroom)) te:n, (.) twenty, (.) thirty=forty=fifty! ((points both index fingers to Ss)) Ss: te:n, (.) twenty, (.) thirty=forty=fifty!=

202

Part 3: Sociocultural and Ideological Forces in Language Teaching

#8.1.3

#8.1.4

271→

+(0.6) +((ET looks at KT)) ---> (IMG #8.1.3) 272→ +(1.3) +((ET slowly walks to chart)) (IMG #8.1.4) 273→ KT2: Soyung-i (.) you didn’t do ri:ght? (name) 274 (0.8) 275 Soyung:+yay-to an-hay-ss-nuntey-yo he-also not-do-PST-but-POL ‘he didn’t do it either’ +((points to another student)) 276 (0.6) 277 you didn’t do. (.) ri:ght? 278 (0.8) 279 +did you do:? +((ET walks toward center)) 280 (0.9) 281 did you follow teacher? 282 (0.6) 283 I can’t hear you. Joy:: and patience no. 284 (1.3) 285→ okay the last time. one more. 286 ET3: okay:: te:n, (.) twenty, (.) thirty=forty=fifty! 287 ((points both index fingers to Ss)) 288 Ss: te:n, (.) twenty, (.) thirty=forty=fifty! 289 (0.5) 290→ KT2: peace too. +(0.6) ex:cept Joy: (.) peace. patience? +((ET turns around & moves to chart)) 291 +thi::s, four groups has, (0.4) yeah. they can get. +((KT points to groups in the front row))

#8.1.5 292→ ET3: +°love ++faith kindness and +++goodness¿° +((looks at KT)) ++((looks at Ss)) +++((looks at KT))(IMG #8.1.5) 293

(0.3)

294

((turns to face the chart and puts a heart next to the groups ‘love,’ faith,’ ‘kindness,’ and ‘goodness’))

The ‘Power Game’: Interactional Asymmetries in EFL Collaborative Language Teaching

203

The heart-giving sequence is launched by ET’s announcement (line 256) and, prefaced with a first-person pronoun I, ET establishes herself as the agent of the heart-giving activity (Creese, 2006). Up to line 263, ET portrays an independent teacher role of announcing the start of a reward sequence, eliciting student repetition, monitoring the students and engaging in spatial movement that marks a shift to the heart-giving activity. ET, by means of her transition-implicative okay and her embodied actions of walking toward the heart chart, displays that she is ready to move on and nominate the student recipients of the hearts (line 263, IMG #8.1.1). KT, however, puts a halt to this transition as she points to the Joy group, disqualifying them from receiving a heart (line 264, IMG #8.1.2), and issues a directive that asks ET to repeat the choral chant (line 266). KT’s intervention results in ET stopping midway in her movements, shifting her gaze to KT and delaying her engagement with the hearts (line 264, IMG #8.1.2) Whereas ET had initially constructed her primary rights to take the lead in the heart-giving activity, KT’s entrance not only interferes with ET’s projected course of action, but also reverses the sequence to its starting point. That KT was able to publicly draw attention to a group of less participatory students mobilizes her co-teacher rights to exert control over the direction of the activity. ET, on the other hand, relinquishes her control by waiting in silence, verbally accepting the requested action, moving away from the heart chart and reinitiating the choral repetition with the students. The impact of KT’s intervention does not stop here but continues in the ensuing interaction. ET repeats the choral chant with the students for the second time (lines 268–270), but unlike the first time when she immediately moved toward the chart upon its completion, we see that ET holds her position and fi xates her gaze at KT (line 271). ET’s gaze shift is followed by a 0.6-second pause, which evidences that ET ‘tacitly addresses’ KT (Lerner, 1993; Stivers, 2010) and is waiting for KT to produce the next relevant action. The lack of follow-up leads ET to slowly relocate herself toward the chart, possibly orienting to the pause as a silent approval to proceed with awarding the hearts (line 272, IMG #8.1.4). But even as she moves, ET’s gaze is maintained at KT and her arms clasped behind her back embody her with the withholding of unsolicited actions (line 272, IMG #8.1.4). It is this package of nonvocal conduct that not only projects but also licenses KT’s authority to steer the direction of the activity. Here, ET’s actions configure KT as the one who now dictates the progression of the heart-giving sequence, which instantiates a re-mapping of teacher roles and their portrayed authority. ET’s gaze and her gradual movement toward the heart sticker chart embodies ET’s expectation that KT will announce the student recipients. Counter to ET’s projection, however, KT does not grant the commencement of the reward activity and instead engages in an extended disciplinary sequence of admonishing students who failed to participate in the

204

Part 3: Sociocultural and Ideological Forces in Language Teaching

chant (lines 273–283). This leads KT to issue another directive that necessitates ET to revisit the choral repetition for the third time (line 285). After ET completes the third round of repetition, KT disqualifies another student group (line 290) and makes the fi nal announcement to those that are granted her approval to receive the hearts (line 291). Although ET was originally the teacher who launched the heart-giving sequence, we see that KT self-establishes her rights and authority to take the lead in appointing the qualified groups. ET does not add her own selection of student groups, nor does KT ask for ET’s opinion on her choices. When ET fi nally enters a self-selected turn (line 292), she gazes at KT and repeats with a rising intonation the four groups that were designated by KT. This confirmation request further displays her acquiescence toward KT’s leading role and demonstrates her sensitivity to accurately rewarding those selected groups. In this excerpt, we see KT exercising her control not only over the nomination of heart recipients but also over ET’s instructional role in the sequence. ET, who initially demonstrated ‘ownership’ over the chant and heart-giving system, is repositioned as an ‘animator’ (Goff man, 1981) whose actions are reliant upon KT’s cues. KT’s intervention leads to a reconfiguration of teacher authority, and especially to an asymmetrical one in which the two teachers occupy different participation roles. The role of one teacher conveys higher entitlement and authority as she asks for the compliance of the co-teacher and the students. In contrast, the other teacher is restricted to a less active role of simply accepting the co-teacher’s student nominations and placing the hearts on the chart accordingly. Excerpt 8.2 shows another type of teacher asymmetry in conducting classroom management where KT enters in an incursive turn to insert a disciplinary sequence. Whereas ET in Excerpt 8.1 did not take part in conducting student discipline, ET in this class initiates a reprimanding sequence. Here, ET is leading a science lesson on living and nonliving things, and KT is sitting in a chair that is placed in the front of the classroom. Prior to this excerpt, ET was by the computer (which is out of the camera angle), and she had been using a PowerPoint slide to compare the different features between living and nonliving things. But as she tries to present the features of nonliving things, she discovers that one student group is not playing attention (line 06). Excerpt 8.2 please go faster [2C-120613-36:04] 01 02 03 04 05 06

07

ET1: +boys and girls these are a:ll living things (0.4) +((KT gazes downward)) nonliving things (0.5) don’t (.) move. NOT (.) moving (0.4) [okay¿ KT1: [sh:: (1.2) ET1: let’s +read it together +((Ss in group ‘patience’ are touching the gamecards on the table)) (3.2)

The ‘Power Game’: Interactional Asymmetries in EFL Collaborative Language Teaching

08

09 10 11 12

13

14→ 15 16 17→ 18 19 20 21 22 23

205

+table Patience (0.8) +((walks towards the screen))

#8.2.1 +hand free¿ please don’t touch +((holds up both hands)) (IMG #8.2.1) (2.0) don’t touch please. (0.4) thank you (0.3) Semi?

#8.2.2 +(1.2) +((slowly walks backwards with both hands held up)) (IMG #8.2.2)

#8.2.3 KT1: +they’d like to know: (0.6) wh- which is (0.4) +((KT looks up & gazes at ET)) (IMG #8.2.3) which are= ET1: =okay= KT1: =living or: so (.) please go faster= ET1: =o(h)kay: KT1: so yeah. ET1: okay:: ready? everybody together:: (.) don’t move Ss: don’t move ET1: don’t breathe Ss: don’t breathe

ET temporarily suspends the choral reading activity to reproach the inappropriate behavior of one student group. The reprimand is conducted over several turns. ET summons the student group (line 8), explicitly reproaches

206

Part 3: Sociocultural and Ideological Forces in Language Teaching

the untoward behavior (lines 9, 11), waits for students to comply with a directive (line 10) and produces an appreciation of the students’ compliance (line 11), which terminates the inserted sequence. During this disciplining sequence, KT had been maintaining a downward gaze (IMG #8.2.1, #8.2.2). When ET directs her reproach to an individual student and waits for her compliance (lines 12–13), however, KT looks up, gazes at ET, and launches an account for the students’ behavior: they want to move on to learning about the features of living things (lines 14–17, IMG #8.2.3). With respect to epistemic access, at least two social norms are oriented to by KT: speakers should not inform recipients with information they already have access to (Sacks, 1992; Stivers et al., 2011) and, relatedly, speakers should make assertions only when they have sufficient knowledge and rights to do so (Heritage & Raymond, 2005). Then, by proffering the information, KT treats ET as ‘unknowing’ while KT is conversely constructed as the primary ‘knower’ of student affairs, a participant that has the epistemic superiority to direct ET’s management of the lesson. ET, as a coteacher in lead, also shares the institutional expectation and responsibility to be aware of such matters, but with KT publicly informing ET about the students’ needs, ET is placed into a relative ‘K-position’ (Heritage, 2012), which in effect issues a threat to ET’s institutional competence. The imperative formulation of KT’s directive (‘please go faster’) also deserves analytic attention (line 17). Imperative forms of requests in English are fairly uncommon in most adult–adult conversations and even come across as an invasive or face-threatening action (Brown & Levinson, 1987). For that reason, imperatives are often deferred by the speaker until less entitled types of request forms fail to elicit a conforming response (Curl & Drew, 2008). However, in this excerpt, KT displays his commitment to change the course of ET’s instruction by pairing the imperative with a more urgent teacher obligation. Although ET may equally hold the right to make such choices, KT does not indicate in any way that the required action is contingent upon ET’s approval. KT’s directive can, therefore, be viewed as a display of his superordinate status, as it is a highly entitled move that projects a requirement for ET’s compliance. ET acquiesces to KT’s position with a latched o(h)kay: (line 18), and she responds with a complying action by resuming the lesson (line 20). It is worth noting, however, that ET’s o(h)kay: is embedded with a breath token. In other words, ET’s acceptance is produced as a preferred response and an aligning move to KT’s directive, but the breathiness projects a less affiliative stance than a firm okay would have carried. This possibly orients to the forceful nature of KT’s imperative or it could be a display of ET’s stance toward the interruption. Regardless, due to ET’s compliance, the interaction results in a ratification of KT’s directive. The next excerpt is another case of KT issuing a correction of ET’s instruction, but this time the nature of the interaction is different in that it involves not only a disalignment but also a disaffiliative stance toward ET’s

The ‘Power Game’: Interactional Asymmetries in EFL Collaborative Language Teaching

207

materials and instructions (Stivers, 2008). Excerpt 8.3 is a second grade lesson on countries in Asia. Using a PowerPoint presentation, ET introduced different Asian countries with information about their location, weather, food and culture. ET then distributed a handout with a blank map which required the students to write down the name of each country next to its location. As both teachers walked around the classroom providing assistance to the groups, several students approached the teachers with questions. KT then discovers a stack of color-printed maps that were placed on a desk in front of the classroom. These maps clearly identify the locations of the countries, and thus are virtually the ‘answer sheets’ to the current activity. The following excerpt occurs when KT picks up these maps and walks over to ET to suggest that they be used by the students to complete the assigned activity. Excerpt 8.3 it’s too hard for them [2H-131120-4-41:11] 411→ 412 413 414→ 415

416→

KT2: +Miss Chu can you give them ++(0.6) +((walks toward ET)) ++((shakes color map)) this paper ET4: oh should we KT2: yeah! cuz it’s too ↑hard for them. ET4: +okay= +((looks at handout))

#8.3.1 ++mos-han-tako cannot-do‘they can’t do it’ +((KT shakes head)) ++((KT shakes left hand)) (IMG #8.3.1) ++((ET starts walking to the front of classroom))

KT2: =they +can’t do it

417 418

419 420

Ss:

(0.3) +ca:: yay-tul-a:: (0.3) yeki pw-a: okay kid-PL-VOC here see-DC ‘okay kids, look here’ +((takes the handout back from ET) eyes on the? teacher

#8.3.2

208

421 422 423 424 425 426 427 428

429 430

Part 3: Sociocultural and Ideological Forces in Language Teaching

KT2: +teacher will give you this paper? +(IMG #8.3.2) and then you: (0.3) you look? (.) this map and then you (0.3) write (0.6) write the country (0.4) can you do that? Ss: yes KT2: yeki ta iss-e >yay-tul-a< here everything exist-DC kid-PL-VOC po-ko ta ssu-nun-ke-ya look-and everything write-ATTR-thing-DC ‘everything’s on the worksheet you guys you just have to look and write’ (0.6) kak motwum-uy ppalkangi nao-seyo each group-of red color person come out-POL ‘the red color helper of each group, please come out’

#8.3.3 431

+((Ss stand up & KT passes out new worksheets)) +(IMG #8.3.3)

Having found a different set of maps, KT walks up to ET and asks her to distribute them to the students (lines 411–412). Here, KT initially makes a request using an interrogative form that starts with the modal verb can. Positive interrogatives as such make a yes-no acceptance consequential in the next turn and, in effect, display the high entitlement of the speaker (Lindström, 2005). The format of KT’s request thus orients to ET’s role as the leading teacher to approve the proposition and subsequently to announce and explain the introduction of another handout. ET acknowledges this request with a turn-initial oh, but instead of providing an acceptance or rejection, she reverses the recipiency of the question with should we (line 413). While KT had provided ET with the rights to judge the acceptability of her proposal, we see that ET does not align with that decision-making position. A noteworthy observation is that, in contrast to the second person pronoun in KT’s request can you (line 411), ET’s interrogative involves an inclusive we. The different use of pronouns displays an incongruence in their discursive construction of teacher responsibilities. Contrary to KT, who treats the delivery of instructions as being part of ET’s individual role, ET constitutes the remedying of the lesson as a joint

The ‘Power Game’: Interactional Asymmetries in EFL Collaborative Language Teaching

209

responsibility that invites a possible exchange of opinions between the two teachers. As the floor is returned to KT, she first provides a response yeah! (line 414). Its exclamatory tone constructs the affirmative answer as the obvious, which in effect questions ET’s should we. KT then accounts for disaligning with ET’s projected action and, by extension, for challenging ET’s assessment of the students’ ability. Notice that KT’s account involves a declarative assessment that demonstrates her strong entitlement in making judgments about the suitability of the handout. After ET receives the new handouts and offers an agreement token okay (line 415), KT reasserts in both English and Korean that the level of the current handout is beyond the students’ abilities (line 416). Challenging the co-teacher’s materials in the middle of the lesson is a face-threatening, disaffiliative action. Yet KT makes assessments of ET’s handouts with high certainty and directness, and the accentuated ↑hard (line 414), the Korean stance marker -tako (line 416), KT’s hand gesture, head shake and stern facial expression (IMG #8.3.1) publicly display KT’s disaffi liative stance. Packaged together, they notably mark the turn as a complaint about the unsuitable handout (Selting, 2012). To this point, we see that ET’s should we (line 413) is met with KT’s unilateral display of accounts and complaints. ET does not challenge KT’s proposal and simply acquiesces with a minimal response okay (line 415). Shortly after receiving the handouts, ET starts to move toward the front of the classroom, possibly orienting to her role to issue the new instruction to the students (line 416). Before ET reaches the front of the class, however, KT takes them back, solicits the students (lines 418–420), announces the new instruction (lines 421–428), and distributes the handouts herself (lines 430–431). This move cancels KT’s initial request that oriented to ET’s right to deliver the new set of handouts. Without asking for ET’s consent, KT takes the leading role of explaining the handouts, during which ET stands in silence and with her gaze averted from KT and the students (IMG #8.3.2, #8.3.3). ET then engages in a self-grooming behavior, displaying her momentary disengagement from leading the class. In Excerpts 8.1–8.3, KT’s intervention results in either reversing, halting or revising ET’s instructional activity. While ET is occupied with her instruction, KT constitutes the relevance of inserting a remedial or disciplinary business as one that is of greater priority than ET’s projected course of action, presenting his or her own judgment of the situation irrespective of its effect upon the speaker’s face. We also see ET being positioned as an ‘animator’ of KT’s directions or an ‘un-knower’ of student affairs, which can come across as a public threat to the agency and institutional role that ET may hold. At times, ETs display alternative orientations to this asymmetry, as in the breathy o(h)kay: (Excerpt 8.2) and should we (Excerpt 8.3). These turns show the subtle negotiation of momentary co-teacher relationships as ETs insinuate a disaffiliative stance

210

Part 3: Sociocultural and Ideological Forces in Language Teaching

toward KT’s unilateral control and refer to classroom management as a joint endeavor. In these cases, however, KT’s incursive turns are rarely challenged nor followed by ET’s co-participation, which licenses KT with the authority to dictate the progression of the lesson sequence. 7.2 Asymmetries with explicit resistance

Whereas the previous section centered on cases where ET reluctantly complied with KT’s interventions, this section will present episodes of co-teacher disaffiliation where ET more strongly objects to KT’s interventions. Excerpt 8.4 involves a class with ‘learning centers’, which is a oncea-week session where students move around different stations in the classroom (e.g. reading station, computer station, game station, etc.) to complete a wide range of activities. In this excerpt, two students, Jimin and Hyoyun, are ahead of the other students in that they have already completed some of the activities during the previous week’s session. As a result, ET reorganizes the student groups as a way of preventing the two students from having to repeat the same activity. Excerpt 8.4 it doesn’t matter [2C-131026-BK-1-58:10]

52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60→ 61 62 63 64→ 65 66 67 68→ 69 70 71

ET2: um, (0.5) lily and rose, (.) Jimin and Hyoyun you need to finish¿ (0.4) learning center with your group. (0.8) okay? so (0.5) uh Jimin you will go with, (.) Ro:se? and then Hyoyun >you will go with Lily< just for (.) today lesson (0.3) okay? [and thenKT1: [then Mi- Miss Ko?=impossible (0.7) ET2: cuz they might have already done it. (1.2) KT1: it- it doesn’t matter= ET2: =it doesn’t matter?= KT1: =yes= ET2: =they’ll do [it again? KT1: [>yes yes< +(3.2) +((ET sorts through worksheets)) ET2: daffodil::, (.) computer: ((gives worksheets to daffodil group))

Right after ET makes special arrangements for Jimin and Hyoyun, ET’s instruction is interrupted by KT’s overlapping turn (line 60). Prefacing the turn with an inference marker then, KT summons ET with a prefatory address term (Clayman, 2013), and puts forward an objection that characterizes ET’s previous instruction as impossible (line 60). This ‘extreme case formulation’ (ECF) (Edwards, 2000; Pomerantz, 1986) not

The ‘Power Game’: Interactional Asymmetries in EFL Collaborative Language Teaching

211

only displays KT’s critical stance toward the new arrangement but because its extremity can be vulnerable to contention, the ECF also projects an account. Counter to this expectation, however, KT’s turn is absent of any accounts, possibly indexing his authority to evaluate ET’s instructional arrangement. In response, ET provides an account for her revising of the student groups (line 62), indicating that having a student repeat a previously completed task is a situation that a teacher should avoid. So when KT says it doesn’t matter (line 64), treating the rearrangement of student groups as if it was an unnecessary move, ET repeats it with rising intonation (line 65), which expects KT to explain the reasoning behind this claim. KT does not elaborate, however, and provides only a one-word affirmative response (line 66). ET challenges KT’s suggestion once again, by pointing out the problematic consequence of not rearranging the groups (line 67), but even before she reaches her turn completion, KT overlaps it with two consecutive yes’s without giving any further account (line 68). Through the multiple sayings of affirmation tokens, KT cancels further expansion and curtails the sequence (Stivers, 2004). ET then abandons the side sequence of teacher–teacher talk, averts her gaze and proceeds to distribute the worksheets to the student groups (lines 69–71). In this excerpt, KT’s comment not only subverts ET’s initial instructional plan, but it is also delivered in a way that portrays his unwillingness to reconsider his suggestion. In response, ET makes several attempts to resist this intervention with an account, repetition and question, but as her challenges fail to get through, she eventually concedes to KT’s objection. Whereas in the previous excerpts the asymmetrical participant roles of the teachers are construed by their actions and interactional positions, the last excerpt shows a case where KT explicitly verbalizes his superior rights for disciplining the students. Another diff erence in Excerpt 8.5 is that KT’s asserted position is not complied with, but met with ET’s explicit resistance. Here, it is a second grade class where ET is in the front of the classroom, leading a game of bingo. She is about to call out the fi rst item, but stops because the students are overly noisy and inattentive. Excerpt 8.5 that is my role [2C-131026-30:42] 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45→ 46 47 48→

ET2:

KT1: ET2: KT1:

okay number one:: ((kids still talking)) I will wait until you’re quiet (1.3) ((goes up to a student and taps his head with a folder)) sh:: (0.7) Miss Ko (0.4) [okay [Miss Ko

212

Part 3: Sociocultural and Ideological Forces in Language Teaching

#8.5.1 49

ET2:

50→

KT1:

+((looks at KT)) +(IMG #8.5.1) that is my: role.

#8.5.2 51

ET2:

52 53 54 55 56 57

KT1: ET2: KT1: Ss: KT1: Ss:

o(h)kay(hh)(0.4) +I’m going to do it too +((grins)) (IMG #8.5.2) yeah=no sh:: second grade class? (0.6) five:mouth:! zip mouth:: zip

As ET fails in her first attempt to quieten down all of the students, she walks up to one of the talking boys and taps him on the head with a file folder (line 42). KT, who had been standing near one of the teacher’s desks, summons ET (lines 45, 48), and after establishing mutual gaze (IMG #8.5.1), characterizes her disciplinary action as one that trespasses the boundaries of KT’s role (line 50). The accentuated my: carries an evaluative import of categorizing ET’s action as a wrongdoing, and the falling intonation indexes a disaffiliative stance which, in combination, makes KT’s turn hearable as a reprimand. Reprimanding a co-teacher for her conduct in public is a challenging action. ET thus orients to the facethreatening nature of KT’s turn with a dispreferred, breathy okay, and rejects the content of the reprimand, saying that she is also entitled to discipline the student. ET’s facial expression also consists of a slanted half grin which comes off as a display of mitigated irritation (IMG #8.5.2).

The ‘Power Game’: Interactional Asymmetries in EFL Collaborative Language Teaching

213

The disaffiliation between the two teachers escalates as KT’s uptake takes the form of an explicit negation. KT’s no simply cancels out ET’s attempts to defend her rights to conduct student discipline, which by nature is a strongly argumentative move (line 52). ET does not orient to this turn, but instead resumes her previous activity of class management by starting with a shush and follows it with a summons of the entire class (line 53). However, as ET tries to count back from five to give the students time to calm down, KT intervenes and takes over the floor to engage the students in joint activity that forces them to abandon their illicit behavior (lines 54–57). The co-teacher interaction in this excerpt is different in that the ET’s disciplinary actions are explicitly prohibited by KT. KT’s assertion for unilateral control, ET’s resistance and KT’s intervention for student discipline point to tensions regarding the division of disciplinary roles in the classroom. In this excerpt, it is KT that eventually regains control, and ET’s role in managing the class is marginalized as a result. 8 Discussion

This chapter examined the teacher roles and authority as they were occasioned in the unfolding interaction of co-taught lessons. The main interest centered on investigating the interactional asymmetries that involved the teachers’ display of authority in disciplining students. The data illustrated that the interactional style taken by KT consisted of monopolizing the student reward system of giving hearts (Excerpt 8.1), inserting remedial comments via interruptive turns, directives and declarative statements (Excerpts 8.2, 8.4), appropriating the leading role after issuing a complaint (Excerpt 8.3), and explicitly prohibiting ET from engaging in student discipline (Excerpt 8.5). These actions are not only invasive and face-threatening to the leading role that ET claims in the lesson, but they also mobilize issues concerning asymmetry and authority in managing the students’ behavioral conduct. While KT’s interventions portrayed control and dominance over ET’s projected course of actions, it may have also been the urgency of the situation that afforded KT with more leeway to claim greater entitlement and show less awareness of ET’s instructional contingencies. It was not the case in this chapter that the tone of the co-teacher interactions was overly oppressive or unfriendly, and despite some tensions, ET conceded to the invoked asymmetries most of the time. Such compliance could be an orientation to KT’s seniority both in terms of age and teaching experience, with KT sensitizing the novice teacher to practices that help them sustain the instructional floor and secure student attention. In fact, the ETs that participated in J.-O. Kim and Im’s (2008) survey study reported that KTs are needed for classroom management, and using Korean is considered more effective than English for conducting student discipline (Shin, 2012).

214

Part 3: Sociocultural and Ideological Forces in Language Teaching

This aspect points to the possibilities that collaborative teaching arrangements bring to EFL classrooms, as the local Korean teacher seeks to complement the limitations of the less experienced native-speaking teacher (S.J. Kim, 2011). An important note, however, needs to be made regarding the nature of KT’s interventions. For the teacher pair in Y. Park’s (2014) study, the non-leading teachers’ disciplinary actions were configured in a way that minimized interference with the leading teacher’s talk. Such sensitivities point to the participants’ orientations to balancing the tasks of solving instructional urgency and treating the other teacher as an adult colleague of equal status. Conversely, KT’s actions in this study were rather intrusive, frequently assuming the role of a dominant figure and restricting ET’s management and regulation of student behavior. The contrastive interactional organization, then, implies that the dynamic shown in this chapter is not a normative asymmetry involved in all co-teaching interaction. Despite being granted with the same homeroom teacher status, the teachers’ interactional patterns confi rmed different orders of institutional authority which did not convey an egalitarian collaborative relationship. The unequal teacher roles and authority thereby require further investigation, as they are, after all, exhibits of the teachers’ institutional identities that the students are exposed to in the classroom. Optimal forms of co-teacher relationships have been discussed in terms of ‘communities of professional equals committed to continuous improvement’ (Hargreaves, 1994: 204), but this chapter reveals that imbalances in teacher partnership exist as a locally observable phenomenon. While educational and institutional policies on teacher collaboration often assume that the professional relationship between co-teachers is unproblematic and uncomplicated (Arkoudis, 2006), this study shows that teacher collaboration is a practice that requires more than simply placing teachers together, and with CA as its methodology it analyzes the relevance of differential power status within teacher pairs. Teachers construct asymmetric relationships between them through their interactional practices as they orient to differences in their positions in the institutional hierarchy of the school. Unlike the widespread assumption that teachers do not need guidance in developing collaborative relations, this fi nding implies that teacher partnership requires sensitive considerations of interactional practices that unfairly place one teacher into a subordinate position in the classroom. 9 Practical Implications

The analytic findings produce significant implications for teacher education, which until now has not addressed such power issues between KTs and ETs in the Korean EFL context. To enhance the complementarity that co-teaching offers, collaborating teachers may benefit from institutional

The ‘Power Game’: Interactional Asymmetries in EFL Collaborative Language Teaching

215

support as in certain interventions that allow for critical reflection and discussion. Professional development workshops, for instance, could adopt Stokoe’s (2014) conversation analytic role-play method (CARM), where participants are given opportunities to observe video-recordings of asymmetric co-teacher interaction, and then in small groups identify, evaluate and discuss more collaborative and democratic forms of assisting the less experienced teacher. By engaging in sustained and productive dialogues as such, the teachers can be aware of communicative practices that are less controlling, and instead foster mentoring relationships that mutually protect and support important spaces for effective collaboration. The emergent suggestions can then be compiled into a protocol that teachers use to refi ne their communicative skills and strategies for realizing collaborative talk in the classroom. The fi ndings of this study demonstrated that, through specific interactional practices, ETs, in comparison to KTs, were often positioned into a relegated teacher status. The inequality in these relationships may restrict the full potential of co-teaching benefits and fall short of maximizing the respective strengths of ETs and KTs. Yet it would be premature to simply treat collaborative teaching arrangements as a constraint to effective EFL instruction. The unequal institutional authority can be contested, as when the ETs displayed their resistance through reluctant compliance and overt disaffiliation. As the teachers’ awareness is brought to their asymmetric interactional patterns, it is possible for them to renegotiate their roles and develop communicative practices that display more egalitarian forms of collaboration. The discussion of such inequality, as shown in this chapter, is what leads us one step closer toward realizing the inherent possibilities of collaborative EFL teaching. Of course, more examples of co-teacher interaction will need to be collected and analyzed to fully investigate the representativeness of this interactional pattern in the Korean context. Another topic for further inquiry is the extent to which classroom contexts of co-teaching are indexical of larger discussions, debates and discourses on the English education policy of South Korea. Increased awareness of the links between classroom practices and societal-level discourses can be an important step toward revealing any marginalization involved in conceptualizations of teacher collegiality. By extension, it is also hoped that this dialogue will promote policy and institutional support that may establish and sustain equality in collaborative teaching partnerships. Notes (1) I should note that the term ‘role’ has been discussed and reconceptualized in CA literature as ‘identity’ (see Antaki & Widdicombe, 1998; Benwell & Stokoe, 2006). Under a CA lens, identity ascriptions are not preconceived labels but constructions that are demonstrably oriented to by participants’ actions in interaction. In a similar light, I use the term ‘role’ in this chapter not in its vernacular sense, but as a specific

216

Part 3: Sociocultural and Ideological Forces in Language Teaching

type of institutional identity that is being contingently accomplished and distributed within an immediate interactional context. Why I choose to use ‘role’ instead of ‘identity’ is to refer to categorical memberships in a narrower meaning than ‘who people are to each other’ (Benwell & Stokoe, 2006: 6), foregrounding the division of teacher obligations and responsibilities that the co-teachers achieve in and through classroom interaction (e.g. leading teacher, mediator, supervisor, etc.). (2) This is a direct quote from the institution’s teacher manual which was distributed in 2014. (3) KT and ET are terms that are used in the school under study.

References Antaki, C. (2011) Applied Conversation Analysis: Intervention and Change in Institutional Talk. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Antaki, C. and Widdicombe, S. (1998) Identities in Talk. London: Sage. Arkoudis, S. (2006) Negotiating the rough ground between ESL and mainstream teachers. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 9 (4), 415–433. Arkoudis, S. (2007) Collaborating in ESL education in schools. In J. Cummins and C.  Davison (eds) International Handbook of English Language Teaching (pp. 365–377). New York: Springer. Benwell, B. and Stokoe, E. (2006) Discourse and Identity. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Brown, P. and Levinson, S.C. (1987) Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Carless, D.R. (2006) Good practices in team teaching in Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong. System 34 (3), 341–351. Choi, H. (2009) A study on team teaching between native teachers of English and Korean English teachers in elementary schools. Studies in English Education 14 (1), 161–189. Chung, G.-J., Min, C.-K. and Park, M.-R. (1999) A study of team teaching for the utility of the native English teachers in the elementary and the secondary school. English Teaching 54 (2), 201–227. Clayman, S.E. (2013) Agency in response: The role of prefatory address terms. Journal of Pragmatics 57, 290–302. Cook, V. (1999) Going beyond the native speaker in language teaching. TESOL Quarterly 33 (2), 185–209. Creese, A. (2002) The discursive construction of power in teacher partnerships: Language and subject specialists in mainstream schools. TESOL Quarterly 36 (4), 597–616. Creese, A. (2005) Teacher Collaboration and Talk in Multilingual Classrooms. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Creese, A. (2006) Supporting talk? Partnership teachers in classroom interaction. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 9 (4), 434–453. Creese, A. (2010) Two-teacher classrooms, personalized learning and the inclusion paradigm in the United Kingdom: What’s in it for Learners of EAL? In K. Menken and O. García (eds) Negotiating Language Policies in Schools: Educators as Policymakers (pp. 32–51). Hoboken, NJ: Routledge. Curl, T.S. and Drew, P. (2008) Contingency and action: A comparison of two forms of requesting. Research on Language and Social Interaction 41 (2), 129–153. Davison, C. (2006) Collaboration between ESL and content teachers: How do we know when we are doing it right? International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 9 (4), 454– 475. DelliCarpini, M. (2009) Dialogues across disciplines: Preparing English as a second language teachers for interdisciplinary collaboration. Current Issues in Education 11. Retrieved from https://cie.asu.edu/ojs/index.php/cieatasu/article/view/1573

The ‘Power Game’: Interactional Asymmetries in EFL Collaborative Language Teaching

217

Edwards, D. (2000) Extreme case formulations: Softeners, investment, and doing nonliteral. Research on Language and Social Interaction 33 (4), 347–373. EPIK (2014a) Rationale. See https://www.epik.go.kr/contents.do?contentsNo= 85&menuNo=335 (accessed 25 September 2014). EPIK (2014b) Teaching conditions. See https://www.epik.go.kr/contents.do?contentsNo= 52&menuNo=284 (accessed 25 September 2014). Firth, A. and Wagner, J. (1997) On discourse, communication, and (some) fundamental concepts in SLA research. The Modern Language Journal 81 (3), 285–300. Flores, N. (2012) Power differentials: Pseudo-collaboration between ESL and mainstream teachers. In A. Honigsfeld and D.G. Dove (eds) Co-teaching and Other Collaborative Practices in the EFL/ESL Classroom: Rationale, Research, Reflections, and Recommendations (pp. 185–193). Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Goff man, E. (1981) Forms of Talk. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Goodwin, C. (2000) Action and embodiment within situated human interaction. Journal of Pragmatics 32, 1489–1522. Hang, Q. and Rabren, K. (2009) An examination of co-teaching: Perspectives and efficacy indicators. Remedial and Special Education 35 (5), 259–268. Have, P.t. (1999) Doing Conversation Analysis: A Practical Guide. London: Sage. Hargreaves, A. (1994) Collaboration and contrived collegiality: Cup of comfort or poisoned chalice? In A. Hargreaves (ed.) Changing Teachers, Changing Times (pp. 186–211). London: Cassell. Heritage, J. (2004) Conversational analysis and institutional talk: Analysing data. In D. Silverman (ed.) Qualitative Research: Theory, Method and Practice (pp. 161–182). London: Sage. Heritage, J. (2012) Epistemics in action: Action formation and territories of knowledge. Research on Language and Social Interaction 45 (1), 1–29. Heritage, J. and Raymond, G. (2005) The terms of agreement: Indexing epistemic authority and subordination in talk-in-interaction. Social Psychology Quarterly 68 (1), 15–38. Jefferson, G. (2004) Glossary of transcript symbols with an introduction. In G. Lerner (ed.) Conversation Analysis: Studies from the First Generation (pp. 13–31). Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. Jeon, I.-J. (2010) Exploring the co-teaching practice of native and non-native English teachers in Korea. English Teaching 65 (3), 43–67. JET Program USA (2014) About the JET Program. See http://www.us.emb-japan.go.jp/ JET/about.html. Kim, J.-O. and Im, B.-B. (2008) A guide to improving team teaching in Korean middle schools. Modern English Education 9 (2), 71–94. Kim, M. (2010a) A narrative inquiry of a Korean English teacher’s fi rst journey through co-teaching. English Teaching 65 (4), 179–207. Kim, M. (2010b) How do native English-speaking teachers perceive co-teaching? Korean Journal of Applied Linguistics 26 (4), 213–249. Kim, N. (2012) Yengelo cinhaynghanun yengeswuepkwa wenemin kyosawauy hyepdongswuepey kwanhan swungdungkyosatuluy insikcosa [Perceptions of Korean secondary school English teachers on TEE and collaborative teaching with native English-speaking teachers]. Cwungdungkyoywukyenkwu 60 (4), 1275–1300. Kim, S.J. (2011) The effective performance of team-teaching for English education in Korea: Characteristics of excellent elementary schools. Yengeyengmwunhak Yenkwu 53 (2), 33–58. Kim, Y. (2009) The Korean discourse markers – nuntey and kuntey in native-nonnative conversation: An acquisitional perspective. In H.t. Nguyen and G. Kasper (eds) Talk-in-Interaction: Multilingual Perspectives (pp. 317–350). Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai’i, National Foreign Language Resource Center. Lee, J. (2015) The interactional organization of bilingual co-teaching in South Korea. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Hawaii at Manoa.

218

Part 3: Sociocultural and Ideological Forces in Language Teaching

Lee, M.-J. and Seong, G. (2011) Yenge hyeplyekswuepeyse hankwukin kyosawa wenemin kyosauy yekhal yangsang yengwu [A native English-speaking teacher’s and a Korean teacher’s roles in the co-teaching classroom]. Kyoywukmwunhwayenkwu 17 (1), 225–260. Lerner, G.H. (1993) Collectivities in action: Establishing the relevance of conjoined participation in conversation. Text 13 (2), 213–245. Lindström, A. (2005) Language as social action. In A. Hakulinen and M. Selting (eds) Syntax and Lexis in Conversation: Studies on the Use of Linguistic Resources in Talk-in-interaction (pp. 209–230). Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. Martin, P., Bhatt, A., Bhojani, N. and Creese, A. (2006) Managing bilingual interaction in a Gujarati complementary school in Leicester. Language and Education 20 (1), 5–22. McClure, G. and Cahnmann-Taylor, M. (2010) Pushing back against push-in: ESOL teacher resistance and the complexities of coteaching. TESOL Journal 1 (1), 101–129. Ministry of Education (2009) Education in Korea. See http://www.moe.go.kr/boardCnts/ view.do? boardID=346&lev=0&statusYN=W&s=moe&m=040103&opType=N& boardSeq=23628. Mondada, L. (2014) The local constitution of multimodal resources for social interaction. Journal of Pragmatics 65, 137–156. Nevile, M. (2015) The embodied turn in research on language and social interaction. Research on Language and Social Interaction 48 (2), 121–151. Park, J.-E. (2007) Co-construction of nonnative speaker identity in cross-cultural interaction. Applied Linguistics 28 (3), 339–360. Park, Y. (2014) The roles of third-turn repeats in two L2 classroom interactional contexts. Applied Linguistics 35 (2), 145–167. Peercy, M.M. and Martin-Beltran, M. (2012) Envisioning collaboration: Including ESOL students and teachers in the mainstream classroom. International Journal of Inclusive Education 16 (7), 657–673. Pomerantz, A. (1986) Extreme case formulations: A way of legitimizing claims. Human Studies 9 (2), 219–229. Rampton, M.B.H. (1990) Displacing the ‘native speaker’: Expertise, affi liation and inheritance. ELT Journal 44 (2), 338–343. Robinson, J.D. (2001) Asymmetry in action: Sequential resources in the negotiation of a prescription request. Text 21 (1–2), 19–54. Sacks, H. (1992) Lectures on Conversation. Oxford: Blackwell. Schegloff, E.A. (1991) Reflections on talk and social structure. In D. Boden and D.H. Zimmerman (eds) Talk and Social Structure: Studies in Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis (pp. 44–70). Cambridge: Polity Press. Schegloff, E.A. (1992) On talk and its institutional occasions. In P. Drew and J. Heritage (eds) Talk at Work: Interaction in Institutional Settings (pp. 101–136). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schegloff, E.A. (1997) Whose text? Whose context? Discourse & Society 8 (2), 165–187. Seedhouse, P. (2004) Interactional Architecture of the Language Classroom: A Conversation Analysis Perspective. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Selting, M. (2012) Complaint stories and subsequent complaint stories with affect displays. Journal of Pragmatics 44 (4), 387–415. Shin, H. (2007) English language teaching in Korea: Toward globalization or glocalization? In J. Cummins and C. Davison (eds) International Handbook of English Language Teaching (pp. 75–86). New York: Springer. Shin, S.-K. (2012) ‘It cannot be done alone’: The socialization of novice English teachers in South Korea. TESOL Quarterly 46 (3), 542–567. Stivers, T. (2004) ‘No no no’ and other types of multiple sayings in social interaction. Human Communication Research 30 (2), 260–293.

The ‘Power Game’: Interactional Asymmetries in EFL Collaborative Language Teaching

219

Stivers, T. (2008) Stance, alignment, and affi liation during storytelling: When nodding is a token of affi liation. Research on Language and Social Interaction 41 (1), 31–57. Stivers, T. (2010) An overview of the question–response system in American English conversation. Journal of Pragmatics 42 (10), 2772–2781. Stivers, T., Mondada, L. and Steensig, J. (2011) Knowledge, morality and affi liation in social interaction. In T. Stivers, L. Mondada and J. Steensig (eds) The Morality of Knowledge in Conversation (pp. 3–24). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stokoe, E. (2014) The conversation analytic role-play method (CARM): A method for training communication skills as an alternative to simulated role-play. Research on Language and Social Interaction 47 (3), 255–265. Streeck, J., Goodwin, C. and Lebaron, C. (2011) Embodied interaction in the material world: An introduction. In J. Streeck, C. Goodwin and C. Lebaron (eds) Embodied Interaction: Language and Body in the Material World (pp. 1–26). New York: Cambridge University Press. Tajino, A. and Tajino, Y. (2000) Native and non-native: What can they offer? ELT Journal 54 (1), 3–11. Talmy, S. (2008) The cultural productions of the ESL student at Tradewinds High: Contingency, multidirectionality, and identity in L2 socialization. Applied Linguistics 29 (4), 619–644.

9 Collision of Centripetal and Centrifugal Forces in Iranian EFL Classroom Interaction Mostafa Pourhaji

This chapter explores teacher responses to learner initiatives to showcase the dynamic struggle between the centripetal force of teacher control over classroom discourse and the centrifugal force of learner participation. To this aim, 15 adult EFL classes in Iran were video-recorded for three 90-minute sessions each. Analyses of episodes within meaning-oriented contexts showed that teachers responded to learners’ uninvited contributions in different ways including validating, bypassing, downgrading, rejecting and negotiating learner initiatives. These responses were contingent upon the congruence or incongruence of the initiatives with the teachers’ agendas and their threat to the teachers’ epistemic authority. The fi ndings suggest that the timing of defending and asserting epistemic authority and implementing agendas can either place a constraint on or open up a possibility for managing the collision of forces in classroom interaction. This study can raise teachers’ awareness about the complex relationship between teacher talk and learner participation, further substantiating Waring’s (2016a) theory of pedagogical interaction. 1 Introduction

At the colloquium on Emerging Issues in Classroom Discourse and Interaction: Conversation Analytic Perspectives, organized by Numa Markee at the American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL) 2016 Conference in Orlando, Florida, Hasun Zhang Waring introduced ‘heteroglossic teacher talk’ as one of such emerging issues. By drawing on Bakhtin’s (1981, 1986) notion of heteroglossia or double-voiced discourse, Waring contended that teacher talk can be a resource or an impediment. It can be a resource if teachers manage to strike a balance between the centripetal force of exercising control and the centrifugal force of encouraging learner 220

Collision of Centripetal and Centrifugal Forces in Iranian EFL Classroom Interaction

221

participation. Failing to achieve such a balance in teacher talk can result in an impediment to learning (Waring, 2016b). Other scholars have also voiced similar concerns (Fagan, 2012; Paoletti & Fele, 2004; van Lier, 1996). For example, Fagan (2012: 107) convincingly argued that ‘language teachers are expected not only to manage the imparting of new knowledge to students but also, more importantly, to work with whatever expected or unexpected knowledge learners bring to classroom interactions’. In some contexts, however, an imbalance between the forces tends to be the default. An example of such a context is EFL classes in Iran. The superior power of the teacher as a reliable source of information, as the initiator and developer of topics and as the allocator of speaking rights and duties in classroom interaction has been one of the taken-for-granted institutional assumptions and cultural expectations within Iranian EFL classes (Domakani & Mirzaei, 2013; Yaqubi & Pourhaji, 2012). As a result, the centripetal force of exercising control seems to be stronger than the centrifugal force of encouraging learner participation. Nevertheless, there are some moments in classroom interaction in which teachers are compelled to attend to the centrifugal force. An example of such moments occurs when learners take initiatives and make uninvited contributions to classroom discourse (Waring, 2011, 2016a; see also Malabarba and Somuncu & Sert, this volume). This conversation analytic (CA) study aims to analyze those moments of interaction and explore how teachers respond to learner initiatives in Iranian EFL classes. In this study, the term ‘learner initiative’ is used to refer to ‘any attempt to make an uninvited contribution to the ongoing classroom talk, where uninvited may refer to (1) not being specifically selected as the next speaker or (2) not providing the expected response when selected’ (Waring, 2011: 204). 2 Centripetal and Centrifugal Forces

In his fourth essay on the philosophy of language, Bakhtin (1981) mentioned two forces at work in all languages or in any utterances. Borrowing the terms from physics, he called them ‘centripetal’ and ‘centrifugal’ forces. According to Cuddon (2013), Bakhtin argued that: Centripetal forces operate by pulling all aspects of language and its numerous rhetorical modes towards a central point in order to produce one standard language, or an ‘official’ language that everyone would have to speak and use. Centripetal force is regulatory, unifying, centralizing and monologic. By contrast, centrifugal forces push the elements of language away from the centre and produce multiplicity. Centrifugal force is thus decentralizing, stratifying and anti-canonical. It is a distinct feature of Bakhtin’s notion of heteroglossia. (Cuddon, 2013: 114–115)

van Lier (1996) pinpointed the presence of and the dynamic struggle between these two forces in classroom discourse and interaction. He argued that the centripetal force brings about ‘homogeneity, monolog and control’ for the teacher, whereas the centrifugal force promotes ‘diversity,

222

Part 3: Sociocultural and Ideological Forces in Language Teaching

conversation and autonomy’ for the learner. Paoletti and Fele (2004) expanded the subcategories of the dichotomous forces by incorporating learner participation under the centrifugal force and contrasting it with the centripetal force of exercising control. Waring (2014) extended the subcategories further by examining control versus connection. More specifically, within pedagogical interactions, centripetal force is brought into being by control over topic initiation and development, regulating speaking rights, maintaining order and implementing agendas (Cazden, 1988; Mehan, 1979; Waring, 2016a; Waring et al., 2016), whereas the centrifugal force includes building rapport (Nguyen, 2007; see also Li, Malabarba and Sayer et al., this volume), encouraging learner participation (Paoletti & Fele, 2004), and validating learner initiatives (Waring et al., 2016; see also Malabarba, Sayer et al. and Somuncu & Sert, this volume). It has been argued that there should be a balance between the two forces in classroom discourse and interaction (Paoletti & Fele, 2004; van Lier, 1996; Waring, 2016a). The responsibility for striking such a balance lies mainly with the teacher, in ‘contingent forms of classroom interaction’ (van Lier, 1996: 184). In the words of Paoletti and Fele (2004: 78), ‘teachers constantly endeavor to strike a difficult balance between the competing tasks of maintaining control on the one hand and soliciting learner participation on the other’. Waring (2016a) referred to the balance or imbalance between the forces in classroom interaction as a yardstick against which teacher talk could be considered a resource or an impediment. Some suggestions have been made in the literature for how teachers can strike such a balance. For example, Waring (2016a) suggested three ways. The fi rst is embedding conversation in IRF (Inititation-ResponseFeedback) sequences, which could be done through incorporating conversational matters, using personal inquiries instead of display questions and appreciations instead of assessments. The second way is to assimilate learner voice through pursuing one’s agenda while validating learner initiative. The third is to allude to the institutional frame, e.g. through exercising control implicitly and lightheartedly in a conversational tone with humor. In a CA study of adult ESL classroom interactions, Waring et al. (2016) showed that teachers can exercise control and validate learner participation at the same time through tactfully responding to learner initiatives with ironic teasing or by invoking learning orientation. Nevertheless, striking a balance between the forces in classroom interaction would be difficult to accomplish in a context where institutional constraints and cultural expectations essentially favor one over the other. EFL classes in Iran are situated in such a context. 3 Context

English language learning and teaching has a long history in Iran. It officially started in 1925 with the Iran Language Institute (ILI), formerly

Collision of Centripetal and Centrifugal Forces in Iranian EFL Classroom Interaction

223

known as the Iran-America Society. Currently, the ILI has over 240,000 language learners in more than 200 branches throughout the country. Along with the ILI, an increasing number of state-owned or private institutes have been established to cover different languages, with English being the major focus. These institutes offer courses for general and/or specific purposes to learners of different ages. A variety of teaching methods and approaches have been in use at such institutes. They include the grammar-translation method, the audio-lingual method, communicative language teaching, content-based instruction and task-based language teaching. Some institutes also claim to go beyond methods and follow the principles of the postmethods era and pedagogy (Kumaravadivelu, 2006; Larsen-Freeman, 2000; Richards & Rodgers, 2001). In reality, as teachers are living in ‘an era of textbook-defined practice’ (Akbari, 2008: 647), i.e. the textbook specifies the curriculum and method (Guerrettaz & Johnston, 2013), the audio-lingual method and the communicative language teaching approach tend to inform teaching methods in EFL classes in Iran (Pourhaji et al., 2016). Regardless of the teaching methods, a common thread running through almost all language institutes in Iran is the direct relationship between inequality and asymmetry within the classes. In other words, unequal relations which are due to factors extrinsic to talk such as role, status, knowledge, power and cultural expectations tend to hinder symmetry or ‘equal distribution of right and duties in talk’ (van Lier, 1996: 175). Teacher authority and control over Iranian EFL classroom discourse and interaction have been confirmed by previous studies on the issue. For example, Domakani and Mirzaei (2013) examined 10 EFL classes within the educational system of Iran and reported the dominance of the IRF exchange structure (Sinclair & Coulthard, 1975; see also Li, this volume), the paucity of learner-initiated talk, and teachers’ full control over classroom discourse. Yaqubi and Pourhaji (2012) also found in their CA study of 10 adult EFL classes that teachers were concerned with ‘filling in the gaps’ and ‘creating a smooth-flowing discourse’ (Walsh, 2002: 7). They thereby curtailed learners’ participation opportunities through implementing limited wait-time, interrupting learners, completing turns and answering their own formulated questions. In yet another study, Pourhaji and Alavi (2015) drew on a large corpus of data of 52 adult EFL classes at different levels of language proficiency and examined the relationship between the distribution of multiple and dynamic turn-taking sequences and the overall unfolding pedagogic goals of a lesson (Heritage, 1997; Seedhouse, 2004; Walsh, 2011; see also Li, this volume). In other words, they examined the duration (measured in minutes) of turn-taking sequences that pursue specific pedagogical goals. They found that those interactional sequences that give the control of the discourse wholly to the teacher and leave little interactional space for learners – namely, management-oriented and form-oriented contexts – constituted the bulk of interaction (53%). However, meaningoriented contexts in which the goal is to maximize learners’ participation

224

Part 3: Sociocultural and Ideological Forces in Language Teaching

opportunities through encouraging them to express themselves in classroom interaction formed the smallest proportion of interaction (11.5%). 4 Research Question

As seen in the studies cited above, the centripetal force of exercising control, maintaining order and implementing agendas tends to be stronger than the centrifugal force of encouraging learner participation in Iranian EFL classroom interaction. Nevertheless, there exists a feature of learner talk that compels the teacher to attend to the centrifugal force as seen in learner initiatives (see defi nition by Waring, 2011, in the Introduction above). Exploring what interactional trajectories learners’ uninvited contributions engender and how such trajectories configure the interface between the centripetal and centrifugal forces within Iranian EFL classes is the aim of this study. In other words, this study asks: how do teachers orient to learner initiatives within EFL classroom interaction in Iran? 5 Methodology

The data come from a corpus of 15 adult EFL classes at three language institutes in Tehran, the capital of Iran. The classes were taught by 15 teachers who were non-native speakers of English. They were selected based on their availability and willingness to participate. However, in order to increase credibility, partial control was exercised in terms of gender, education, experience, training, level and textbook (Miles & Huberman, 1994). Therefore, almost equal numbers of teachers were selected from both genders (seven females and eight males). They were in the age range of 28–37. At the time of data collection, they had all been in the profession of teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) for over five years and had already taken training courses. In terms of textbooks, they were all using the Top Notch series (Saslow & Ascher, 2011) at different levels. A total of 163 adult English language learners, 87 females and 76 males, in the age range of 16–31 years participated in this study. They were high-school and university students learning English for general purposes. In terms of language proficiency, there were 48 learners at A2 level, 63 learners at B1 level and 52 learners at B2 level, based on the syllabi of their respective institutes. The institutes were homogeneous in the sense that the same materials, i.e. the Top Notch series (Saslow & Ascher, 2011), served as a guide for the curriculum in all of them (Guerrettaz & Johnston, 2013) and were all informed by the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). The classes ranged in size from eight to 13 students. They met twice a week mostly in the afternoons. Before data collection, consent was obtained fi rst directly from the institute principals and the teachers and then indirectly from the learners; the teachers were asked to

Collision of Centripetal and Centrifugal Forces in Iranian EFL Classroom Interaction

225

consult their students for permission. Moreover, the teachers filled out a survey which revealed their age, gender, major, prior teaching experience and training as well as the age range of the learners in their classes. The classes were video-recorded using a camera on a tripod in a back corner for four sessions. The fi rst session was not included in the data analysis on the premise that the presence of a camera in the classes might initially affect the performance of the participants and the naturalness of interactions. The following three sessions were recorded consecutively as the participants were covering one whole unit of their textbook. Each session lasted 90 minutes. Therefore, the data consist of a total of 67.5 hours of video-recordings. To collect data, I assumed the role of a complete observer (Ary et al., 2010) and did not participate in any of the classes. Moreover, no attempts were made to alter the situations being observed, nor were any extracurricular activities being asked of the participants. The recorded data were then transcribed in their entirety based on Jefferson’s (2004) transcription convention (see Chapter 1). Afterwards, using Pourhaji and Alavi’s (2015) taxonomy of interactional contexts (Appendix A), episodes within meaning-oriented contexts were identified and selected for further analyses. Meaning-oriented contexts, also termed ‘meaning-and-fluency contexts’, refer to turn-taking sequences in which the pedagogic goal is promoting fluency through encouraging learners to express themselves and talk about their opinions, preferences, feelings, personal experiences, etc. (Seedhouse, 2004: 111).1 Meaning-oriented contexts were selected for analysis in this chapter, as learners in such contexts are supposed to have ample interactional space, and classroom discourse is expected to be less tightly controlled by the teacher (Seedhouse, 2004). Subsequently, I zoomed in on learner initiatives (Waring, 2011) as possible manifestations of centrifugal forces in classroom discourse. The focus was then centered on teachers’ orientations to such initiatives in the turnby-turn unfolding of classroom discourse. 6 Findings

A total of 65 instances of learner initiatives within meaning-oriented contexts as defi ned by Waring (2011, cited above) were identified in the data. A common thread running through almost all of the instances was that they occurred within inserted IRFs. In other words, the discussions were mostly prompted by the textbook and initiated by the teacher. Learners hardly ever initiated the sequence. Teacher responses to learner initiatives within meaning-oriented contexts emerging from the data could be classified into the following five categories: (1) validating, (2) bypassing, (3) downgrading, (4) rejecting and (5) negotiating. In what follows, each of these types of responses will be analyzed and exemplified by two excerpts from the data, yet downgrading and rejecting initiatives are treated simultaneously.

226

Part 3: Sociocultural and Ideological Forces in Language Teaching

6.1 Validating learner initiatives

Validating a learner initiative can be defi ned as orienting to and ‘acknowledging learner talk’ (Waring, 2016a: 74) when it moves out of the IRF exchange structure. There were 31 instances in the data where the teacher validated the learners’ uninvited contributions to the ongoing classroom talk and they are illustrated by Excerpts 9.1 and 9.2. The interaction in Excerpt 9.1 was prompted by a discussion section from the second lesson of Unit 9 in Top Notch 3. The goal of the lesson was ‘to discuss controversial issues politely’. The learners had read and listened to a conversation about capital punishment and practiced vocabulary used for expressing agreement and disagreement. The teacher read through the prompt of the section, ‘Are you in favor of capital punishment? Explain’, which was a referential question that opens up a meaning-oriented context. (In the excerpts, T stands for ‘teacher’ and LL for ‘learners’. All personal names are pseudonyms.) Excerpt 9.1 Capital punishment 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

T:

Bita: T: Bita: T: Bita:

T: Bita: Sara: T: Sara: T: Sara: T:

part C. (.) discussion. (.) are you in favor of capital punishment? (.) explain everybody. >do you ↑agree?< or ↓disagree. (1.0) ((raises hand)) ↓yes ↑please:. u:h I disagree with capital punishment. disagree? ↑why::. u:h >when a person< kills another person o::r you ki::ll uh that person, >it happens fa:st.< u:h suddenly that person will DI:E. uh but you can u::h put tha::t (.) ((speaks in Farsi)) Ghatel? murderer ↓murderer. u::h ↓°yeah°. >murderer in prison.< he will die in prison.= =>↑BU:T ↓I don’t agreebecause< the m:: (1.0) man or woman is dead, >but the murderer is alive.< and: it (.) u:h it upset dead family. [((points to Sara while nodding)) [and there is one more ↑thi::ng. (0.5) ↓if: there is no capital punishment people >wouldn’t be afraid of (.) KILLING each other.< is that right?

The excerpt starts with the teacher initiating the IRF sequence by reading through the prompt and immediately paraphrasing and directing it to the whole class. After a pause of one second, Bita expresses her willingness to take the floor and respond by raising her hand in line 05. After the teacher selects her as the next speaker and gives the turn to her, Bita provides the response move of the sequence. Instead of providing the feedback move and thus closing the IRF sequence, the teacher

Collision of Centripetal and Centrifugal Forces in Iranian EFL Classroom Interaction

227

initiates an inserted IRF sequence in line 08. By so doing, he urges Bita to expand on her prior contribution and provide a response in the inserted IRF. Bita makes a multi-unit turn contribution during which she elicits repair from the teacher when she cannot retrieve the English word murderer and switches into Farsi in line 12. When Bita’s turn ends with a complete turn- constructional unit (TCU) and speaker transition becomes relevant (Sacks et al., 1974) in line 15 and before the teacher produces a feedback to close the IRF, Sara self-selects as the next speaker and makes an uninvited contribution (Waring, 2011) in line 16 to express her disagreement with Bita’s contribution. The teacher acknowledges Sara’s speakership by restating her position and opening up the floor for her to speak next by using a high-pitch back-channel feedback (Ward & Tsukahara, 2000) in line 19. After Sara gives an account for her disagreement (lines 20–21), the teacher agrees with Sara both non-verbally (by pointing and nodding in line 22) and verbally (by an expansion of Sara’s response with the use of the turn-initial expression ‘and one more thing’ in lines 23–25). In the above excerpt, although Sara makes an uninvited contribution without being selected as the next speaker, the teacher accepts, aligns and affiliates with Sara’s uninvited contribution. The teacher validates Sara’s opinion and treats it as being in agreement with his viewpoint. The interaction in Excerpt 9.2 below was prompted by a pre-reading activity on page 70 of the Top Notch 3 book. The class was discussing and prioritizing factors promoting career success. Excerpt 9.2 Physical appearance 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

T: ↓yes, knowledge a:nd experience (.) [are important facto:rs]. Fatima: [((raises hand)) T: [((gazes at Fatima)) [Fatima. Fatima: °i° thi:nk physical appearance i:s u:hm mo:st important. >if you’re beautiful< (.) o::r handsome (.) >you can easily get a job< a::nd make progress. (0.5) T: we::ll but (.) [if a person ( ) Mahdia: [>but many successful people< (.) at big companies, the:y’re not handsome °or beautiful°. >some of them are just successful< because they ha:ve connections (.)f: for example u:hm (0.2) with the manager. T: [((points to Mahdia)) [EXA:CTLY. (0.7) [((turns to Fatima)) [they’re someti:mes successful >cuz they know somebody in ↑high ↓placesas Mahdia also saidwhen we wanna describe< u:h ↑natural ↓disasters.(0.2) i: said disasters, u:hm °everybody°, have you or someone you know (.) experienced a natural ↑disaster? (.) .hhh if yes, u:h >what kind of disaster was it?< (0.5) Mohsen: me no (.) >but my brother’s friend< (.) ↓yes. T: [↓uh↑huh, [((nods with circular right-hand gesture)) Mohsen: his family died in Bam in that (.) [u::hm [((gazes down at the book)) (3.0) Amin: [earthquake. Mohsen: [deadly earthquake. T: ↓yeah [((nods)) [°it was so deadly.° ((gazes at the whole class)) >do you know< u:h the number of casualties and death toll? Arash: FAMOUS people (.) °also died°= T: =I mean how many people u::h died a::nd how many were ↓injured? Javad: ↑twenty: ↓thousand. T: ↑died? Javad: [↓yes. Arash: [Iraj Bastami died. T: ((keeps gazing at Javad)) >and do you know the number of casualties?< Javad: I think m: more than one hundred. T: one hundred ↑thousand? Javad: ↓yes.

Collision of Centripetal and Centrifugal Forces in Iranian EFL Classroom Interaction

31 T: 32 33 34

231

°so catastrophic°. [((gazes at the whole class)) [we:ll, any [other disasters besides earthquakes? [((extends left arm with circular hand gesture))

The excerpt starts with the teacher wrapping up the form-oriented context in which the focus was on some vocabulary items, and opening up meaning-oriented context through asking a series of referential questions. After the teacher addresses the questions to the whole class, Mohsen selfselects as the next speaker and provides a response (line 07). The teacher’s use of the back-channel feedback ‘uh-huh’ (Ward & Tsukahara, 2000) with a rising intonation in line 08 and the nods together with the circular hand gesture in the next line function as continuers and encourage Mohsen to retake a turn and elaborate on his contribution (Liu, 2008; Wells, 1993). When Mohsen has a perceptible pause and hems at the end of line 10 to buy time to look at the book and fi nd an appropriate adjective of severity, the teacher neither interrupts him nor fi lls in the gap; rather, he implements extended post-response wait-time (Rowe, 1974) of three seconds. This wait-time provides Mohsen with the space to hold onto his turn and, in overlap with Amin, complete his contribution. The teacher then provides Mohsen with a feedback move in lines 15–17, but he does not close down the sequence. Specifically, the teacher looks at the whole class (line 18) and initiates an inserted IRF sequence by focusing on ‘the number of casualties and death toll’ in the Bam earthquake. Afterwards, Arash makes an uninvited contribution (line 20) in the sense that he does not provide an expected response (Waring, 2011). Without orienting to Arash’s contribution, the teacher immediately reinitiates the sequence by paraphrasing his prior question. At this time, Javad orients to the teacher’s question and provides a response in line 22. Javad’s response is followed by the teacher’s confirmation check in line 23. As Javad is responding to the teacher, Arash makes another uninvited contribution in overlap: he orients to his prior uninvited contribution in line 20 and names one of the famous people who died in the earthquake in line 25. The teacher, however, does not orient to Arash. Rather, he fi xes his gaze on Javad and asks the second part of his prior question. The interaction between the teacher and Javad moves on to line 31, where the teacher first provides Javad with a content-focused feedback by uttering ‘so catastrophic’ in a quiet voice and then initiates another inserted IRF. The teacher does not orient to Arash’s uninvited contribution to initiate the new sequence; rather, he asks the whole class to focus on a natural disaster other than earthquakes. In the above excerpt, the teacher’s bypassing of Arash’s initiatives in lines 21 and 26–27 seems to be a necessary sacrifice. His agenda is to ask the learners about ‘the number of casualties and death toll’ in that earthquake that struck Bam, a city in Iran, whereas Arash’s contributions digress from that agenda. Nevertheless, tracing the turn-by-turn unfolding of the interaction shows the longevity of this bypassing. In other words,

232

Part 3: Sociocultural and Ideological Forces in Language Teaching

the teacher could have oriented to and validated Arash’s contributions at least with delay. In line 31, after providing the feedback move of the ongoing sequence and before initiating another inserted IRF, the teacher could have assimilated and ‘weaved’ (Creider, 2013) Arash’s diverging initiative into his own agenda. Instead, the teacher keeps following his agenda without incorporating that of the learner (lines 31–34). That is, the teacher has sacrificed connection for the sake of control (Waring, 2016a). 6.3 Downgrading and rejecting learner initiatives

Downgrading learner initiatives can be defi ned as orienting to learners’ uninvited contributions but rendering them unwarranted and trivial. Rejecting learner initiatives means orienting to but not accepting such contributions. In the data, there were seven and nine instances of downgrading and rejecting learner initiatives, respectively. Excerpt 9.5 was a continuation of interaction on ‘how do you think the elderly will be cared for by the time we are old?’ which is the prompt of the discussion section on page 95 of Unit 8 from Summit 1. Excerpt 9.5 Nursing homes 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32

T:

((turns to and gazes at Tara)) Tara, what do you think? what will our children or grandchildren do to us in future? Tara: e:m they will send us to nursing home. T: they MIGHT send us to the nursing home, but the question is (.) is that really bad? >is that really bad< that the old people stay in nursing home? Tara: I think no= T: =why not? Tara: because u::h >when old people go to nursing home< , they can talk to other old people about their problems and ACTually forget their problems.= Maryam: =[((gazes at Tara)) [is that fair? T: [((raises right hand, opens palm with stretched out fingers toward Maryam while gazing at Tara)) [yeah, the people in nursing (.) nursing home can socialize with the other old people and >they can ↓forget their problem< and it is not bad. it is not a taboo. ((turns to and gazes at Maryam)) Maryam: what if they like to socialize with their children?= T: =u::h but do you remember [four two one family? [((opens the book)) (0.6) T: can one person take care of six people? six o:ld people? what you say is more emotional than (.) logical. Maryam: ((nods)) (1.7) T: anyway, u:h ((gazes at the book)) in step four we have a writing.

In the fi rst line, the teacher turns to and gazes at Tara and then selects her as the next speaker through explicit addressing (Lerner, 2003) in the next

Collision of Centripetal and Centrifugal Forces in Iranian EFL Classroom Interaction

233

line. She asks Tara to orient to the foregoing talk and invites her to take the floor and reply. After Tara’s response in line 04, the teacher gives her both an evaluative and a discoursal feedback (Cullen, 2002) in lines 05–08; in other words, the teacher confirms Tara’s contribution and also extends the discussion by using a follow-up question. Tara’s response in line 09 is followed by a non-minimal post-expansion turn (Schegloff, 2007), inviting her to retake the floor and elaborate on her contribution. After Tara fi nishes elaborating on her contribution in line 13, Maryam takes an initiative. The teacher immediately rejects Maryam’s initiative by raising her palm in a ‘stop gesture’ toward Maryam. Then she orients to Tara’s response and provides the feedback move. In line 22, Maryam again takes the floor, but this time she disaligns with the teacher by raising another question, ‘what if they like to socialize with their children?’ The teacher, however, argues against Maryam by referring to the book as an authoritative resource to support her position. Further, she takes another turn to evaluate Maryam’s contribution, rendering her initiative trivial by describing it as ‘more emotional than logical’. In line 29, Maryam nods her agreement with the teacher. The teacher then closes down the ongoing sequence and uses the disjunctive marker ‘anyway’ to shift the topic and the focus of the interaction. Arguably, when Maryam, orienting to Tara’s contribution in lines 11–13, asks her fi rst question in line 15 without being selected as the next speaker, she takes on the role of the teacher (the participant who holds primacy in allocating the turns and making the questions). Such understanding is displayed by the teacher by immediately rejecting Maryam’s initiative in an attempt to defend her own ‘epistemic right to evaluate states of affairs’ (Heritage & Raymond, 2005: 16). Moreover, when she does not validate Maryam’s initiative, the teacher implies that it is not important at that point in time. After the teacher exercises her epistemic right to provide the feedback move of the sequence, she turns to Maryam and gazes at her. At this point, Maryam can take the floor without violating speakership. When she does, she repeats the same stance in line 22, which disagrees with that of the teacher expressed in lines 18–20. By so doing, Maryam challenges the teacher’s epistemic authority as a reliable source of knowledge. The teacher could have built the ongoing discourse on Maryam’s initiative and let the class negotiate it collectively. However, she corroborates her own stance by clinging to the ecological role of the textbook (Guerrettaz & Johnston, 2013) as a reliable source of information; then she refers to Maryam’s initiative as ‘more emotional than logical’, thus downgrading its importance and relevance to the discussion. Excerpt 9.6 is a continuation of the interaction in which the teacher and the learners were discussing how parents’ behaviors affect children’s development. The prompt of the discussion appears on page 80 of Top Notch 2.

234

Part 3: Sociocultural and Ideological Forces in Language Teaching

Excerpt 9.6 Exceptions 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

Sahar: a:nd he is a: ↑successful ↓musician u:hm like his father. T: >a VERY good examplea ↑child’s ↓developmentnow that you insist on the exceptions< make a list of tho:se a LOT of exceptions at home (.) a:nd (.) >gimme the report $next session$how about you?< u:h d- do yo::u u:h donate ↑anything? (.) o::r >it’s better to say< (.) have you ever donated (.) ↑money or ↓something? ↓yes, u:hm I try to he:lp (.) u:h especially (.) when I see a box (.) u:h people drop money, u:h >especially for cancerwhy do you donate money?< (1.0) u:h (.)°in God’s ↑wa:y°= =Oh, for GOD’s [sa::ke. [((nods)) (1.0) ↓yeah, helping people fo:r [religious [((raises arms and moves fingers to imply quotation marks)) reasons u:h is one of the most important reasons °actually°= =not the most important. ↑pardon. you said the most important, I said no. ↑okay, (0.5) a lot of people in the world u:h help poor people or sick people a:nd >they are not religioussome people donate money< (.) just to show off. I donate >cuz I feel goodbut I didn’t say< u:hm it is the MOST important.uh I said (.) it is (.) ONE of the most important reasons. yes, I wanted to say (0.2)you said one of the [°important° [anyway, so:: ↑every↓body, let’s make a list of the possible reasons, [↑okay, [((nods)) .hhh a::nd let’s put them in order from the most important °to the least°. so: (.) >we can work two-by-two in pairsif the person has a ↑tattoo °or ↓not°isn’t it sexist< (.) to say: (.) uh boys no? (2.0) T: [((turns to Zahra)) [↓any ↑comments? (0.5) do you think u::hm >it is sexist to say boys no?< (3.0) Zahra: °maybe°. Nilo: [((gazes at T)) [is earring a big problem? T: >why do you think< it’s not a ↑BIG ↓problem? (0.7) Nilo: because a boy with earring doesn’t u:h (0.2) ↑hurt ↓anybody (.) doesn’t destroy:. °you know° >it’s just beautiful.< T: it’s just beautiful. (0.5) we:ll, who else (.)thinks that u::hm (.) >earrings are okay for boys?
say< ↑GOING (.) STS: going TEA: OUT (.) STS: out TEA: going o:ut (.) STS: going o:ut TEA: WITH (.) STS: with TEA: (0.6) STS: going out with TEA: o↓ka::y going out wi:th, (0.6) |fula::no, an unnamed guy |((waves right hand to the right)) going out with |$fula:::na$= an unnamed girl |((waves left hand to the left)) ST1: =he[heheh TEA: [$going$- o↑kay (.) TEA: say GOING OUT WITH (0.6) STS: =

After introducing the new vocabulary item and doing the work of calibrating the students’ pronunciation, the teacher initiates an explanatory sequence in English (line 21). The words fulano (line 23) and fulana (line 26), which are quick idiomatic ways in Portuguese to convey the notion of unnamed people and thus may be more efficient here than resorting to English, are skillfully positioned so that the students understand that a person’s name should mandatorily follow the term going out with. The smiley voice and subsequent laughter (lines 26–29) denote a playful tone to the sequence (probably referring to the lack of seriousness of this type of relationship), which ends with the teacher’s request for group repetition (line 31). After the teacher asks an individual student to repeat the

Participants’ Orientation to the English-only Policy

255

just-introduced term (not included in Excerpt 10.3a), she elicits more group repetition (Excerpt 10.3b). Excerpt 10.3b ok what does it mean

43 TEA: |>LET’S REPEAT TOGETHERYES SAY< | |((snaps fingers)) (0.6) STS: =

It is important to pay attention to the multimodality that surrounds the teacher’s delivery of the turn containing the Portuguese translation of ‘going out with’. First, she closes her lips and looks at Bernardo (line 68 and Figure 10.5a), and then she produces two other non-lexical tokens ‘mhm’ and ‘ts’ (line 69 and Figure 10.5b). Finally saindo (line 71 and Figure 10.5c) is delivered in a prosodically marked fashion, with lower voice volume, high pitch and elongation on the central syllable, which indicates that some kind of trouble is going on. Note also that she steps towards Bernardo, as if she was now entering a private part of the interaction. Excerpts 10.3a–10.3d allow us to observe how the English-only policy tacitly shapes the interaction between teachers and students in this

Figure 10.5 Excerpt 10.3d, lines 68–72 Note: A curved arrow denotes that a gaze shift is in progress.

Participants’ Orientation to the English-only Policy

259

classroom. First of all, as we saw in Excerpt 10.3a, the new vocabulary item was introduced with the aid of a flashcard and the corresponding word in Portuguese was not immediately provided. Instead, the methods initially used by the teacher in order to teach that new vocabulary item involved combining the new item with the words in Portuguese for unnamed guy and unnamed girl while displaying gestures that indicate different directions/partners. Bernardo’s question in Portuguese signals that comprehension has not been reached yet (Koole, 2010; Koole & Elbers, 2014; see also Somuncu & Sert, this volume), which prompts the other participants to proffer other candidate translations in Portuguese. Excerpts 10.3a–10.3d show that the ‘English-only’ policy is oriented to in specific ways: when engaged in vocabulary work on previously established items, the students are supposed to reach an understanding of the words through prioritized means in English (e.g. flashcards, explanations and example sentences). Specific Portuguese words may be used as long as the majority of the talk is done in English. In case these methods are not sufficient and one or more participants express non-understanding of the word being taught, students may express the non-understanding in Portuguese and suggest candidate translations in Portuguese. Finally, if the teacher does not accept these candidate words as accurate translations, s/he may then provide the equivalent in Portuguese. The next section will show a different orientation to the ‘English-only’ policy, one that involves explicitly reminding the students of the local norm. 6.3 Doing policing the students

In Excerpt 10.4, the students are working in pairs on an activity assigned by the teacher. The activity involves using possessive adjectives (my, your, his, etc.) to complete sentences related to the book characters and their belongings. We join the interaction when the teacher – as she moves slowly to the right corner of the room – looks up and frowns, orienting to a buzz that came from the room lights on that particular day. In overlap with her non-vocal turn, Cleiton, who is sitting on a chair positioned in the right corner of the room and is close to the teacher, initiates an off-task (Markee, 2005) sequence about Roberto’s age. Excerpt 10.4 ‘in English sorry’ 01 02 TEA: 03 04 CLE:

((lights are buzzing)) ((moves to the corner of the room)) [((looks up, frowns)) [quantos anos tu tem guri how years you have man how old are you man

05 ROB:

huh porque a pergunta= why the question why the question

260

06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13

Part 3: Sociocultural and Ideological Forces in Language Teaching

TEA: CLE: CLE: ROB: TEA: ROB:

=in english sorry? [|what’s the question. [|((places right arm on waist)) [(o:h) (1.3)/((teacher is gazing at students)) >how old are you?< i am (.) fif [(0.3) [((turns off the lights)) teen

The sequence is initiated by Cleiton, who uses Portuguese to ask Roberto ‘how old are you’ (line 4). The turn is followed by Roberto’s insertion sequence ‘why the question’ (line 5), also in Portuguese. The teacher, who has stopped moving and is now in the corner of the room close to the switch, latches onto Roberto’s turn and requests that he ask the question in English (line 6). Note that the teacher’s multi-unit turn does more than other-policing (Amir & Musk, 2014) the students’ medium and reestablishing the ‘English-only’ policy. That the teacher orients to her act of language policing as disruptive of an interaction she was not invited to join (which is in fact the case) is marked by her use of sorry instead of please. At the same time, as she delivers the last part of her turn, she adds ‘what’s the question.’ and places her right hand, thus using a sort of ‘power’ gesture. The content of the teacher’s request as well as its prosodic packaging and simultaneous gesturing mark the teacher’s authority and position her not as a mere eavesdropper, but as a kind of language cop (Copp Jinkerson, 2011; Markee & Kunitz, 2012), who has the right to reestablish the language policy of the classroom. As Cleiton then complies with the teacher’s request and reproduces his question in English, Roberto, who had previously asked for an account from Cleiton, immediately provides a type-conforming response (Heritage & Raymond, 2012) ‘I am fifteen’ (lines 11–13). Note that the address term used by Cleiton, guri (man) and the initiation of an insertion sequence to request an account by Roberto, por que a pergunta (why the question) orient to the students’ social relationship, but both are dropped when the students reproduce the sequence in English. This shows that the introduction of the ‘English-only’ policy at this particular moment has altered the nature of the interaction and what participants can achieve. Also, recall that the teacher was on her way to turning the lights off when she enters Cleiton and Roberto’s interaction. It is only at this point, halfway through Roberto’s English turn (line 11), that the teacher continues her prior action, i.e. switching the lights off. Together, such practices highlight the contingent nature of the act of language policing, which ends up altering (at least momentarily) the course of participants’ ongoing activities. This excerpt shows a clear case of language policing in which two students’ off -task activity (Markee, 2005) is interrupted so that an ‘English-only’ policy may be installed. It also demonstrates how the teacher and students orient differently to the language policy of the

Participants’ Orientation to the English-only Policy

261

classroom: the students orient to a language policy practice in which Portuguese is allowed in student–student off-task conversations and the teacher orients to the use of Portuguese as being noticeably problematic and holds the students accountable for not using English to interact. 7 Discussion

In this chapter, methods to perform language policy locally and moment by moment were analyzed. The fi ndings reveal that language policy is done in a continuum. It entails more explicit and well-documented methods, such as those that contain an act of language policing (Amir, 2015) as well as more implicit methods, such as an overt prioritization of English over Portuguese to introduce new vocabulary and the ratification of students’ contributions when they display an orientation to the ‘Englishonly’ policy. As we saw in Excerpt 10.3a–d, when vocabulary work is being done, one of the practices used to (re)establish and perpetuate the school’s implicit norm is to circumvent Portuguese, or more specifically to prioritize more explanation in English while allowing the students’ candidate translations and delaying the teacher’s own provision of the Portuguese equivalent until it is evident that understanding has not been achieved. The use of English to introduce and explain the new words in the fi rst attempts exhibits the teacher’s orientation to an ‘English-only’ policy. Additionally, the data show that the teacher seems to be doing the work of socializing the students into a preference for English. This is also done by validating and taking up their contributions in the TL as we saw in Excerpts 10.1a–b and 10.2. In Excerpt 10.4 we observed an instance when the teacher does language policing toward students in their off-task talk. In using Portuguese to ask each other’s age (and also to ask the reason for the question), the students display an orientation to Portuguese as non-problematic, that is, the students seem not to orient to the normalized language policy of the school. In contrast, in policing the students and asking them to repeat the question using English, the teacher displays a different orientation. She orients toward and expresses the norm of the school, i.e. that English should be used as the classroom medium, and in doing so she sets future expectations for the students regarding their language choice. I now turn to the question of what constraints and possibilities may be engendered by these methods to do language policy. One of the main constraints observed in the data was also reported in the Swedish EFL classroom (Amir & Musk, 2014), namely that several stretches of talk are needed for teaching a target form when one tries to avoid violating the ‘English-only’ policy. Excerpt 10.3a–d, with the activity of introducing new words to the students, exemplifies the difficulties involved in achieving comprehension and raises the question of the relevance of such practice. Another constraint relates to the interruption of the student’s rapport

262

Part 3: Sociocultural and Ideological Forces in Language Teaching

building through off-task talk, as was seen in Excerpt 10.4. Naturally, much more than learning and teaching is done in classrooms. For example, participants get to know each other and relationships are established and sustained. In order to achieve this goal, however, participants need the minimum linguistic resources necessary to say what they want to say in the way they want to say it, which is obviously challenging for ‘real beginners’. Therefore, demanding that students stick to English in their off-task at a lower proficiency level could prevent them from engaging in bonding actions. At the same time, a balance in that regard may be found in the teacher’s orientation to the students’ contributions in Excerpts 10.2 and 10.3 a–d, when the interaction is entirely in English. Students’ participations are treated as playful and playfulness is produced by the teacher herself in the subsequent turns, which may work in the service of bonding with the students. In this sense, the fi ndings suggest that an implicit English-only policy may also generate other possibilities for language teaching and learning. These possibilities are linked to more contemporary usage-based understandings of language learning that claim, for example, that the use of language to interact with their environment is crucial for learning to take place (Clark et al., 2011; Eskildsen, 2014; Hall, 2019a). In maintaining English as the main medium of instruction, participants confer a certain status on the language, namely not as mere content to be learnt, but as a rich resource for producing meaning and accomplishing genuine actions. In the examples, such actions involved teasing someone because they have a new boyfriend or evaluating someone’s appearance and relating the language being learnt to locally shared pop culture. Considering the nature of EFL settings, where participants do not have the opportunities to learn language ‘in the wild’ (Wagner, 2015) and language use depends largely on the interactions that take place in the classroom, this could be a possibility for language development, and future research could investigate it further. Another point that this limited but thought-provoking data set makes salient refers to the role that the English-only environments play in the development of students’ interactional competence (Hall et al., 2011; see also Nguyen and Hauser, this volume). Hauser (2010:17) shows how Japanese students in an EFL classroom drew on the limited resources they have in the TL in order to do what he calls ‘sophisticated interaction’. I too argue that what is done in this Brazilian EFL classroom is sophisticated and displays participants’ interactional competence. The sophistication in this case refers to the methods used by the students to participate using one single word, such as ‘beautiful’ (Excerpt 10.2). Similarly, the teacher’s competence lies in how she picks up on aspects of the students’ talk and builds on them to produce what may be perceived as a more meaningful and engaging lesson. One question worth asking then is to what extent implementing an ‘English-only’ policy in EFL

Participants’ Orientation to the English-only Policy

263

contexts may foster the development of students’ interactional competence in the TL. In addition, to what extent is the validation of students’ spontaneous contributions in English from the very beginning a long-run mechanism to create an environment that is conducive to such development? Answering these questions is beyond the scope of this chapter; however, it points to the need for a well-designed longitudinal study to offer insights on this matter. 8 Practical Implications

In terms of pedagogy, this detailed look at language policy at the discourse level may inform policy makers and practitioners in general in their decision-making processes. If what drives the implementation of ‘Englishonly’ policies is the aim to reproduce real-life contexts and foster language use, then a radical shift in teaching approach should happen: one that engages students in meaningful interactions rather than in detached language learning activities such as vocabulary explanations. The fi ndings seem to suggest that a strict orientation to the ‘English-only’ policy leads to unnatural and unnecessary language changes that may actually distance students from the very reality that speaking English in class is supposed to help create or enact. In other words, it seems that the ‘English-only’ mode requires more than just monitoring and policing which language to use throughout a lesson. Instead, it requires a paradigm shift in how we teach and how students learn. Such a paradigm requires that teachers engage learners in real-life communication with classroom activities and materials that promote the use of English naturally, where the L1 can be included when relevant and helpful. Additionally, it is worth highlighting that establishing an ‘Englishonly’ policy, principally in beginning-level classrooms, is a complex endeavor. This complexity involves specialized skills for making judgments on how to keep and foster the use of English while designing and managing orderly and productive learning environments that also support the maintenance of affiliative relationships between teacher and students. Therefore, understanding the trajectories engendered by language policy practices may give teachers some leverage in facing the dilemma of how much English should be used in class and for what purposes. Finally, it seems crucial that the debate on the perennial topic of language policy in EFL contexts be informed by empirical studies whose focus lies on what teachers and students do in the reality of their own teaching and learning contexts. Appendix: Additional Transcription Conventions

The transcriptions follow the standard CA transcription system by Jefferson (2004), presented in Chapter 1 of this volume. Portuguese talk

264

Part 3: Sociocultural and Ideological Forces in Language Teaching

has been translated based on the three-tier system used by Nguyen and Kasper (2009): First tier: original talk (plain text in Courier New) Second tier: gloss translation (Courier New italics) Third tier: prose rendering (Times New Roman italics)

A vertical bar indicates where the physical actions of a participant cooccurs with his/her vocal conduct. Musical notes show that the participant is singing. The use of ‘x’ between parentheses indicates the number of syllables in uncertain transcription. Acknowledgments

Earlier versions of this chapter were presented at the 2017 Annual Conference of the American Association of Applied Linguistics (AAAL) and at the 2017 Swiss Conference on Interactional Competences and Practices in a Second Language. I acknowledge the helpful comments I received from the audience. I especially thank Joan Kelly Hall and Hanh Nguyen for their valuable insights and suggestions during the preparation of this manuscript. Notes (1) For a thorough review of language policy research, see Hornberger and Johnson (2007) and Johnson (2009). (2) For further discussions on the beliefs surrounding language learning issues in Brazil, see Celani (2001) and Barcelos (2004). (3) For a discussion on the difference between correction and repair, see Hall (2007). (4) It could have been another candidate translation for the vocabulary item being addressed.

References Amir, A. (2013) Self-policing: How English-only is upheld in the foreign language classroom. Novitas-ROYAL 7 (2), 84–105. Amir, A. (2015) Examining English-only in the EFL classroom of a Swedish school: A conversation analytic perspective. In C.J. Jenks and P. Seedhouse (eds) International Perspectives on ELT Classroom Interaction (pp. 208–218). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Amir, A. and Musk, N. (2013) Language policing: Micro-level language policy-in-process in the foreign language classroom. Classroom Discourse 4 (2), 151–167, doi:10.1080/ 19463014.2013.783500 Amir, A. and Musk, N. (2014) Pupils doing language policy: Micro-interactional insights from the English as a foreign language classroom. Apples – Journal of Applied Language Studies 8 (2), 93–113. Atkinson, D. (1993) Teaching Monolingual Classes. London: Longman.

Participants’ Orientation to the English-only Policy

265

Auerbach. E.R. (1993) Reexamining English only in the ESL classroom. TESOL Quarterly 27 (1), 9–32. Barcelos, A.M. F. (2004) Crenças sobre aprendizagem de línguas, lingüística aplicada e ensino de línguas. Linguagem & Ensino 7 (1), 123–156. Bilmes, J. (1993) Ethnomethodology, culture, and implicature: Toward an empirical pragmatics. Pragmatics 3, 387–409. Bonacina, F. (2010) A conversation analytic approach to practiced language policies: The example of an induction classroom for newly-arrived immigrant children in France. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Edinburgh. Bonacina-Pugh, F. (2012) Researching ‘practiced language policies’: Insights from conversation analysis. Language Policy 11, 213–234. Butzkamm, W. (2003) We only learn language once. The role of the mother tongue in FL classrooms: Death of a dogma. Language Learning Journal 28 (1), 29–39. Canagarajah, A.S. (1999) Resisting Linguistic Imperialism in English Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Celani, M.A.A. (2001) Ensino de línguas estrangeiras: Ocupação ou profi ssão. In V.J. Leffa (ed.) O professor de línguas estrangeiras: Construindo a profi ssão. Pelotas, Brazil: Editora da Universidade Católica de Pelotas (EDUCAT). Clark, B., Wagner, J., Lindemalm, K. and Bendt, O. (2011) Språkskap: Supporting second language learning ‘in the wild’. INCLUDE 11. International Conference on Inclusive Design Proceedings, Royal College of Art, London. Cook, V. (2001) Using the fi rst language in the classroom. Canadian Modern Language Review 57, 402–423. Copp-Jinkerson, A. (2011) Interpreting and managing a monolingual norm in an Englishspeaking class in Finland: When fi rst and second graders contest the norm. Journal of Applied Language Studies 5, 27–48. Cummins, J. (2007) Rethinking monolingual instructional strategies in multilingual classrooms. Canadian Journal of Applied Linguistics 10 (2), 221–240. Eskildsen, S.W. (2014) What’s new? A usage-based classroom study of linguistic routines and creativity in L2 learning. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching 52 (1), 1–30. Garfinkel, H. (1967) Studies in Ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Hall, J.K. (2007) The devil’s in the details: A response to Seedhouse. The Modern Language Journal 91, 533–535. Hall, J.K. (2019a) Essentials of SLA for L2 Teachers: A Transdisciplinary Framework. New York: Routledge. Hall, J.K. (2019b) An EMCA approach to capturing the specialized work of L2 teaching: A research proposal. In M. Haneda and H. Nassaji (eds) Perspectives on Language as Action. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Hall, J.K., Hellermann, J. and Pekarek Doehler, S. (eds) (2011) L2 Interactional Competence and Development. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Hauser, E. (2010) Sophisticated interaction with limited linguistic resources. Invited lecture given at Language Learning and Socialization through Conversation Workshop, Center for Human Activity Theory, Kansas University. Hazel, S., Mortensen, K. and Rasmussen, G. (2014) Introduction: A body of resources – CA studies of social conduct. Journal of Pragmatics 65 (1), 1–9. Heritage, J. (1984) Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology. Malden, MA: Polity Press. Heritage, J. (1998) Oh-prefaced responses to inquiry. Language in Society 27, 291–334. Heritage, J. and Raymond, G.T. (2012) Navigating epistemic landscapes: Acquiescence, agency and resistance in responses to polar questions. In J.P. De Ruiter (ed.) Questions: Formal, Functional and Interactional Perspectives (pp. 179–192). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

266

Part 3: Sociocultural and Ideological Forces in Language Teaching

Hornberger, N.H. and Johnson, D.C. (2007) Slicing the onion ethnographically: Layers and spaces in multilingual language education policy and practice. TESOL Quarterly 41 (3), 509–532. Jefferson, G. (2004) Glossary of transcript symbols with an introduction. In G.H. Lerner (ed.) Conversation Analysis: Studies from the First Generation (pp. xx). Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp.13–31. Johnson, D.C. (2009) Ethnography of language policy. Language Policy 8, 139–159. Kim, S.-A. (2002) A critical reflection on the ‘Teaching English through English’ classes in the Korean context. English Teaching 57 (4), 315–346. Koole, T. (2010) Displays of epistemic access: Student responses to teacher explanations. Research on Language and Social Interaction 43 (2), 183–209. Koole, T. and Elbers, E. (2014) Responsiveness in teacher explanations: A conversation analytical perspective on scaffolding. Linguistics and Education 26, 57–69. Krashen, S.D. (1985) The Input Hypothesis: Issues and Implications. London: Longman. Leppänen, S. and Piirainen-Marsh, A. (2009) Language policy in the making: An analysis of bilingual gaming activities. Language Policy 8, 261–284. Malabarba, T. (2010) O trabalho do professor de inglês em curso livre: Na tessitura das prescrições [The work of teaching English in a language center and its requirements]. Unpublished MA dissertation, Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos. Malabarba, T. (2015) O percurso do agir interacional no trabalho docente: Do projeto de ensino às participações contingentes em sala de aula de língua inglesa [The interactional route of teaching: From the major instructional project to contingent participations]. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos. Markee, N. (2005) A conversation analytic perspective on off -task classroom talk: Implications for second language acquisition studies. In K. Richards and P. Seedhouse (eds) Applying Conversation Analysis (pp. 187–213). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Markee, N. and Kunitz, S. (2012) Doing being a language cop: Paper presented at American Association of Applied Linguistics Conference, 24–27 March, Boston,  MA. Martin, P. (2005) ‘Safe’ language practices in two rural schools in Malaysia: Tensions between policy and practice. In A.M.Y. Lin and P. Martin (eds) Decolonisation, Globalisation: Language-in-education Policy and Practice (pp. 74–97). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Mondada, L. (2014) Instructions in the operating room: How the surgeon directs their assistant’s hands. Discourse Studies 16 (2), 131–161. Musk, N. and Amir, A. (2010) Language policing: The co-construction of micro-level language policy in the English as a second language classroom. Paper presented at NORDISCO (Nordic Interdisciplinary Conference on Discourse and Interaction), 17–19 November, Aalborg, Denmark. Nguyen, H.T. and Kasper, G. (eds) (2009) Talk-in-interaction: Multilingual Perspectives. Honolulu, HI: National Foreign Language Resource Center. Okada, Y. (2013) Prioritization: A formulation practice and its relevance for interaction in teaching and testing contexts. In T. Greer, D. Tatsuki and C. Roever (eds) Pragmatics and Language Learning, Vol. 13 (pp. 55–77). Honolulu, HI: National Foreign Language Resource Center. Pavlenko, A. (2003) Language of the enemy: Foreign language education and national identity. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 6 (5), 313–331. Psathas, G. (1995) Conversation Analysis: The Study of Talk-in-Interaction. London: Sage. Sacks, H., Schegloff, E.A. and Jefferson, G. (1974) A simplest systematics for the organization of turn taking for conversation. Language 50 (4), 696–735. Schegloff, E.M., Jefferson, G. and Sacks, H. (1977) The preference for self-correction in the organization of repair in conversation. Language 53 (2), 361–382.

Participants’ Orientation to the English-only Policy

267

Sert, O. (2016) Transforming CA fi ndings into future L2 teaching practices. American Association for Applied Linguistics Conference 2016, 9–12 April, Orlando, FL. Slotte-Lüttge, A. (2007) Making use of bilingualism: The construction of a monolingual classroom, and its consequences. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 187/188, 103–128. Spolsky, B. (2004) Language Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wagner, J. (2015) Designing for language learning in the wild: Creating social infrastructures for second language learning. In T. Cadierno and S.W. Eskildsen (eds) Usagebased Perspectives on Second Language Learning (pp. 75–102). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Wang, W. and Lam, A.S.L. (2009) The English language curriculum for senior secondary school in China: Its evolution from 1949. RELC Journal 40 (1), 65–82. Waring, H.Z. (2012) ‘Any questions?’: Investigating the nature of understanding-checks in the language classroom. TESOL Quarterly 46, 722–752.

11 Teaching English in Marginalized Contexts: Constructing Relevance in an EFL Classroom in Rural Southern Mexico Peter Sayer, Taiane Malabarba and Leslie C. Moore

This chapter combines conversation analysis (CA) and ethnography to present an investigation of how English is taught in marginalized contexts. The analysis draws on video-recordings and ethnographic field notes of one English as a foreign language (EFL) class in a rural community in southern Mexico and focuses on participants’ methods to construct relevance in classroom interaction. The findings show that the methods used by the participants involve using English as the means of interaction in classroom routines, translanguaging in order to discuss cultural differences and taking the direction of a grammar exercise into a playful game of insults. This chapter enriches and expands our understanding of EFL classroom dynamics in marginalized contexts by examining a postcolonial setting where English is not the official language of the country and by bringing together CA and ethnography. Together, these approaches help us to access participants’ perspectives on EFL teaching and learning and to recognize how teachers and students construct relevance and meaning in the classroom. 1 Introduction

English is taught as an additional language across the globe. It is taught in classrooms in urban areas that are well connected to the global transcultural flows of ideas and information (Pennycook, 2007) as well as in small towns that seem, at first glance, isolated and far removed from the purposes generally associated with learning English as an international language such as travel, business, pop culture and technology. These contexts are often characterized as ‘marginalized’ because they 268

Teaching English in Marginalized Contexts

269

lack infrastructure, employment opportunities and, for children in these areas, access to quality education. Nevertheless, English has become a school subject in the public school curriculum in many so-called developing countries (Enever, 2015). In Mexico, English has been taught at the lower secondary level, starting in seventh grade, as part of the national curriculum for over 50 years. More recently, the Mexican Ministry of Education introduced English as a subject in basic education in public schools, effectively extending English instruction throughout the 13 years of K-12 education. The curriculum projects that students graduating high school should have received 1420 hours of instruction and have acquired a B2 level on the Common European Framework of Reference scale (roughly upper intermediate; see also Sayer, 2015). This makes the Mexican program one of the most ambitious in public education of English in Latin America. Nevertheless, assessment results indicate that few children reach the benchmarks set by the curriculum, and English education in Mexico has faced persistent problems identified in other developing EFL contexts, such as a lack of qualified English teachers and the disruption of program implementation as administrations change (Kaplan et al., 2011). Notwithstanding, the expansion of English in Mexican schools has been widely embraced because the notion that ‘English opens doors’ of socio-economic mobility is largely taken to be self-evident (Sayer, 2018). As a national program, the same curriculum is being implemented in large urban areas where schools have computers and internet access, as well as in far-flung rural areas. In these rural schools, however, the immediate relevance of English to the daily lives of many students is questionable. This chapter thus aims to examine how a teacher and his students constructed this relevance in classroom interaction. In so doing, we hope to inform educators, policy makers and researchers about the reality of English teaching and learning in this particular type of context. 2 EFL Teaching and Learning in Marginalized Contexts

A marginalized context is one that is systematically deprived of access to material and symbolic resources. On the one hand, English language teaching is big business, propelled through the global spread of English as a lingua franca (see Marlabarba & Nguyen and Nguyen, this volume) by neoliberal market forces and sustained through postcolonial relations of power (Park & Wee, 2012; Pennycook, 1998; Phillipson, 2008). On the other hand, the recent rapid expansion of primary English education programs in public schools in so-called developing countries has been fraught with problems of resources, teacher training and access1 (Baldauf et al., 2011). Research conducted in marginalized settings has identified classroom interactional practices that do little to promote language learning but instead enable teachers and students to avoid displays of incompetence

270 Part 3: Sociocultural and Ideological Forces in Language Teaching

while engaging in lessons in English with students’ limited proficiency (e.g. Chick, 1996; Merritt, 1994; Williams, 2013). In some settings, marginalization manifests along an urban/rural divide, as noted by David and Govindasamy (2005) in Malaysia. They explain that rural Malay speakers learning English are consistently disadvantaged compared to their urban counterparts. Besides confronting the challenge of access to resources and quality teachers in rural schools, they pointed out that a preference for English over Malay is often seen as antinationalistic. Most importantly, and relating to the main point examined in this chapter, David and Govindasamy (2005) observed that, because of the social and economic conditions of rural Malays, they see little relevance for English in their daily lives. The relevance of English is a crucial issue that teachers and students need to address at the classroom level in many marginalized contexts. We return to this topic in the next section. Most studies that give discourse-analytic attention to English language classroom talk in marginalized contexts have been conducted in postcolonial settings where English is an official language of the country but where the students (and often the teachers) have limited access to and experience with English. In focusing on EFL classroom interactions in a rural, former indigenous community in Mexico, this chapter builds upon and extends this research by offering a portrait of the activities participants engage in and the practices and actions they accomplish to make such activities more or less relevant to them. 3 Relevance in Language Teaching and Learning

The relevance of curriculum to students’ lives has been investigated as a factor for investment in language learning (e.g. Duarte & Escobar, 2008; Duff & Early, 1999; Norton, 2000, 2001). The thrust of the argument here is that unless students fi nd classroom materials and activities as enabling them to move toward their imagined communities, they may not choose to continue learning the target language. For example, in a study on a transgender ESL student in the United States, Nguyen and Yang (2015) showed that the student openly resisted and queered classroom activities that she perceived as not relevant for her goal of becoming a member of the LGTBQ community. Students clearly need to see the relevance of language instruction to their lives and aspirations. In addition to a focus on how students react to the relevance or irrelevance of classroom content to their lives outside of the classroom, researchers have also examined what teachers do to make the language classroom relevant to students, especially in EFL contexts. It has been reported (e.g. Botelho, 2003; Dunford, 2004; Graves, 2000; McGrath, 2013; Ravelonanahary, 2007; and Malabarba, this volume) that one of the reasons for teachers to adapt materials is their evaluation of the materials’ cultural appropriateness and suitability for students’ interests and desires. In other

Teaching English in Marginalized Contexts

271

words, teachers often report the need to personalize and localize materials to make them relevant to students (Wang, 2005). Along these lines, teachers in Indonesia reported extending the given materials’ content on topics of dating and forgiveness to the students’ local cultural practices (Zacharias, 2005), while teachers in Egypt chose to omit textbook content on the topic of drinking which they deemed culturally inappropriate to their local students (Gray, 2000). In a microanalysis of classroom talk within an ethnographic study of a rural school in Brunei, Martin (2005a) illustrated how a teacher ‘talk[ed] knowledge into being’ when he reframed the cultural practices and ‘expert knowledge’ presented in the ministry-issued textbook in terms of the students’ local knowledge. For example, a farmer in the book was depicted selling his vegetables at the market, whereas in the village the students’ families usually only sold rice. The teacher repositioned the text to align it with the lived reality of his students by shifting from the city dweller’s perspective of seeing an individual farmer selling his vegetables at a market to his students’ perspective of seeing their families sell rice through the village cooperative to a wholesaler. Teachers’ efforts to make English lesson content relevant to students may sometimes also involve switching to the students’ home language. Canagarajah (1999) described such an approach by teachers of English in Sri Lanka. When general questions in English failed to elicit a response from the students, the teacher reframed the question to relate to the students’ home knowledge in Tamil (their native tongue) and received multiple responses from the students which drew on knowledge that they had gained outside the classroom. Thus, when teachers ‘bridged the gap between school and home’ (Canagarajah, 1999: 136), they made instruction relevant to their students. Other researchers have also illuminated participants’ use of multiple languages and/or varieties of English in the classroom to relate lesson content to local linguistic, social and cultural realities as well as to contest content, forms and norms promoted by textbooks and curricula (e.g. Lin & Martin, 2005; Martin, 2005a, 2005b; Sayer 2012). Teachers’ alternation of languages in classroom interaction serves to scaffold the students’ sense-making and to connect to the students’ local knowledge and identities. This approach is in alignment with the essence of translanguaging pedagogy, in which teachers and students utilize their ‘full linguistic repertoire without regard for watchful adherence to the socially and politically defi ned boundaries of named (and usually national and state) languages’ (Otheguy et al., 2015: 281; see also García & Wei, 2014). Taken together, it could be argued that not only translanguaging but also transculturing is needed to make lessons relevant to students. The body of research reviewed above clearly indicates that relevance in the language classroom, that is, the connection between a predetermined curriculum and students’ cultural and social backgrounds, is an essential part of effective and meaningful language education. Most of

272

Part 3: Sociocultural and Ideological Forces in Language Teaching

these studies used either surveys and interviews or discourse analysis to ascertain how teachers adapt materials and activities to make them relevant to students. To further understand the notion of relevance in language teaching, in this chapter we aim to use CA’s microanalytic lens to examine how teachers and students turn the target language (in this case, English) and a nationally defi ned curriculum into a tool for making sense of and addressing their lived experiences and potential futures. We do so by analyzing details of classroom interaction in the marginalized context of a rural, former indigenous community in Mexico. A description of this context is presented in the next section. 4 Context

The village school we describe in this chapter is marginalized in several senses. The families of the students are indigenous, and have historically been exploited and oppressed by the ruling classes in Mexico (Hernández Díaz, 2000). It is located in a rural area that has among the highest rates of illiteracy, especially for adult women, and most houses lack plumbing and floors. In indigenous areas, which were the last areas in the country to receive electricity and public schools, education has been used a tool for assimilation to the national language and culture (Hamel, 2008). The national curriculum, set by the Ministry of Education, has served to promote the castellanización, the eradication of indigenous languages and the imposition of Spanish on indigenous children. The introduction of English into the curriculum starting in lower secondary schools in the 1950s further entrenched the assimilationist goals of schooling, as did the expansion of English instruction into the primary grades in the 2000s. The Escuela Secundaria Mixe (Mixe Lower Secondary School) is a boarding school located in the Mixe2 region at the edge of a ravine in a small village in the mountains of the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca (Figure 11.1). The Mixes, or ayüük, are an indigenous group, one of 15 ethnolinguistic groups in Oaxaca. The tuition is US$40 per semester, although families can pay in barter with beans and corn. The school supports itself through donations, and the crops and pigs, rabbits and goats

Figure 11.1 The Escuela Secundaria Mixe

Teaching English in Marginalized Contexts

273

that the students raise and slaughter. It is a humble cluster of two-story cement block buildings with a rusted corrugated metal roof. It has electricity and basic plumbing. The students live in dormitories in a separate building with cold showers and wash their own clothes in a large wash bin near the cafeteria. Most of the students at the school speak Mixe as their mother tongue, and learned Spanish when they started at primary school. Although compulsory education in Mexico goes up to Grade 9, because many Mixes live in small, isolated villages and ranches they have limited options for continuing their schooling past Grade 6. Students attending the school come from across the region, some traveling up to 10 hours by horse or motorcycle and on foot. The students that participated in the study, aged between 11 and 14, received about 2.5 hours of instruction in English per week, spread over three to four lessons of 40–50 minutes. The school year starts in September and runs until early July. For most students, this class has been their fi rst exposure to English. The teachers at the school are a mix of priests and nuns from the religious order and several lay teachers (with no religious position or duties), including Hilario (a pseudonym) who taught English and Spanish. He had been teaching in the school for three years and, unlike the other teachers at the school, he was trained in his subject area, and had received a degree in teaching English as a foreign language (BA TEFL). After three years, Hilario had formed close bonds with his students, and had embraced his role as a language teacher and mentor to the adolescents who were living at the boarding school. The students affectionately called him Teacher Bikwahet, an inside joke about his frequent yell of ‘Be quiet!’ in English to try to settle the class down. The data for this chapter come primarily from Hilario’s class. 5 Research Questions

This chapter is part of a larger project on English teaching and learning practices in rural southern Mexico and aims to illuminate the work of making English relevant to participants’ lives as it is accomplished locally in classroom interactions. Informed by the literature on language teaching and learning and by CA’s emic and data-driven perspective, we consider relevance to be talked into being in language classroom discourse when the teachers or students modify the materials and activities in the given curriculum to connect the target language with their own lived experiences both inside and outside the classroom. Specifically, we ask the following questions: (1) What interactional practices do participants employ to make English relevant in classroom interaction? (2) How do these invocations of lived experiences relate to the lessons’ pedagogical goals?

274

Part 3: Sociocultural and Ideological Forces in Language Teaching

6 Methodology

Ethnographic fieldwork is an essential requirement to keep up with CA’s agenda of understanding local practices from the participants’ perspectives. This means that when analyzing cultures beyond one’s own (such as an institutional context that one is not a part of) the analyst needs to acquire members’ knowledge and competence in a more explicit way. While both ethnography and CA adopt an emic perspective, studies within both traditions differ considerably. Whereas ethnographic research tends to give more attention to the broader context and to use interviews, CA studies provide fewer details on the broader context and in turn analyze participants’ conduct and practices through fi ne-tuned sequential analysis. Maynard (2006) explains that ethnography analyzes the context of the setting, whereas CA analyzes the context of the activity. In bringing together these two approaches in what Maynard (2006: 61) terms ‘mutual affi nity’, this study deliberately adopts a perspective that ‘[a]ll speech occurs in some particular sociocultural setting that must be described if we are to understand what is said’ (Moerman, 1988: 48). As is apparent from the description of the school that was drawn from ethnographic field notes, and the way this informs the analysis below of what and how the teacher and students are trying to accomplish their goals through interaction in classroom, we are taking a broader view of context than traditional CA. In doing that, we attempt to connect the context of the setting (the rural school, and the background of the teacher and students) to the context of the activity (the recognizable social roles and actions performed through interaction). In order to understand the context of EFL teaching/learning in rural Mexico, we draw on an ethnographic thick description reported in Sayer (2012), with field notes taken over the course of one school year in the classes of three focal teachers. This chapter is based on the work with Hilario. While the larger research project was conducted using the basic ethnographic method of long-term participant observation – Sayer was at the school as Hilario’s classroom aide during the study – some lessons were audio-recorded. Initially, this was done as a way of checking his field notes and to use selectively as a prompt during interviews with Hilario. Later, after Sayer (2012) had done several months of ethnographic hanging out at the school and had identified salient themes, he examined classroom interaction in order to understand how the mundane practices of these teachers were shaped by their social context and how, through these practices, the teachers created roles, identities and ideologies that enabled them to navigate and negotiate their specific context (Sayer, 2012). In this chapter, we seek to reexamine Sayer’s (2012) classroom interaction data, using CA tools to investigate in detail how Hilario talked the English lessons into being. We set out to achieve deeper understanding of the ‘mundane practices’ Sayer had noted in the EFL classrooms in rural southern Mexico.

Teaching English in Marginalized Contexts

275

The sequential analysis we present in this chapter is CA-inspired. This qualification is warranted because, due to logistical reasons, the audiorecordings of some of the excerpts included in this chapter (Excerpts 11.5 and 11.6) are no longer available. Our analysis of these excerpts therefore relies on the transcription that Sayer had previously produced, which does not include the level of detail that is conventional for CA (cf. Hepburn & Bolden, 2013). The other excerpts (Excerpts 11.1–11.4) were taken from videos made by Sayer and the teachers and students at the school and were transcribed using CA conventions. The recordings were made about two months into the school year, when the students have had about 20 hours of instruction (eight weeks at 2.5 hours). 7 Findings

Our analysis will focus on the participants’ practices and actions to make English relevant to their lives at the local level of EFL classroom interaction. First, we will show how this relevance is pursued through the use of local classroom routines tentatively carried out by the teacher in English. This seems to be a strategy used by the teacher to bring some kind of ‘wilderness’ (Wagner, 2015; see also Malabarba & Nguyen in this volume) into the classroom. Secondly, we will focus on two clearly unplanned moments of classroom interaction in which participants’ side sequences display their attempts to connect the business at hand, i.e. English learning topics, with their realities and daily practices. 7.1 Making English relevant in classroom routines

Hilario seemed to make English relevant to the students by bringing English into the mundane practices in the life of the classroom. This section showcases some of the classroom routines in which English is oriented to as the medium of interaction. The fi rst excerpt takes place right after Hilario enters the class. Although Hilario’s lesson tends to be more informal than the classes taught by the priests and nuns, he usually starts the class with some type of ‘English version of a formal greeting’, where the students are all expected to stand and greet the teacher enthusiastically to show proper respect. The significance of the greeting routine seems to be communicated by Hilario to his students in the fact that if the students do not perform the bodily actions (standing at attention) or vocal responses (greeting loudly in English), Hilario restarts the activity until full student participation is achieved. Excerpt 11.1 Good morning 01 HIL: good morning. 02 STS: | 03 |((some sts stand up))

276

Part 3: Sociocultural and Ideological Forces in Language Teaching

04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14

HIL: good |morning? |((raises chin)) STS: |↑good MORNING TEACHER. |((the rest of the class stands up)) HIL: ((smiles)) STS: (2.3)((some sts sit down and/or chat)) HIL: how are ↑you STS: °°and°° you? HIL: fine. excellent. sit down please STS: |thank you |((sit down))

As Hilario produces his greeting initiation ‘good morning’ (line 1), only some students respond in unison and only some stand up. Hilario then restarts the greeting with rising intonation and raised chin (lines 4 and 5), thus reopening up the next slot for the students to reproduce their response. In this second response, the rest of the class stand up as the students deliver their ‘good morning’ in louder voice (lines 6 and 7). Hilario seems satisfied with this revised response from the students and smiles (line 8). At this point, a few students sit down and/or start chatting, thus orienting away from the unison class greeting. However, Hilario continues the greeting sequence in typical sequential format as in American conversations (Schegloff, 1968), by issuing the canonical inquiry ‘how are you’ (line 10). After the students’ canonical response and reciprocal inquiry delivered collectively and in a slow-paced manner, ‘fi ne thank you and you’ (line 11), Hilario also produces a canonical response, ‘fi ne’ (line 12). Unlike in ordinary American conversations, however, Hilario closes the greeting with an assessment ‘excellent’ and a command for the students to sit down. The students orient to this closing of the greeting activity by saying ‘thank you’ and complying with Hilario’s command. The ways Hilario opens his class (in English, with a restart, and with a continuation in canonical greeting sequence) could be seen as an attempt to socialize students into a cultural practice in the target language. By using English to achieve greetings with his students, Hilario is also making English a part of their daily business rather than a language that exists only in the textbook. Another classroom routine observed across the data is the use of a dinámica (literally, a ‘dynamic’, usually any classroom activity that involves some kinesthetic element) to start the lesson. It was typical of Hilario to use some kind of movement-involved dinámica often with some element of competition, such as teams running to the board to write vocabulary, charades, etc. The classrooms had no heat or insulation, and so Hilario explained that on cold days it was important to have the teenagers moving around (likewise on hot days, to keep them from getting too sleepy). The focus of the dinámicas was usually vocabulary, or less often to produce a particular grammatical structure. On this particular day, the dinámica was the ‘matches game’. The matches game starts with the students

Teaching English in Marginalized Contexts

277

Figure 11.2 A male student holding the match in the matches game

Figure 11.3 A female student passing on the match in the matches game

standing in a circle. The teacher lights a wax match and passes it to the first student, who must grab the match without dropping or extinguishing it and pass it to the next student (Figures 11.2 and 11.3). This gets increasing more challenging as it moves around the circle and the matches burn shorter, dripping hot wax and burning the students’ fingers. The student who drops the match is ‘it’, and has to answer a question in English. In Excerpt 11.2, we observe the moment when the match burns too short for Soledad to hold it, which means that she will be asked a question. Excerpt 11.2 Matches game (I) 01 02 03 04 05 06 07

SOL: HIL: SOL: HIL:

[((covers mouth using both hands)) [soledad soledad pay attention ((covers mouth using left hand)) |carlitos, |((points at Carlitos)) (0.7) ST1: te[vas will you will you

08 HIL: [carlitos, 09 ST1: hacer una pregunta to make a question you make a question

278

Part 3: Sociocultural and Ideological Forces in Language Teaching

10 HIL: [is going to ask you a question. 11 CAR: [((looks at Hilario)) 12 12 13 14 15

HIL: [carlitos please ask a question to soledad CAR: [((looks at Hilario)) (.) HIL: a question CAR: o que what what

16 ? xxx 17 HIL: [|whatever 18 |((shakes head)) 19 ST2: [x hacer una pre[gunta make a question make a question 20 HIL: 21

[|whatever ask a question. |((shakes head))

Hilario’s summons (Schegloff, 1968, 2002), designed to gain Soledad’s attention (line 2), marks the beginning of the task. Immediately after Carlitos is selected as the questioner (line 6), another student comes in and begins to complete Hilario’s turn (lines 7–9), which indicates that this is a familiar routine for the students. The student’s explanation in Spanish is followed by Hilario’s turn in English ‘is going to ask you a question’ (line 10). Carlitos’ lack of uptake (line 13) may indicate difficulty with accomplishing the action Hilario is eliciting. Such difficulty may be related to his lack of understanding of what he is supposed to do or what question to ask Soledad. Hilario orients to this double possibility and partially repeats his instruction in English, ‘a question’ (line 14), which addresses Carlitos’ possible lack of understanding of the task at hand. Carlitos’ open-class repair initiator (Drew, 1997) ‘o que’ (‘what’, line 15) signals his continued lack of understanding. Hilario repairs by providing instructions for the content of the question that Carlitos is expected to ask, ‘whatever’ (line 17). As Hilario’s instruction is given in English, it could also be the case that Carlitos is struggling with what to do next due to the language of the instruction. Orienting to Carlitos’ difficulty as such, another student candidates an explanation in Spanish (line 19), which is followed by Hilario’s reinforcement in English ‘whatever ask a question’ (line 20). Up to this point, Excerpt 11.2 shows Hilario’s consistent choice of English as the medium of instruction despite Carlitos’ apparent difficulty in carrying out the task. The assistance by the other students, produced in Spanish, may orient to Carlitos’ language difficulty and further provided evidence that while the issue can be resolved by resorting to Spanish, Hilario selects to use English. Excerpt 11.3 is a continuation of Excerpt 11.2. Between Hilario’s request that Carlitos should ask a question to Soledad (Excerpt 11.2) and Carlitos’ actual delivery of the question (Excerpt 11.3), 13 seconds go by

Teaching English in Marginalized Contexts

279

– enough time for the other participants to disengage from the activity and be called out by Hilario (lines 25–33). Hilario resumes the request for Carlitos to ask Soledad a question by reproducing the request in English, ‘ask a question please’ (line 35) and elaborating on the request, also in English, ‘look at her’ (line 38) to prompt Carlitos to accomplish the task. Excerpt 11.3 Matches game (II) 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43

STS: HIL: ST: RES: STS: HIL: EMA: HIL: RES: CAR: HIL: CAR: HIL: CAR: SOL: CAR:

44 SOL: 45 46 ?:

xxx [|and pay attention |((looks at Soledad, raises right arm towards her)) [|is it recording ↑something |((looks at researcher operating the camera)) °see that REC xxx° xxx sh:: sh sh sh ((giggles)) [emmanuel [°xxx° (1.3)((sts giggle and chat in low voice volume)) ((looks forward, arms folded)) ask a question please (1.7) ((looks at Hilario)) |look at her |((looks at Carlitos, points to his own eye)) [((turns to Soledad)) [((tilts head to the side, looks downwards)) how do you say in english este:: yo puedo cocinar [e::n mi: cocina. umm I can to cook in my kitchen umm I can cook in my kitchen [((tilts head to the left, raises left shoulder, Figure 11.4)) xxx

Figure 11.4 Soledad tilts head to the left (Excerpt 11.3, lines 44–45)

280

Part 3: Sociocultural and Ideological Forces in Language Teaching

When Carlitos fi nally performs the task requested by Hilario as part of the matches game (lines 42 and 43), he produces a ‘how do you say …’ question to ask for the English version of a phrase in Spanish. The nature of ‘how do you say’ questions in this context is similar to the greeting ritual observed earlier: it is part of the class routines. In Hilario’s class, the students are constantly reminded to use this phrase if they want to know the corresponding target language meaning of a word. On the one hand, the fact that Carlitos can use this phrase shows his successful reproduction of this class routine. On the other hand, this question may be linked to Carlitos’ limited linguistic repertoire. In fact, this limitation is also shown by Soledad, who displays difficulty in providing a response to Carlitos’ question. Even before Carlitos has ended his turn, she tilts her head to the left and raises her left shoulder (Figure 11.4) indicating that she does not know how to translate the requested phrase. Excerpt 11.3 thus contrasts the students’ limited English abilities with Hilario’s insistence on using English as the medium of instruction. In doing so, he may be attempting to make English visible and relevant in classroom routines and creating opportunities for English use for his students, although this attempt was not always successful. Hilario’s effort to make English relevant to the students can be seen in another common activity in his English class, which involves students delivering a presentation orally in English based on a written assignment. Excerpt 11.4 illustrates such a presentation, the house poster presentation. This is the last activity of a four-lesson book unit about houses. The assignment was for the students to draw their own house, include a written description with it and then give an oral presentation in front of the class. Each student was aided by a ‘helper’, who would hold the poster open as the presentation was delivered (Figure 11.5). In Excerpt 11.4, Lourdes is the presenter.

Figure 11.5 Lourdes presenting her poster (Excerpt 11.4)

Teaching English in Marginalized Contexts 281

Excerpt 11.4 Poster presentation 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15

STS: [((talking)) LOU: [((fidgets, looks forward, smiles)) HIL: uhu (2.3) [((Lources fidgets, looks forward, smiles)), [((Lourdes' helper covers face with poster)) LOU: in my house HIL: in your house, LOU: ((looks at poster)) (0.7) LOU: there are a, HIL: there are? LOU: a chicken HIL: a kitchen? ?: $chicken$ STS: ((laugh))

The students often show embarrassment during the delivery of the presentation (e.g. they laugh, smile, fidget). It takes Lourdes (ST1) 2.3 seconds to start presenting after Hilario had given her a go-ahead (line 3). This may indicate Lourdes’ difficulty in producing English in this presentation. Note that Hilario acknowledges Lourdes’ initial turns (‘in my house’ in line 6) by reproducing it, possibly as a way to encourage her to proceed (‘in your house’ in line 7). He then corrects Lourdes’ use of ‘there are a’ (a plural sentence structure followed by a singular indefinite article) (line 10). He also corrects Lourdes’ ‘chicken’ to ‘kitchen’ (line 13), and as Lourdes and the students realize the mistake – she has accidentally said there is a chicken in her house – it becomes a joke and the students begin laughing, with one student repeating Lourdes’ mistake as a way to highlight its image (Cekaite & Aronsson, 2004). This excerpt thus illustrates Hilario’s insistence on using English in class presentations vis-à-vis the students’ struggle with using English. Thus far, we have seen how the teacher, Hilario, made English relevant as the language of classroom routine activities. Next, we analyze how participants’ life-worlds are oriented to and jointly talked into relevance by both the teacher and the students. 7.2 Invoking participants’ realities in classroom activities

In order to show how participants manage to link the current interactional topic with the participants’ realities and thus make the current business of learning English relevant to them, we refer back to the house poster activity. The activity took place shortly after the start of a new unit of study called ‘In My Neighborhood’ which Hilario had developed himself for the first-year students (age 11–12). In the first lesson, Hilario introduced houses and vocabulary related to this topic, using a cut-away image of an American house (see Figure 11.6). The image was from commercially produced material by a large publisher, and showed a ‘typical’ two-story middle-class home in a generic Western country. This example house included

282

Part 3: Sociocultural and Ideological Forces in Language Teaching

Figure 11.6 Poster used to introduce the unit on housing

a recycling container in the kitchen, a bookcase full of books in the living room, and a baby’s room (see Figure 11.7), but it did not include many household features or spaces that were familiar to his students. The assignment that followed the presentation of this image was for the students to draw their own house, put a written description with it and then give an oral presentation. Before the oral presentation, however, as the students began to work on their own floor plans, they started bombarding Hilario with questions about English vocabulary they needed for their own houses, such as chicken coop, water tank, patio, washboard. Recognizing the cultural disconnect and the need to recontextualize the example he had given them, Hilario interrupted the students’ seatwork to interject a mini-lesson using pictures of different types of houses from the Oxford Picture Dictionary (Excerpt 11.5, see also Sayer, 2012). Here, he fluidly translanguages (Otheguy et al., 2015) between Spanish and English to make the lesson content relevant to his students. Excerpt 11.5 Mobile home 01 HIL:

en los estados unidos hay diferentes tipos de casas in the states united are different types of houses in the USA there are different kinds of houses

02 03 HIL: 04 05 HIL:

(.) one family apartment. duplex. mobile home (.) aquí en mexico no tenemos tantos here in mexico no have-we many here in Mexico we don’t have so many

06 07 HIL:

(.) miran. cuando van allí nuestros paisanos, look. When go-then there-distant our countrymen-SLANG look. When our countrymen go up there,

Teaching English in Marginalized Contexts 283

08

la mayoria viven en departamentos the majority live-they in apartments most live in apartments

09 10 HIL:

(.) diego. te ha dicho tu papá cómodiego. you have told your dad how diego. has your dad told you how-

11

o qué tipo de casa tiene allí? or what type of house has-he there? or what kind of house he has there?

12 DIE: 13

°no° No

14 15 HIL:

(1.0) con mi tío, cuando estuve allí when was-i there-distant with my uncle when I was up there with my uncle,

16

apenas iban a comprar just almost-they to-buy they were about to buy this

17 18 19 HIL: 20

((points at picture)) (.) mobile home. como dicen los paisas, traila as say-they the countrymen-SLANG trailer as the countrymen say, traila

21

(.)

eso this

Hilario initiates his exposition by stating in Spanish that there are different types of houses in the USA (lines 1–3). He then shifts to Mexico, setting up a contrast with the USA (line 5). Whereas he used an impersonal verb (hay) to communicate the presence of different types of housing in the USA, in line 5 Hilario uses a personal possessive construction preceded by the negative particle (‘no tenemos tantos’), reinforcing his shift to the local by using the fi rst person plural form of the verb tener (to have), indexing his students and himself as the subjects of this verb phrase. Hilario then directs the students’ attention to the pictures of different types of housing he has brought to class and shifts from aquí (here) back to the allí (there-distant) (the USA) (line 11). Note that Hilario’s use of mirán (look) (line 7) invites the students to pay attention to Mexico, not to the USA. In constructing his explanation that most Mexican immigrants to the USA live in apartments, he uses the possessive noun phrase nuestros paisanos (our countrymen, line 7), making locally relevant his and the students’ shared national identity and affi liation with fellow nationals who emigrate to the USA (cf. Hester & Housley, 2002).

284

Part 3: Sociocultural and Ideological Forces in Language Teaching

Figure 11.7 Textbook example of the baby’s room3

To further relate the content to the students’ lives, Hilario then selects the next speaker, Diego, by addressing him with his name, and produces a yes/no question which is a genuine request for information about Diego’s father’s housing ‘there’ in the USA (lines 10–11). There is a hitch in Hilario’s production, as he switches from a ‘how’ question to ‘what type’, a formulation that fits more closely with the lesson content about different types of housing. Quietly but without hesitation, Diego produces a functionally minimal answer that disconfi rms access to knowledge assumed

Teaching English in Marginalized Contexts

285

by Hilario’s question (line 12) (cf. Keevalik, 2010). It is important to note that although Diego does not claim knowledge, his response is immediate, signaling his readiness to participate in the conversation. After his attempt to relate the lesson content to a student’s individual case does not work out, Hilario produces his own example of Mexican immigrants’ housing in the USA, personalizing the content of his exposition by making reference to his experience as an undocumented migrant in the USA (lines 15 and 17), which he often referred to in his classes. After pointing to the picture of a mobile home, pausing, and producing the English name for it (‘mobile home’ in line 19), Hilario switches back to Spanish to introduce the Spanglish name for this type of housing, traila (line 20). He identifies traila as a word used by los paisas (line 20), which is a term used among Mexican immigrants in the USA to refer to someone from the same state or region as the speaker. It is important in that both terms (paisa is used among Mexican immigrants in the USA and traila is a Spanglish term) are sociolinguistic markers that index first generation Mexican immigrants in the USA, most of whom still hope to return home to Mexico. Hilario’s formulation (Schegloff, 1972) associates a hybrid language form with Mexican immigrants in the USA, while also invoking a specific, more closely affiliated group within that membership category through the use of the phrase los paisas, immigrants with whom the speaker shares an affiliation even closer than that of national identity. Excerpt 11.6, from a grammar lesson with the third year students (age 13–14), illustrates a different interactional trajectory in which participants construct the relevance of English as a tool they may use for their own purposes. The grammar point is the structure of comparatives and superlatives. Hilario starts with a rather bland example about animals, and then elicits more from the students (lines 1–5). Excerpt 11.6 Superlative construction 01 HIL: 02 03 04 05 06 HEC:

the horse is bigger than the dog (.) the elephant is the biggest (0.5) another example? |YO YO YO teacher bikwahet me me me me me me

07 08 HIL:

|((raises hand enthusiastically)) a ver hector to to-see hector okay hector

09 HEC: 10 11 HEC: 12 TON:

my mother (0.5) [m[IS THE BIGGEST

286

Part 3: Sociocultural and Ideological Forces in Language Teaching

13 STS: ((laugh)) 14 AND: PERO EL MÁS CABRÓN, (es) but the most asshole is-he but the biggest asshole is 15 16 17 18 19

HIL: STS: HIL: HEC:

20 21 22 23

HIL: HEC: STS: HIL:

24 25

my fucking father [((laughs)) [((laugh)) ok[ay[gay es un adjectivo? gay is an adjective is gay an adjective? gay? tono is the gayer [((laugh)) [no, ga::yest. it’s superlative, es lo más gay is-he the most gay he’s the gayest (.) ponle su –e –s –t put-it-IMP its –e –s –t put the –e –s –t on it

Hilario’s request marks the beginning of an initiation-responseevaluation (IRE) (Mehan, 1979; Sinclair & Coulthard, 1975) sequence. As Hector’s immediate bid to speak next (line 6) receives Hilario’s approval to go ahead (line 8), Hector starts producing his response turn, but displays difficulty in continuing (lines 10 and 11). This gives Toño interactional space to complete the TCU for Hector (line 12). Although Toño uses the correct grammatical structure to produce such completion, which is expected, the meaning can also be cast as the beginning of the fi rst round in a game of the dozens (playful insulting banter, especially sexualized and/or about one’s mother, cf. Labov, 1972), and thus calls forth a parallel social frame beyond what the teacher’s initiation asks for. The dual orientation (grammar and meaning) is carried further by Andrés, who launches a new joke using English and Spanish in a superlative statement about his father (lines 14 and 15). As the students burst into laughter again and Hilario tries to regain their attention and move on with the activity, Hector self-selects and asks Hilario about the part of speech of another word, gay (line 19). Hilario shows surprise and/or confusion, marking the word gay as repairable (line 20). This initiation of repair is not taken up by Hector, who produces his next utterance without responding to Hilario’s repair initiation or waiting for Hilario’s answer to his own question (line 21). ‘Toño is the gayer’ is an action that displays the continuation of the dual grammar-meaning orientation and works as a retort to the classmate who issued the fi rst round of the dozens against him. As the students display alignment with Hector’s action by laughing (line 22), Hilario overlaps and initiates

Teaching English in Marginalized Contexts

287

correction (lines 23–25). His correction addresses the grammatical inaccuracy of Hector’s turn in multiple ways: with ‘no’ he rejects the turn, after which he produces the grammatically correct form ‘ga::yest’, followed by a labeling of the form with the metalinguistic term ‘superlative’, then a partial Spanish translation that highlights the way superlatives are constructed in Spanish (a defi nite article before a comparative adjective phrase in which the adverb mas modifies the adjective), by leaving the English adjective gay untranslated (line 23). After a pause, he provides explicit direction on how to form an English superlative adjective, spelling out the bound morpheme that must be added to the root adjective (line 25). Hilario emphasizes grammatical structure and downplays the meaning of gay, but his turn aligns with the students’ dual orientation to grammar and meaning, making his correction hearable as both grammar instruction and as a contribution to Hector’s insult of Toño in the game of the dozens. Throughout this sequence, Hilario did not sanction Toño for hijacking Hector’s turn or making a joke about Hector’s mother. Nor does he orient to the action that is being accomplished with the sentence produced by Hector as a way to get back to Toño. On the surface, Hilario seems to orient only to the inaccuracy of the grammatical form of students’ turns. This orientation continues in the subsequent turns, when he explains that, in order to say his sentence properly, Hector should add ‘-est’ to the adjective. In addressing only the morphological form of the adjective, Hilario explicitly orients the students to a grammatical structure within Hector’s turn rather than the social meaning of the entire utterance in the immediate interactional context, and thereby avoids appearing to call Toño ‘lo más gay’ (the gayest) while still building upon Hector’s provocative turn for a pedagogical purpose. Hilario’s laughter in line 16, in response to an interjection from Andrés in line 15 to complain about his father (also using the target grammatical form), indicates that Hilario is aware that the students have appropriated the rather contentneutral (and rather meaningless for the students) examples about animals. Ethnographic observations confirmed many instances like this one where Hilario was aware of and accepted that the students were playing with parallel meanings. In this excerpt, by allowing the trade of insults to progress, he is taking advantage of the meaningful exchanges with the students as a context for teaching and practicing the target grammatical structure. Thus, he is making English relevant to the students at a personal level by allowing them to co-opt the lesson for their own social purposes. The students’ initiative to make English relevant to themselves is noteworthy here. By taking the direction of a grammar exercise into a playful game of insults, they are inserting their own voices and agendas into the lesson. In particular, Andrés’ complaint about his father (lines 14–15) and the students’ outburst of laughter (line 17) have a deeper reach. In a subsequent interview about the home life of the students, Hilario explained

288

Part 3: Sociocultural and Ideological Forces in Language Teaching

that Andrés had confided that his father was sometimes physically abusive. Andrés had had an argument with his father, who was very strict. The boy had run away from the school a few weeks earlier and walked 10 hours back to his home village, where he pleaded with his family to let him stay and work there instead of going to school. But his father had beaten him and sent him back to the  school. Hilario said that the sentiment Andrés expressed was one that was shared by many of the students, who did not want to be away from home but when they did return were sometimes confronted with abuse. Further, while many working-age men in the Mixe region are in the USA, among those who stay, rates of alcoholism and problems associated with poverty and unemployment are high. Andrés’ humor and the other students’ alignment with it, then, intimately invokes their shared social world. What is especially noteworthy about Andrés’ turn is how he smoothly ties it to (a) the preceding turn through the relationship between membership categories ‘mother’ and ‘father’ and (b) the ongoing grammar activity, in order to occasion students’ lived experience in classroom content. 8 Discussion

The aim of this chapter has been to demonstrate how the teacher and students in a rural classroom made English relevant to them. By integrating ethnography and CA, we were able to draw on the social and cultural context to extend our understanding about what is being locally achieved. One of the methods used by Hilario to make English relevant to his students entailed using English as the medium of interaction in class routines, such as greetings, group activities and students’ oral presentations. By interacting with the students in English and also by asking them to accomplish certain tasks in English, the teacher managed to fi nd some kind of use for English. Despite the students’ difficulties in accomplishing some of the interactions in English, in marginalized contexts such as the one described here, where students have few opportunities to experience the target language, such practices seem to be oriented to by the teacher as a possibility for making English relevant to local purposes. Other methods to connect English with students’ lives involved opening side sequences in which cultural differences are discussed or inserting jokes regarding participants’ real-life events. Oriented simultaneously to the students’ limited linguistic resources and to the need to connect with the students’ realities, Hilario translanguaged during the mini-lesson about houses in the USA and in Mexico. In bringing in his own experience and referring to the experience of a student’s family member while speaking the participants’ native language, Hilario invoked the geographical identity that he and the students shared and took the language to a

Teaching English in Marginalized Contexts 289

different level – one that went beyond the purposes proposed by the textbook and that helped construct English as relevant to students. Although helpful and most likely conducive to learning, the participants’ methods to make English relevant were also under several constraints for both the teacher and the students. The organization of Hilario’s turns in Excerpt 11.5, for instance, indicate the constraints he operates in: starting with the given curriculum, presented tangibly as the commercially produced poster, then going toward the personal level. By turning to a student’s life and then his own personal experience, Hilario challenged the text depiction and, by doing his talk mostly in Spanish, he was clearly not focusing on developing competency with linguistic abilities in English. Instead, he seems to be pursuing the dual goals of introducing language forms and simultaneously providing an account of sorts for why these linguistic forms are relevant to the students. This strategy is not quite the same as that employed by teachers in Sri Lanka, Egypt or Brunei (Canagarajah, 1999; Gray, 2000; Martin, 2005a); instead of substituting textbook content with localized content, here Hilario is bridging a textbook language form (‘mobile home’) and its target culture frame (USA) with an alternative, hybrid form (‘traila’) and its local culture frame (Mexican emigrants) which has currency in the local community. Likewise, in choosing to correct the students’ use of the superlative form in Excerpt 11.6, the teacher displayed his orientation to the given curriculum and ended up missing an opportunity to discuss, for instance, crosscultural understandings about sexual orientation and prejudice. A fi nal note on the challenge faced by the participants in this context relates to the fact that, at fi rst glance, Hilario’s orientations seem to be contradictory: he insisted on English in some activities and switched to Spanish fluidly in others. The close analysis undertaken in this chapter allows for a deeper understanding of Hilario’s actions and indicates that in fact they served the same purpose: to make English relevant. Given the students’ limited proficiency, in routine activities the students were familiar with the activity so he used English to give them the chance to experience it in lived actions. In explanations of new content, like the one about houses, since the students were not familiar with it and displayed difficulty in accomplishing the task they were assigned, the teacher bridged the new content by using Spanish and referring to local culture and personal experiences to make the content relevant. 9 Practical Implications

This chapter has focused on the construction of relevance in EFL lessons through classroom talk. There are several practical implications of this work for EFL teachers, teacher trainers, policy makers and researchers. The first is to recognize the importance of teacher-directed classroom interaction. While issues such as instructional effectiveness, student-centeredness,

290

Part 3: Sociocultural and Ideological Forces in Language Teaching

rapport and classroom environment are often emphasized in teaching and teacher education, how they are actually accomplished at an interactional level is little known (cf. Ohta & Nakaone, 2004; see also Li and Malabarba, this volume). The kind of analysis informed by both CA and ethnography in this chapter demonstrates that to understand important issues in teaching, we need to recognize that the language classrooms are deeply situated in the social, cultural and historical contexts of the students and teachers who participate in them. The excerpts presented in this chapter can be used as a starting point for discussions about language choices, multiple orientations and students’ invocation of personal experiences in class activities. Another implication is the recognition that relevance in EFL lessons – the making of language learning meaningful and ‘close’ to students’ interests and lived experiences – is often achieved during moment-to-moment interactions that turn a lesson plan into active classroom participation and learning (Nguyen & Yang, 2015). That is, an effective lesson has ‘its own interaction organization which transforms intended pedagogy into actual pedagogy’ (Seedhouse, 2005: 172). We have shown that in Hilario’s classroom, this transformation entailed: (a) the alignment of classroom talk toward the teacher’s pedagogical goals; (b) the bridging of the local cultural experiences of emigrant families to the target language country; and (c) the strategy to give space to student-initiated language play, even of taboo subjects, as a means of having students actively engaged in practicing new language forms. The analysis above may also provide some possible answers to many EFL teachers’ questions about how to make English relevant to their students’ lives. EFL teachers often struggle with low student motivation, which they attribute in part to their students not seeing a reason to study English. Although the school setting described here is one that is marginalized in terms of its material resources and opportunities for ‘authentic’ L2 English use, we have used ethnography and CA to show how Hilario used interaction in his lessons to connect language learning to the cultural practices and lived experiences of his students and their families and communities. Although the village school did not have material resources, such as an internet connection to access digital spaces in English, Hilario attempted to draw meaningful connections for his students by establishing class routines in English and using his knowledge of the students’ backgrounds. Further, he allowed the students an active role in deciding the direction the class would take, such as casting them in the role of the question-askers (the matches game activity), or tolerating student-initiated language play as an activity for the practice of a target language form (making humorous insults). The net effect of these strategies, and despite the seeming ‘marginalization’ of the school, is the accomplishment of the locally contextualized co-construction of the relevance of English by the teacher and students.

Teaching English in Marginalized Contexts

291

Appendix: Additional Transcription Conventions

The transcriptions follow the standard CA transcription system by Jefferson (2004), presented in Chapter 1 of this volume. Spanish talk has been translated based on the three-tier system used by Nguyen and Kasper (2009): First tier: original talk (plain text in Courier New) Second tier: gloss translation (Courier New italics) Third tier: prose rendering (Courier New Italics) A vertical bar indicates where the physical actions of a participant cooccurs with his/her vocal conduct. Notes (1) We should also recognize that even in the United States, many ESL teachers and students in public schools are often relegated to the fringes; literally, as Liggett (2010) points out, since their classrooms are physically located in basements and mobile outbuildings. (2) Mixe is one of the languages of the Mixe-Zoque linguistic family, whose speakers live in the Sierra mountain region of Oaxaca and Veracruz states, including Zoque and Popoluca. Mixe is a has at least three variants. In Oaxaca, most Mixes between five and 40 years old are bilingual in Spanish, and like many of Mexico’s indigenous languages, there has been signifi cant shift and loss of the mother tongue among Mixes in urban areas and the diaspora. There are some indigenous bilingual elementary schools in the region, but most Mixes do not read or write their mother tongue. (3) Permission to use this image has been requested to the publisher. The authors are awaiting a response.

References Baldauf, R.B., Kaplan, R., Kamwangamalu, N. and Bryant, P. (2011) Success or failure of primary second/foreign language programmes in Asia: What do the data tell us? Current Issues in Language Planning 12 (2), 309–323. Botelho, M. (2003) Multiple intelligence theory in English language teaching: An analysis of current textbooks, materials and teachers’ perceptions. Unpublished MA dissertation, Ohio University. Canagarajah, A. (1999) Resisting Linguistic Imperialism in English Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cekaite, A. and Aronsson, K. (2004) Repetition and joking in children’s second language conversations. Playful recyclings in an immersion classroom. Discourse Studies 6, 373–392. Chick, J.K. (1996) Safe-talk: Collusion in apartheid education. In H. Coleman (ed.) Society and the Language Classroom (pp. 21–39). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. David, M.K. and Govindasamy, S. (2005) Negotiating a language policy for Malaysia: Local demand for affirmative action versus challenges from globalization. In  S.  Canagarajah (ed.) Reclaiming the Local in Language Policy and Practice (pp. 123–146). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Drew, P. (1997) ‘Open’ class repair initiators in response to sequential sources of troubles in conversation. Journal of Pragmatics 28 (1), 69–101.

292

Part 3: Sociocultural and Ideological Forces in Language Teaching

Duarte, S. and Escobar, L. (2008) Using adapted material and its impact on university students’ motivation. PROFILE 9, 63–87. See www.scielo.org.co/pdf/prf/n9/n9a05. pdf (accessed 25 March 2018). Duff, P. and Early, M. (1999) Language socialization in perspective: Classroom discourse in high school humanities courses. Paper presented at the American Association for Applied Linguistics Annual Meeting, Stamford, CT. Dunford, N. (2004) How do teachers interpret the need for the adaptation and supplementation of coursebooks, with specific reference to data collected by questionnaire from Shane English Schools Japan? Unpublished MA dissertation, University of Nottingham. Enever, J. (2015) The advantages and disadvantages of English as a foreign language with young learners. In J. Bland (ed.) Teaching English to Young Learners: Critical Issues in Language Teaching (pp. 13–30). London: Bloomsbury. Garcia, O. and Wei, L. (2014) Translanguaging: Language, Bilingualism and Education. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Graves, K. (2000) Designing Language Courses. Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle. Gray, J. (2000) The ELT coursebook as cultural artefact: How teachers censor and adapt. ELT Journal 54 (3), 274–283. Hamel, R.E. (2008) Indigenous language policy and education in Mexico. In S. May and N.H. Hornberger (eds) Encyclopedia of Language and Education, Vol. 1: Language Policy and Political Issues in Education (pp. 301–313). New York: Springer. Hepburn, A. and Bolden, G. (2013) The conversation analytic approach to transcription. In J. Sidnell and T. Stivers (eds) The Handbook of Conversation Analysis (pp. 57–76). Oxford: Blackwell. Hernández Díaz, J. (2000) ¿La educación indígena es una educación bilingüe? In J.  Hernández Díaz (ed.) Inclusión y Diversidad: Discusiones Recientes sobre la Educación Indígena en México (pp. 41–62). Oaxaca, Mexico: Fondo Editorial IEEPO. Hester, S. and Housley, W. (2002) Language, Interaction and National Identity: Studies in the Social Organisation of National Identity in Talk-in-interaction. New York: Ashgate. Kaplan, R., Baldauf, R.B. and Kamwangamalu, N. (2011) Why educational language plans sometimes fail. Current Issues in Language Planning 12 (2), 105–124. Keevalik, L. (2010) Minimal answers to yes/no questions in the service of sequence organization. Discourse Studies 12 (3), 283–309. Labov, W. (1972) Rules for ritual insults. In D. Sudnow (ed.) Studies in Social Interaction (pp. 120–169). New York: Free Press. Liggett, T. (2010) ‘A little bit marginalized’: The structural marginalization of English language teachers in urban and rural public schools. Teaching Education 21 (3), 217–232. Lin, A. and Martin, P. (eds) (2005) Decolonisation, Globalisation: Language-ineducation Policy and Practice. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Martin, P. (2005a) ‘Safe’ language practices in two rural schools in Malaysia: Tensions between policy and practice. In A.M.Y. Lin and P. Martin (eds) Decolonisation, Globalisation: Language-in-education Policy and Practice (pp. 74–97). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Martin, P. (2005b) Talking knowledge into being in an upriver primary school in Brunei. In A.S. Canagarajah (ed.) Reclaiming the Local in Language Policy and Practice (pp. 225–246). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Maynard, D.W. (2006) Ethnography and conversation analysis: What is the context of an utterance? In S. Hesse-Biber and P.L. Leavy (eds) Emergent Methods in Social Research (pp. 55–94). London: Sage. McGrath, I. (2013) Teaching Materials and the Roles of EFL/ESL Teachers: Practice and Theory. London and New York: Bloomsbury.

Teaching English in Marginalized Contexts

293

Mehan, H. (1979) Learning Lessons: Social Organization in the Classroom. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Merritt, M. (1994) Repetition in situated discourse – exploring its forms and functions. In B. Johnstone (ed.) Repetition in Discourse: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (pp. 23–36). Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Moerman, M. (1988) Talking Culture: Ethnography and Conversation Analysis. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Nguyen, H.t. and Yang, L. (2015) A queer learner’s identity positioning in second language classroom discourse. Classroom Discourse 6 (3), 221–241. Norton, B. (2000) Identity and Language Learning: Gender, Ethnicity and Educational Change. New York: Longman/Pearson ESL. Norton, B. (2001) Non-participation, imagined communities, and the language classroom. In X. Bonch-Bruevich, W. Crawford, J. Hellermann, C. Higgins and H.t. Nguyen (eds) Selected Proceedings of the Second Language Research Forum (pp. 167–180). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. Ohta, A.S. and Nakaone, T. (2004) When students ask questions: Teacher and peer answers in the foreign language classroom. International Review of Applied Linguistics 42 (3), 217–237. Otheguy, R., García, O. and Reid, W. (2015) Clarifying translanguaging and deconstructing named languages: A perspective from linguistics. Applied Linguistics Review 6 (3), 281– 307. Park, J.S. and Wee, L. (2012) Markets of English: Linguistic Capital and Language Policy in a Globalizing World. New York and London: Routledge. Pennycook, A. (1998) English and the Discourses of Colonialism. London and New York: Routledge. Pennycook, A. (2007) Global Englishes and Transcultural Flows. London and New York: Routledge. Phillipson, R. (2008) The linguistic imperialism of neoliberal empire. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies 5 (1), 1–43. Ravelonanahary, M. (2007) The use of textbooks and educational media: The Malagasy experience. In M. Horsley and J. McCall (eds) Peace, Democratization and Reconciliation in Textbooks and Educational media (pp. 166–75). Tonsberg, Norway: IARTEM. Sayer, P. (2012) Ambiguities and Tensions in English Language Teaching: Portraits of EFL Teachers as Legitimate Speakers. New York and London: Routledge. Sayer, P. (2015) Expanding global language education in public primary schools: The national English programme in Mexico. Language, Culture and Curriculum 28 (3), 257–275. Sayer, P. (2018) Does English really open doors? Social class and English teaching in public primary schools in Mexico. System 73, 58–70. Schegloff, E.A. (1968) Sequencing in conversational openings. American Anthropologist 70, 1075–1095. Schegloff, E.A. (1972) Notes on a conversational practice: Formulating place. In  D.  Sudnow (ed.) Studies in Social Interaction (pp. 75–119). New York: Free Press. Schegloff, E.A. (2002) Opening sequencing. In J.E. Katz and M. Aakhus (eds) Perpetual Contact: Mobile Communication, Private Talk, Public Performance (pp. 321–325). Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press. Seedhouse, P. (2005) Conversation analysis and language learning. Language Teaching 38 (4). Sinclair, J.M. and Coulthard, M. (1975) Toward an Analysis of Discourse. London: Oxford University Press. Wagner, J. (2015) Designing for language learning in the wild: Creating social infrastructures for second language learning. In T. Cadierno and S.W. Eskildsen (eds)

294

Part 3: Sociocultural and Ideological Forces in Language Teaching

Usage-based Perspectives on Second Language Learning (pp. 75–102). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Wang, L.-Y. (2005) A study of junior high school English teachers’ perceptions of the liberalization of the authorized English textbooks and their experience of textbook evaluation and selection. Unpublished MA dissertation, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, Taiwan. Williams, E. (2013) Political perspectives on language policies and development. In E.J. Erling and P. Seargeant (eds) English and Development: Policy, Pedagogy and Globalization (pp. 68–87). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Zacharias, N. (2005) Teachers’ beliefs about internationally-published materials: A survey of tertiary English teachers in Indonesia. RELC Journal 36 (1), 23–38.

12 Commentary: Fault Lines in Global EFL Johannes Wagner

The contributions to this collection address a variety of issues in teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) across the globe. Nine studies from Latin America, Asia and Europe show the diversity of EFL teaching and present the readers with widely different classroom environments: from studies of ELF of young learners to adolescents students and adults in- and outside of ordinary school environments, from task-based teaching to teacher-fronted classrooms, with one teacher, two teachers or one trainee and a supervisor, from classes with 11 students to 60 and more students. The 10th study tracks the development of EFL in a workplace environment, without a teacher and outside of a classroom. The coherence of the book is provided by the common subject and by the methodology: all studies subscribe to ethnomethodological conversation analysis (CA) as their prime method; all chapters display transcriptions of EFL interactions on a very detailed level to illustrate teaching environments, orientations and populations. Although all the chapter are about EFL, it does not appear as a homogenous field at all. The variety we see in the classrooms seems not only to be based in regional differences and cultures, but also to be connected to different theoretical positions which have been influential for the story of EFL. The common theoretical and methodological background in CA is not only responsible for the coherence between the chapters of the book, but likewise for the amazing variety of topics discussed. This has to do with the way CA works. CA approaches data with an open mind and usually starts out by trying to understand the situation in ethnographic terms. Fieldwork usually includes video-recordings which are subsequently transcribed and studied in the tradition of ‘unmotivated looking’, i.e. by analysts not bringing predefined research questions or external theories to the data. Unmotivated looking helps to detect and investigate ‘interesting’ phenomena in the data – and there are always many of them! The variety of issues addressed by the chapters of the book springs from the rich variety of phenomena in EFL teaching that have caught the eyes – and the work – of the researchers involved in this book. 295

296

CA Perspectives on Language Learning, Teaching, Testing

I will discuss a number of issues that have caught my eyes while reading the chapters – issues that connect to a variety of theoretical positions in the literature and which indicate fault lines in the field. I will start by discussing aspects of monolingual and multilingual practices in the classroom. In the following section, I will track what the authors say about ‘learning’ to understand their position with regard to this paramount topic – after all, the sole rationale for teaching English is that students should learn English. My interest is twofold – whether the authors explicitly ascribe to certain theories of language learning and what kind of learning theories become visible in the practices of the teachers they study, keeping in mind that the two need not be identical. This will lead me to a section about the kind of classroom interactions found in the studies. Are teacher–student interactions formed by the infamous IRF sequence? What other kinds of classroom organization are visible in the different chapters? The final section will deal with multimodality and language. A number of chapters point at the prominence and relevance of embodied behavior, while others primarily orient toward the language spoken in the classrooms. These positions build on different conceptions of language and action, to a logocentric understanding of human behavior or to an understanding of competence as embedded and embodied in social practices. 1 The Monolingual Tradition of EFL and the Challenge of Multilingualism and Translanguaging

Compared to other modern languages, English entered the European educational system quite late, but the introduction of English to European classrooms in the last decades of the 19th century meant methodological innovation and change. English was introduced as part of school reforms intended to educate the workforce needed by the growing industries and international commerce. The teaching of English was up against earlier language classrooms’ grammar and translation activities where the local language was the medium of instruction and the foreign language its object. Teaching English as a language to be used for communication needed another approach. The direct method at the beginning of the 20th century had its focus on language use and topical relevance for the students. The classrooms became strictly monolingual. As Malabarba mentions, a monolingual classroom would give the students most exposure to the foreign language since English was not part of the students’ environment. Students’ participation and use of the foreign language was in EFL’s DNA from the very beginning and has set its methodology apart from contemporary ways of teaching other languages, e.g. French, German or Russian. EFL’s monolingual bias was enforced with the advent of the audio-lingual method in the 1940s, where grammar drills and monolingual policy were argued for from a behaviorist point of view.

Commentary: Fault Lines in Global EFL

297

This orientation toward a monolingual classroom with the exclusive use of English still has an impact on contemporary EFL and is enforced by teachers and students (cf. Amir, 2013; Amir & Musk, 2013). The chapter by Malabarba shows how teachers repair the use of other languages and insist on English as the language of the classroom. In other chapters (Somuncu & Sert, Pourhaji, Greer), the orientation to ‘English only’ is significant. The use of the students’ fi rst language is rare and not even tolerated when students address other students as part of ‘unofficial’ (peerto-peer) interaction in the classroom. In Pourhaji’s study, students’ command of languages other than English is not even mentioned. The excerpts shown in Greer document that the students shift from English to Japanese the moment a timer indicates that the time allotted for the task has run out. Things are different in Hauser’s study, where the students sometimes respond to trouble in their fi rst language, Japanese, without being corrected, but the data show a clear orientation to English as the language of interaction. However, the classrooms documented in the contributions of Li, Sayer et al. and aus der Wieschen and Eskildsen are bilingual. Students and teachers use the local language for clarifying problems of understanding or indicating trouble. In both cases, the students have low competence in English. To choose an ‘English only’ policy in these cases would leave the teacher as the only person talking – which is the obvious risk in monolingual foreign language classrooms. Li describes grammar lessons that resemble pre-direct method practices. The classroom is highly bilingual and the students’ first language is used to explain linguistic and grammatical issues. The classrooms reported on in Li’s study stand out, which might have to do with the very large number of students in the class. The contributions to the book demonstrate that the practice of a monolingual classroom in EFL is very much alive. But Sayer et al. and aus der Wieschen and Eskildsen show that bilingual classrooms are found where EFL is expanding into new populations. Sayer et al. demonstrate most clearly that the use of the students’ first language is an asset. The use of Spanish in the teaching of Mexican disadvantaged youths opens the classroom discourse for personal experience of migration into the United States. In the case of young learners (aus der Wieschen & Eskildsen), the impetus for the use of the native language arises from the need to instruct students who have little experience in the ways classrooms work and with the target language. The arguments for using ‘English only’ in EFL classrooms are weaker today than in the 20th century. Media, the internet, migration and globalization have made English widely available and classrooms are no longer the only place where students are exposed to English. The exposure to English is no longer an argument for using English only. Still there are big differences between the availability of English in a small, nearly bilingual country in the European periphery (as in the case of Denmark) and large countries such as Brazil or Iran that are not permeated by English to the same degree.

298

CA Perspectives on Language Learning, Teaching, Testing

Further, the theory of separate psycholinguistic systems for each language learned and the need to keep them separate has been abandoned by research. When there is no longer a psycholinguistic argument for the need to keep languages apart, multilingual practices need no longer be restricted. They might even be encouraged, such that a new language is integrated into the mix of languages that a speaker commands as a new resource to do new things. The recent concept of translanguaging (Canagarajah, 2018; García & Li, 2014) takes stock of the language situation in a multilingual world where moving across several languages in one and the same interaction can be common. Bilingual and multilingual speakers flexibly but purposefully (and in ways that are recognizable to their co-participants) use different ‘languages’ in the same interaction. The term ‘languages’ is put in quotation marks because they are no longer seen as discrete codes or entities; instead, speakers fuse them into new, coherent communicative repertoires that are sensible to the expected interactional competence of their co-participants. As a consequence, what was earlier referred to as code-switching has been revisited as well. Language is not a code and multilingual interactions are badly described as ‘switching’. However, in educational contexts, ‘languages’ can be separated again into more discrete entities, as migrant classrooms may need a lingua franca that is different from both the target language (Hazel & Wagner, 2015) and the mother tongue of the students. In the interactional mesh of actual classrooms, the students operate in the target language, the lingua franca and possibly their fi rst languages in ways that resemble translanguaging practices. The idea of monolingualism was created in a world where the national state shaped clear identities and separations between languages. Monolingualism was supported by psycholinguistic theories according to which language systems are separate units in the brain. Both views have turned out to be ideological. That said, it is beyond doubt that we do need to better understand mono- and bilingual practices as resources for teaching. We know about non-institutional translanguaging practices, but we need to know more about the possible benefits and shortcomings of a more multilingual approach to second language (L2) pedagogy and bringing that reality into the classroom (May, 2014). 2 Theories of Language Learning

Only a few of the authors discuss their theory of language learning. The most radical interactional account of language learning is presented in Nguyen’s longitudinal study of a Vietnamese hotel employee’s use of English. In this chapter, Nguyen is focusing on a single formulation to show the ‘natural history’ of language learning. She describes how an employee remedies recurring problems of being understood by adopting new formulations and avoiding others. Learning is described as emerging

Commentary: Fault Lines in Global EFL

299

out of participation in interaction over time and is visible in a revision of the ways a certain action had been performed earlier (cf. Eskildsen, 2012, 2015, forthcoming). Learning is learning in action (Firth & Wagner, 2007) and by action. This practice-based understanding of language learning links back to the history of English teaching (see above) under the influence of the school reform movement. Aus der Wieschen and Eskildsen likewise report students’ approximations of the teacher’s version of an English directive by repeating it over and again. Their microgenetic study shows as well how a specific formulation and its pronunciation ‘emerges from particular instances of language use’. Repair and repetition seem to be the learning resources that help students to modify their language productions. Compared to learning processes in unguided L2 learning (Nguyen), aus der Wieschen and Eskildsen’s classroom learning sequences are faster. However, as Eskildsen (2012, 2015) has shown, even word and construction learning in classrooms may take a very long time. The concept of learning-by-doing (Dewey, 1916) is found in other contributions as well. Greer refers to participation as a condition for learning: ‘Engaging, or being actively involved in the conversation, then, is a precursor to learning.’ Somuncu and Sert show that teachers instruct tasks in which the students talk to each other. Language tasks are common learning environments in which students can use language. The success of such tasks is crucial for a learning theory that operates with the primacy of ‘doing’ and participation. Consequently, this brings the task instruction by the teacher into focus. Somuncu and Sert investigate how trainee teachers give instructions for tasks and how they handle indications of students’ non-understanding. A slightly different position is observed in Sayer et al. Here the teacher uses repetitive tasks to make the students speak, but what makes the teaching described here special and different from the book’s other EFL studies is the teacher’s attempt to make English relevant and meaningful for the students and to connect it to their own cultural practices. The special weight given to cultural access is obvious in the way the teacher employs Spanish in interactions about cultural differences, for example between housing in the United States and Mexico. Hauser’s contribution has no reference to a learning theory but it gives a radical example of learning-by-doing by reversing the usual distribution of epistemic knowledge between teacher and students. Here the students do the instruction and the teacher does the instructed action. In Hauser’s data, the students are engaged in a kind of language test (also see Greer’s chapter). The studies mentioned in this section so far subscribe to a language learning theory where language use is central. In the classrooms they describe, task-based organization seems to be prominent, which brings to the fore how tasks are instructed.

300

CA Perspectives on Language Learning, Teaching, Testing

A non-participatory understanding of language learning lies behind the practices documented in Li’s study of Chinese classrooms. Instead of the use of language, memorization, explanation and modeling put knowledge about the language into the focus of the classroom work of students and teachers. The instructions by the teacher then have a different frame as in the participatory framework. Their focus is to tightly control the knowledge transfer from teacher to students. Li, building on earlier literature, mentions ‘Chinese culture and Confucianism’ as a ‘natural fit’ with the grammar translation method – but it might likewise be the case that the large numbers of students in these classes give centralized methods an advantage. Teaching is after all an exercise in organizing large groups of people in doing the same kind of things (Wagner, 1991). Tight teacher control of the activities is best established by the IRF sequence which I will discuss in the next section. 3 Classroom Organization

Teacher-fronted interaction is the classical habitat for the notorious IRF structure that has been documented widely for EFL teaching (Allwright, 1988; Ehlich & Rehbein, 1987; van Lier, 1996; Waring, 2009). Task-based instruction allows other forms of participation by the students although the teacher still initiates and evaluates the activity (Wagner, 1983). Tasks can create interactional spaces for the students to interact and afford more language use than teacher-fronted language teaching. It might be useful to distinguish between short-range IRF where the R-slot is filed by one or a few utterances by appointed students and long-range IRF where the instruction sets up an interactional space with several participating students. Via the transcripts provided, the readers of the book can peek at the instructions given in the classroom. Obviously, our perspective is skewed since the authors did not select these segments to illustrate task formulation in general, but it is still interesting to see what kind of instructions teachers deliver. In an excerpt from aus der Wieschen and Eskildsen, the students have each chosen a type of garment and are instructed by a classmate to swap seats by reference to the holder of that garment. The teacher’s instruction is delivered as follows: 01 TEA: and- (.) you are going to say (0.2) for instance bikini top and sweat band 02 (3.8) 03 TEA: swap seats1

The teacher here instructs the students to instruct each other and does it by using an example. The teacher monitors and repairs student instruction during the task, but the students run the activity increasingly on their own accord.

Commentary: Fault Lines in Global EFL

301

Hauser also describes long-range IRFs in situations where students are instructed to instruct – in his case, students with technical expertise instruct their language teacher. In this unusual design, students have epistemic primacy while the teacher has primacy in language. What we do not see is how the teacher instructs his students to do what they are doing, but we can interpolate that these instructions need to be quite complex since they open a large space of student-organized activities. The student-toteacher instructions we see in the transcripts provided are delivered in a concise and focused manner, as shown in the next excerpt: 01 S8: an’ second ↓uh: (0.9) draw a line segment,

Ironically, these sequences resemble short-range IRF sequences, which they are not. They are elements of longer sequences of instruction. Further, although the students provide a sequence-closing third, these are not feedbacks to acknowledge the state of the joint project. The tables have turned which makes Hauser’s setting radically different from teacher-fronted interactions. The students instruct embodied action by the teacher. The instruction is not about language but about action in the world; other interactional resources become relevant, such as gaze, pointing, and other gestures. Somuncu and Sert show instructions that are a bit more open, i.e. less specific with respect to what the students should do (‘talk’): 01 02

T2: please talk to your friends and, er: okay?

In these three chapters, instructions open up the response space in the IRF structure for the students to explore, as shown in Figure 12.1.

Figure 12.1 Response space for students in IRF structures

In the chapters that describe teacher-fronted classrooms, the teachers do not set up a larger activity in the response slot but use short-range IRFs. The teachers in Lee’s and Malabarba’s chapters instruct the students to do joint (choral) activities: 01 ET1: let’s +read it together (Lee)

and 01 TEA: >let’s repeat together< (Malabarba)

302

CA Perspectives on Language Learning, Teaching, Testing

Two chapters look at the IRF sequences as an analytic concept (Pourhaji; Li). Pourhaji’s chapter analyzes the few student initiatives into the IRF structure that are found in his 67.5 hours of data. Pourhaji identifies 65 initiatives ‘within meaning-oriented contexts’ – about one per hour. However, only half of them were responded to by the teacher; the rest were ignored or rendered as ‘unwarranted and trivial’. In the excerpts presented by Li, no student initiative is shown. What appears from the excerpts is a strongly teacher-fronted classroom where the interaction is driven by an IRF structure with little or no interaction space for the students. The contributions to this book show different realities in EFL classrooms across the globe which seem to respond to different issues: students’ age and number, ‘unfamiliarity’ and availability of English. A learningby-doing theory is found in several of the chapters where the teachers open up interactional spaces for the students. In teacher-fronted classrooms, we need to assume that language learning is expected to happen by participation in the class – which would render it as less efficient than task-based teaching where students use the foreign language much more often. Alternatively, teacher-fronted classrooms need to operate with a theory according to which students learn from the verbal model provided and executed by the teacher or, as in the case of Li’s study, focus entirely on grammar and language knowledge as the prime goal for EFL. 4 Multimodality and Language

All chapters on classroom interaction draw on video-recordings but make use of it in different ways. Generally, the transcriptions provided are annotated with non-verbal information (e.g. gaze and gestures), but the detail of annotation varies significantly. Now, while Jefferson argued that she would mark in the transcription everything she could hear on the tape, things have become more complicated with video-recorded data. Adding everything an analyst sees on the screen to a transcription would soon overload the transcription and make it unreadable. The pragmatic solution to this challenge seems to be to annotate in the transcription what the reader needs to understand the situation. To illustrate my point, I have chosen an example from Pourhaji’s contribution. In Excerpt 9.3, the teacher in this teacher-fronted classroom responds to a student’s turn and calls him ‘rich’ (line 6) 07 T: oh, $you’re rich enou:gh.$ 08 LL: ((laughter)) 09 T: honestly, you’re really affluent (.) RICH.

In line 9, T reformulates his assessment of the (hypothetical) fi nancial situation of the student and introduces a different word, affluent. When T then adds the earlier-used word rich, it becomes obvious that T provides

Commentary: Fault Lines in Global EFL

303

a synonym of affluent, i.e. T is introducing vocabulary that is new to the students. In other words, the teacher does two things at the same time – he responds to the student’s comment and he does language teaching for the whole class – which becomes recognizable by the teacher doing a bit more than a response. This ‘bit more’ is squeezing a lexical focus into the talk that the teacher will move on with as we will see in a moment. Now it turns out that vocabulary teaching entails more than using a new word. We see in the following talk that both trajectories for further actions in the teacher’s talk are unfolded: the students proceed with the topic; the teacher prepares a pedagogical practice by approaching the board and eventually changes the activity. 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

Ali: Reza:

(°not that much°)= =[((gazes at T)) [I say it to::= ??? [xxx] T: ((gazes at Reza but then immediately goes to the board)) Mehdi: =$you can buy a Lamborghini$. Reza: [((gazes at T)) [I say to [th:e T: [↑Lamborghini Reza: [((gazes at T)) [I say the thing is broken and I say to ↑him T: [((writes on the board)) Reza: or I say to hi:m T: ((gazes at the whole class)) repeat. Reza: it's not my [( ) T: [((gazes at Reza)) [↓yeah [((nods)) Reza: it not my= T: =AFFLUENT. LL: affluent

While Ali responds to the teacher in downgrading the characterization as rich (line 10), Reza enters the talk (lines 11–12) and so does Mehdi (line 15). The transcription shows the teacher looking at Reza when Reza starts talking. The teacher has obviously heard the turn beginning – but then moves toward the board and acknowledges minimally Mehdi’s incursion into Reza’s talk and later Reza’s turn (line 22) while writing at the board. Pourhaji describes this sequence as the teacher ‘bypassing’ the students’ initiative. The teacher seems to get caught in the split between topic talk and teaching activities. For a while he supports both trajectories, but lies low on the topic talk (avoids turn management and gives minimal acknowledgments). He moves forward on the second trajectory, to give the students more lexical training in the newly introduced word affluent. What makes the teacher’s double orientation to the student talk and the upcoming exercise possible is that embodied action and talk are not in a 1:1 relation to each other. People can talk and at the same time be

304

CA Perspectives on Language Learning, Teaching, Testing

engaged in a different embodied action or even do different embodied actions at the same time. The teacher is demonstrating multi-activity (Haddington et al., 2014). He participates minimally in the talk while moving away and writing on the blackboard. Without the annotations of transcripts, readers would not be able to understand what is going on in this segment. The excerpt is a good example of the usefulness of pragmatically selected annotations. It begs, however, the question of what other visual information is not annotated and what things we might have seen if we had access to the embodied behavior of all the students. A number of chapters provide still-pictures to enrich their annotations. 2 An example is Hauser’s chapter which makes the complex relation between talk and embodied action even more transparent. In Hauser’s data, students instruct the language teacher in some technical drawings. At a certain point, Hauser wonders how ‘an instructed action can be corrected before it is performed’. As he demonstrates, the teacher starts preparing for the next part of the drawing while the student is still formulating the instruction. So when monitoring the teacher’s preparation, the student can see that the teacher has placed his gear wrongly and consequently initiates a correction. This is only possible because talk and embodied action can overlap each other without this giving any problem for the participants. When people prepare an embodied action, it can be seen that they will do it wrongly if their trajectory is not changed. Video-analysis of embodied actions in the classroom opens up a new dimension in understanding the complex relationships between talk and embodied action, especially in forms other than teacher-fronted teaching (cf. Kääntä, 2014; Kääntä et al., 2016). Access to the embodied action of students and teachers plays a fundamental role in understanding the microgenesis of learning. This is shown in the chapter by aus der Wieschen and Eskildsen. In their data, young learners learn a verbal command (‘swap seats’) and the names of garments in a game. The authors look especially into the way the students are gaining command of the instruction and show that the learning is building on a triple connection between language, the gestural movement and the action of changing seats (c.f. Goodwin, 2000, 2013). In particular, Hauser’s and aus der Wieschen and Eskildsen’s contributions show what impact multimodal analysis can have for our understanding of teaching and learning as embedded in multiple action environments. These chapters are grounded in an understanding of cognition and language as embedded in bodily practices, which is significantly diff erent from earlier conceptions according to which cognition was in the mind and was best described as information processing. Moreover, with the increasing prominence of notions such as translanguaging, we are approaching what May (2014) called a multilingual turn in SLA. These are the new fault lines opening up between studies

Commentary: Fault Lines in Global EFL

305

buying into diff erent conceptions of language, interaction and cognition. The consequences for teaching languages, theories of language learning and pedagogical practices, we have just started to understand. Acknowledgment

I am grateful to Søren Wind Eskildsen for the discussions about the topics touched upon in this chapter in general and for his specific comments on this chapter. Notes (1) This and the following quotations from transcripts have been simplified to save space. (2) It should be noted that Sayer et al. go down a different path. Most pictures in their chapter are not annotations to the talk but give background information about the place, the objects and the participants.

References Allwright, D. (1988) Observation in the Language Classroom. London: Longman. Amir, A. (2013) Self-policing in the English as a foreign language classroom. NovitasROYAL (Research on Youth and Language) 7 (2), 84–105. Amir, A. and Musk, N. (2013) Language policing: Micro-level language policy-in-process in the foreign language classroom. Classroom Discourse 4 (2), 151–167. Canagarajah, A.S. (2018) Translingual practice as spatial repertoires: Expanding the paradigm beyond structuralist orientations. Applied Linguistics 39 (1), 31–54. Dewey, J. (1916) Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education. Public domain book at Wikisource. Ehlich, K. and Rehbein, J. (1987) Muster und Institution [Pattern and Institution]. Tübingen: Narr. Eskildsen, S.W. (2012) L2 negation constructions at work. Language Learning 62 (2), 335–372. Eskildsen, S.W. (2015) What counts as a developmental sequence? Exemplar-based L2 learning of English questions. Language Learning 65 (1), 33–62. Eskildsen, S.W. (forthcoming) From constructions to social action: The substance of English L2 learning from an interactional usage-based perspective. In C. Hall and R. Wicaksono (eds) Ontologies of English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Firth, A. and Wagner, J. (2007) Second/foreign language learning as a social accomplishment: Elaborations on a reconceptualized SLA. The Modern Language Journal 91 (1), 800–819. García, O. and Li, W. (2014) Translanguaging: Language, Bilingualism and Education. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Goodwin, C. (2000) Action and embodiment within situated human interaction. Journal of Pragmatics 32, 1489–1522. Goodwin, C. (2013) The co-operative, transformative organization of human action and knowledge. Journal of Pragmatics 46, 8–23. Haddington, P., Keisanen, T., Mondada, L. and Nevile, M. (eds) (2014) Multiactivity in Social Interaction: Beyond Multitasking. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Hazel, S. and Wagner, J. (2015) L2 and L3 integrated learning: Lingua franca use in learning an additional language in the classroom. In C.J. Jenks and P. Seedhouse (eds)

306

CA Perspectives on Language Learning, Teaching, Testing

International Perspectives on ELT Classroom Interaction (pp. 149–167). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Kääntä, L. (2014) From noticing to initiating correction: Students’ epistemic displays in instructional interaction. Journal of Pragmatics 66, 86–105. Kääntä, L., Kasper, G. and Piirainen-Marsh, A. (2016) Explaining Hooke’s law: Defi nitional practices in a CLIL physics classroom. Applied Linguistics 1–25. May, S. (2014) (ed.) The Multilingual Turn: Implications for SLA, TESOL, and Bilingual Education. London: Routledge. van Lier, L. (1996) Interaction in the Language Curriculum: Awareness, Autonomy, and Authenticity. London: Longman. Wagner, J. (1983) Kommunikation und Spracherwerb im Fremdsprachenunterricht [Communication and Language Acquisition in Foreign Language Teaching]. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag. Wagner, J. (1991) Innovation in foreign language teaching. In R. Phillipson, E. Kellerman, L. Selinker, M. Sharwood-Smith and M. Swain (eds) Foreign/Second Language Pedagogy Research (pp. 288–306). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Waring, H. (2009) Moving out of IRF (Initiation-Response-Feedback): A single case analysis. Language Learning 59 (4), 796–824.

Index

Account 165, 168, 171, 178–179, 260–261 Accountability 44–45, 47, 49–50, 52, 61–62, 261 Adjacency pair 8, 32, 122, 132, 136–138, 152–154, 156, 183, 235–236 Adult learners 59–79, 220–240, 244–263 Advanced proficiency level 110–128, 220–240, see also Proficiency Affiliation 13, 87–107, 244–263, 281–288, see also Disaffiliation Agency 15, 118–128, 197, 203, 209, 220–240, 285–288, see also Learner engagement Agenda 193–215, 220–240, 246 Agreement 9, 115, 122, 167, 209, 227–228, 233, 237–238, see also Disagreement Alignment 98, 125, 154, 156, 174–175, 206–209, 227–230, 233–234, 236, 251, 253, 286–288, 290, see also Disalignment Assessment as an interactional practice 63, 65, 77, 167, 175, 178–179, 182, 209, 222, 253, 276, 302 as part of curriculum 13–14, 17, 113, 132–156, 159–187, 269 Audio-lingual method 223, 245, 296 Beginning proficiency level 35–53, 162–187, 198–215, 247–263, 272–290, see also Proficiency Bilingual education 193–215 Bilingualism see Multilingualism Board (blackboard, whiteboard) 121–125, 229–230, 252–253, 304 Boarding school 272–290 Brazil 3, 12, 15, 17, 244–263, 297 Business encounter see Transactional talk Bypassing 220, 225, 228–232, 238–240, 303

CA see Conversation Analysis Centrifugal force 220–240 Centripetal force 220–240 China 3, 12, 17, 87–107, 245 Clarification request 31, 50, 110, 112, 116, 120–122, 126, 127, 149, 236, see also Request Classroom discipline 193–195, 198, 199, 201–207, 211–215 interaction 87–107, 110–128, 193–215, 220–240, 244–263, 295–305 management 31–53, 87–107, 110–128, 193–215, 220–240, 244–263, 269–290, 300–304 monitoring 132, 135, 138–140, 142–143, 149, 153, 156, 300, 304 routine 87–107, 118–128, 201–206, 225–240, 250–263, 268, 275–281, 288–290 CLIL see Content-based instruction Closings 17, 65, 97, 106, 119, 159–187, 276 Command see Directive Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) 94, 223, 245 Comparability 31–54, 59–79 Competence see Interactional competence Complaint 115, 209, 213, 287 Compliance (in interaction) 200–201, 204, 206, 210–211, 213, 215 Comprehension see Understanding Confirmation check (Confirmation request) 121, 182–183, 204, 231, see also Request Contingency 4, 5, 11, 53, 60–62, 77, 87–107, 112, 126, 132–156, 193, 195, 199, 200, 206, 213, 220, 222, 238–239, 260 Content-based instruction 12, 132–156, 193–215, 223

307

308

CA Perspectives on English Language Learning, Teaching, Testing

Control see Power Conversation Analysis (CA) analytical procedure 5–7, 36, 95, 117–118, 136, 164, 197, 199–200, 248, 249, 274, 295 integration with other approaches 7, 274–275 principles 3–5, 61, 295 Conversation Analytic Roleplay Method (CARM) 78, 187, 215, 295 Correction 9, 10–11, 14, 41, 132–156, 206–207, 251, 286–287, 304, see also Repair Co-teaching (Collaborative teaching) 3, 15, 193–215 Culture 2, 3, 4–5, 16, 94, 196, 207, 226–240, 262, 268–290, 295, 299, 300 Curricular goal see Pedagogical goal Denmark 10, 31–54 Designedly incomplete utterance 48, 71, 99 Destabilization 59, 66, 75–76 Directive 48, 63, 65, 87–88, 111–112, 201, 203–204, 206, 213, 276, 299, 304, see also Imperative Direct method 245, 296–297 Disaffiliation 200, 206, 209–215, 228, see also Affiliation Disagreement 9, 226–228, 233, 236–237, see also Agreement Disalignment (non-alignment) 206–207, 209, 233, 236, see also Alignment Discussion in groups (pairs) 16, 162–187, 247, 259 in tests 132–156, 159–187 in whole class 8–9, 220–240, 244–263, 269–290 open-ended 90 Disruption 246, 260, see also Reprimand Dominance see Power Elaboration 9, 33–34, 90, 102, 104–105, 128, 211, 231, 236, 279 Elicitation 8, 12, 14, 32, 46–48, 53, 91–93, 96–99, 101–106, 119, 203, 206, 255, 271, 278, 285 Embodied action 6, 9–10, 13, 31, 33–35, 38–55, 63, 78, 122, 132–156, 168, 174, 181, 193–215, 203, 301, 303–304

learnable 31–54 noticing see noticing repair 31 resources 12–13, 31, 33–36, 50, 132–156, 244–263 teachable 31–54 see also Gesture Emic 4–5, 61, 77–78, 88, 95, 110–111, 164, 274 Emphasis see Stress Engagement see Learner’s involvement English as a Foreign Language (EFL) definition 1 contrast with English as a Second Language 1–3 English as a Second Language (ESL) definition 1 contrast with English as a Foreign Language 1–3 English for specific purposes (ESP) 59–79, 132–156 English-only policy 244–263, 296–297 Entitlement 15, 200, 204, 206, 208–209, 212–213 Epistemic access 119, 206, 299 primacy 14–15, 132–187, 220–240, 301 stance (state) 71, 200, 220–240 superiority 206 Ethnography 7, 248, 268–290, 295 Ethnomethodology (EM) 3–4, 52, 59–62, 77–78, 87, 89, 95, 106, 113, 114, 249, 295 Evaluation see Initiation-ResponseFeedback (IRF, IRE) Extreme case formulation (ECF) 210–211 Face threat see Politeness theory Feedback see Initiation-ResponseFeedback (IRF, IRE) Finland 11, 12, 13, 246 First language see L1 Form-focused context (in classroom interaction) 92, 96–107, 243, 250–263, 277–290 Formulation 9, 11–12, 33–34, 59, 61–62, 68–69, 71–76, 90, 98, 102, 104, 115, 122, 140, 153, 161, 164, 167, 173, 178–179, 181, 184, 186, 206, 210, 236, 284–285, 298–299, 302, 304

Index

Game 2, 11, 31–53, 193–215, 268, 276–280, 285–288, 290, 304 Gaze 4, 13, 42–45, 48–49, 120, 136–139, 141–144, 146, 148–153, 155, 164, 167–168, 171–174, 178, 181–182, 185, 201–206, 209, 211–212, 227, 229–233, 235, 237, 252–253, 255–258, 301–303 Genre-based curriculum 133 Gesture 13, 31–53, 93, 95, 103, 111, 122, 124, 125, 132–156, 164–187, 209, 230–231, 233, 256–257, 259–260, 301–302, 304, see also Embodied Grammar see Language form: grammar Grammar-translation approach 94–107, 223, 300 Group work (pair work) 8, 9, 13, 16, 111, 113, 119–120, 124–126, 159–187, 201–211, 215 Hand clap 44–45, 46, 120, 177 raising 111, 124, 226–227, 229–232, 285 Hierarchy 193–215 Humor 16, 251–253, 273, 281, 285–288, see also Language play, Laughter Hungary 13, 16

309

Interactional competence 8–11, 31–54, 59–79, 110, 132–156, 160, 185, 239, 262–263, 298 as co-constructed 132–156 as embedded in social practices 296 development 4, 8–11, 36, 49–53, 61–79, 262 in classroom context 35, 110, 116, 239–240 in tests 132–156 repertoires 31, 34–35, 298 Intermediate proficiency level 66–79, 87–107, 133–156, 222–240, see also Proficiency Intersubjectivity (Mutual understanding) 8, 9, 11, 13, 31–36, 49–50, 69, 71, 90, 115–116, 119, 159–160, 173–174, 185, 247 Interruption 200, 206, 210, 213, 260–261 Intonation see Prosody: Intonation Iran 3, 15, 17, 220–240, 297 Italy 15 Japan 8, 9, 10, 13, 14, 15, 132–156, 159–187 Joke see Humor Korea, South 10, 11, 15, 193–215

Identity 14, 185, 193–216, 271, 274, 283, 285, 288–289, 298 Ideology 14–16, 274, 298 Imperative 44, 200, 206, see also Directive Initiation (by students) 87–107, 132–157, 252, 302 Initiation-Response-Feedback (IRF, IRE) 11–12, 87–107, 226–240, 296, 300–302 cycles 87–107 expanded 87–107 Input 120, 127, 245 Inserted sequence see Sequence: inserted Institutionality 6–8, 14, 17, 63, 154, 159–187, 193, 195–197, 200, 206, 209, 214–215, 221–222, 244, 248–249, 258–263 Instruction in classroom/testing interaction 12, 97, 110–128, 132–156 in transactional talk 67–79 medium 244–263, 296 Interactional asymmetry see Power

L1 influence 67–79 use see Translanguaging L2 status 15–16, 196, 262 L3 learning 268–290 Language form: grammar 87, 91–92, 94, 96, 99–102, 104, 123–124, 245, 281, 285–289, 296–297, 302 form: pronoun 139–140, 197, 203, 208, 283–285 form: pronunciation 11, 67–79, 250, 254, 281, 299 form: vocabulary 31–53, 34, 51, 53, 87, 92, 94, 96, 98, 102, 104, 122, 228–232, 244, 250, 252–254, 259, 261, 263, 280–285, 303 play 9, 13, 42–43, 250–253, 285–288, 290, see also Humor policing 12, 155, 244, 246–247, 250, 259–261, 263 policy 244–263, 269, 289, 296–297

310

CA Perspectives on English Language Learning, Teaching, Testing

Language (Continued) socialization 60, 78, 261, 276 routine 63–64, 79 transfer see L1 influence Large class 87–107, 300 Laughter 6, 9, 71, 167–168, 173, 184, 234, 253–254, 286–287, 302, see also Humor Learnable 31–54, 59–79 Learner’s engagement (Learner’s attention, Learner’s contribution, Learner’s initiative, Learner’s involvement, Learner’s reaction) 9, 14, 15, 17, 34, 39, 42, 48, 51– 53, 87–107, 110–128, 159–187, 203–204, 211, 213, 220–240, 244–263, 299, see also Agency Learner-centered 110–128, 132–156, 235–236, 270–271, 282–285, 289–290 Learning as co-constructed 106 as longitudinal development 61–79 as microgenetic development 36, 49–53, 304 as increased participation 160–161, 262–263 as scaffolded see Scaffolding as self-regulated 93 in the wild 59–79, 262 in the ZPD see ZPD opportunity 31–53, 88–89 theory 298–302 Lengthening see Sound stretch Lingua franca 2, 10–11, 59–79, 298 Listening (or pre-listening) activity 9, 237, 243 Longitudinal see Learning: as longitudinal development Luxembourg 13 Marginalized context 268–290 Meaning-focused context (in classroom interaction) 36–54, 225–240, 243, 275–276, 302 Membership (Member’s methods, Member’s commonsense, Member’s competence) 3–5, 7, 61–62, 77, 160, 196, 245, 249, 274 Membership category 216, 285, 288 Mexico 3, 7, 16, 17, 268–291, 299

Modeling 38, 92–94, 110, 112, 127–128, see also Repetition Monolingualism 15, 246, 296–298 Multiactivity (Multiple involvements) 159–187, 304 Multilingualism 8–9, 91, 246, 296, 297–298, 304 Multilogue 124, 126 Multimodality (Multimodal resources, Multi-semiotic resources) 12–13, 31–53, 95, 110–128, 132–156, 159–187, 244–263, 296, 302–304 Netherlands 9 Non-understanding 74, 78, 102, 110–128, 143, 236, 255–259, 261, 297–298, see also Understanding Normalization 196, 261, see also Social norm Normativity 46, 95, 161, 164, 214, see also Social norm Noticing (Notice, Noticeable, Unnoticed) 42, 44–45, 47, 50, 92, 135, 140–144, 149, 151, 154–155, 163–165, 167, 227–228, 249 Novice teacher see Teacher: in training Off-task 259–262 Off-topic talk 165, see also Topical talk Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) see Assessment: as part of curriculum Paraphrasing 9, 12, 226, 228, 231 Participation 3, 4, 9, 12–14, 50–51, 53, 61–62, 77, 87–88, 91–92, 94–97, 99, 104–105, 107, 136, 154–156, 160, 178, 203, 220–240, 253, 256, 262, 275, 285, 290, 296, 299, 302, 304 frameworks 8, 60, 63, 204, 300 opportunity 1–2, 9, 50, 87–88, 94–97, 99, 104–106, 223, 236, 239–240 Pedagogical goal (Pedagogical purpose) 11–12, 45, 87–107, 116, 121, 128, 194, 223, 245, 262, 273, 287, 290 Personalization see Learner-centered Pitch see Prosody: Pitch Politeness theory 206, 209, 212–213

Index

Power 15, 193–215, 220–240, 245, 260, 300 Presentation 207, 280–282, 288 Proficiency 134, 154–155, 248–249, 262, 289, see also Advanced proficiency level, Beginning proficiency level, Intermediate proficiency level Progressivity 10–11, 17, 69, 115, 116, 160, 255 Pronoun see Language form: pronoun Pronunciation see Language form: pronunciation Prosody: Intonation 6, 9, 32, 122, 139–140, 164, 183, 204, 211–212, 231, 236, 251, 252, 257–258, 260, 276 Pitch 34, 120, 227, 229, 236, 251, 257–258 Stress/Emphasis 77, 78, 112, 120, 122, 228, 237 Questioning practices 9–11, 13–14, 87–107, 113–115, 118–128, 167, 173, 175, 178–179, 184, 208–209, 211, 222–223, 226, 230–231, 233, 236–238, 253, 255–256, 259–260, 277–280, 284–286 Rapport see Affiliation Reading (or pre-reading) activity 64, 125, 205, 227 Reformulation see Formulation Relationship inequality see Power Relevance 250, 261, 263, 268–290, 296, 299 Repair 4, 8–10, 14, 31, 33–34, 42–43, 47, 50, 59–60, 63–64, 68–79, 115–116, 119–120, 122, 125, 140, 153, 156, 160, 173, 183, 227, 236, 247, 251, 278, 286, 297, 299–300, see also Correction Repetition 9, 39, 41–49, 53, 69, 71–72, 74, 76, 98, 102, 104, 105–107, 112, 115, 120–121, 124, 139–140, 153, 173–175, 178, 183–185, 203–204, 211, 229–230, 233, 236, 237, 254–255, 261–278, 281, 299, 301–302, 303, see also Modeling Reprimand 42, 204–205, 212, 297, see also Disruption

311

Reproach 205–206 Request 43–44, 50, 63, 65, 112, 115, 119–120, 122, 203, 206, 208–209, 247, 254–256, 260, 278–280, 284–286, see also Clarification request, Confirmation request Resistance 5, 14, 115, 210–213, 215, 246, 253–259, 270 Response cry 155, 182 in chorus 10, 98–99, 101, 230, 301 priority 10, 12, 17, 159, 165, 174–175, 178, 183, 209, 246, 250, 256, 259, 261 type-conforming 260 Scaffolding 45, 47–48, 88–89, 91–93, 102, 104–107, 245, 271 Second language status see L2 status Sequence side 68–72, 74–76, 118–126, 211, 226–227, 235–236, 275, 278, 286, 288 inserted 198, 200, 204, 206, 209, 213, 253, 260 Side sequence see Sequence: side Singing 252–253 Skill-based instruction/testing 12, 94, 116–128, 159–187, 220–240, 244–263 Speaking activity 31–53, 132–156, 159–187, 220–240, 275–290 Speech-exchange system 61–62, 111 Social context see Culture Social norm 206, 246–249, 259, 261, 271, see also Normalization, Normativity order 3–6, 52, 60–62, 66, 79, 195, 200 Sociocultural theory 7, 60, 93, 104 Sound stretch (elongated sound) 34, 59, 66, 74–75, 78, 101, 120, 122, 123–124, 228–229, 255, 257 Sri Lanka 16, 245, 271, 289 Stress see Prosody: Stress/Emphasis Student-student interaction 111, 159–187, 226–240, 259–263, 277–280, 285–290 Sweden 12

312

CA Perspectives on English Language Learning, Teaching, Testing

Task accomplishment 52, 110, 112, 114, 119, 127 -based instruction/assessment 110–128, 132–156, 295, 299, 300, 302 instruction 12, 110–128 introduction 32 transgression 51 Teachable 31–54 Teacher authority 14–15, 17, 193, 195–198, 200, 203–204, 210–211, 213–214, 215, 220, 223, 233–234, 236, 238, 240, 260 explanation 31, 92, 96, 101–102, 105, 113–114, 125, 208–209, 211, 245, 251–252, 254, 257–259, 261, 263, 287 -fronted interaction 31–53, 87–107, 110–128, 193–215, 220–240, 247–261, 275–290, 300–302, 304 in training 17, 110–128, 199, 213, 299 partnership see Co-teaching right 193–215 role 193–215 status 193–215 -student interaction 31–53, 87–107, 110–128, 132–156, 193–215, 220–240, 251–253, 255–258, 277–281, 285–288 -teacher interaction see Co-teaching training 128, 194, 214–215, 248, 269 Teaching materials (e.g., handout, worksheet, slide, textbook) 11, 12, 13, 16, 18, 53, 87, 91–92, 96–99, 104, 109, 112, 118, 121–122, 124–128, 204, 206–209, 210–211, 223, 225, 233, 247–248, 263, 269, 270–273, 276, 281–282, 284, 288–290 strategy 89, 91, 93, 96, 289–290, 300 Testing see Assessment: as part of curriculum Textbook see Teaching materials Thailand 11, 12, 76 Timer 159–187 Topic initiation 63, 65, 221–222, 232–233, 234, 237–238 proffer 10

shift 10, 160, 234, 303–304 termination 165–187 Topical talk 159, 165, 167, 171, 174–175, 179, 182–183, 303, see also Off-topic talk Transactional talk 59–79 Translanguaging 12, 101, 105, 107, 118–119, 164, 167–171, 173, 177, 179–184, 202–203, 207–209, 226–227, 244–263, 277–288, 297–298 Translation 8, 39, 41, 51, 99–101, 104–105, 109, 142–143, 145–146, 151, 244, 250, 258–259, 261, 280, 287, 296, 300 Turkey 9, 110–128 Turn design 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 17, 33, 60, 62–64, 66–79, 123, 126, 134, 159, 165, 167, 171, 173–179, 181–183, 185–186, 188, 199–215, 205–213, 234, 228, 289 taking 4, 8, 10–13, 15, 32–33, 37, 42–49, 60, 87–107, 116, 120, 122, 132, 134, 146–148, 151–153, 160–161, 165, 167, 171, 174–179, 182–183, 185, 199, 200–205, 208–213, 223, 225–239, 243, 251–253, 255–257, 259–260, 277–278, 280–281, 286–288, 296, 300–303 Understanding check 118–120, 125–126, 250–251 display in interaction 3, 9, 11–15, 17, 31–35, 46, 50, 52, 63, 79, 71–72, 74, 76, 78, 87, 89, 91–92, 99, 101–106, 110–128, 138–139, 143, 152–153, 171, 173, 196–197, 233, 236, 244, 250–259, 261–262, 278, see also Non-understanding Usage-based 51–52, 262 Vietnam 8, 9, 13, 16–17, 59–79, 298 Vocabulary see Language form: vocabulary Wait time 97, 223, 231, 237 Warm-up activity 121, 230–232, 235–236 Word search 46 Workplace 10–11, 59–79

Index

Writing activity 71, 119–121, 124–126, Young adult learners 87–107, 110–128, 132–156, 159–187, 220–240, 244–263, 268–290

313

Young learners 10, 11, 13, 16, 17, 31–53, 193–215, 297, 304 Zone of proximal development (ZPD) 93, 104