Researching interaction in small groups : What does multimodal conversation analysis have to offer?
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| Year of publication | 2022 |
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| Description | Conversation analytic research has brought about detailed understanding of the accomplishment of learning and teaching in different educational settings, especially in teacher-fronted classrooms. However, comparatively less attention has been paid to the ways peers in a small group interact without the guidance of the teacher. In addition, along with the embodied turn in social interaction research, there is a growing awareness that language is often deployed together with embodied and material resources to build action in situated ways. In this talk, drawing on video recordings of small group interactions in EFL upper secondary classes, I will use multimodal conversation analysis to showcase the potential of this approach to explore and describe social phenomena that occur within speaking tasks. More specifically, I will focus on how EFL speakers use a variety of multimodal resources to transition from one item to another in list-based tasks, to engage in word searches, and to add to or modify an answer formulated by a peer. The analyses will demonstrate the speakers’ sensitivity to the placement and local contingencies of their turns within the spatial-material ecology of the settings and with respect to the task at hand. Implications for research in social interaction, language teaching, and teacher education will be discussed. |