Transitioning from one item to another in EFL speaking activities : A multimodal conversation analysis perspective
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| Year of publication | 2020 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | In English as a foreign language (EFL) classes, students frequently speak in pairs or groups. One type of such activities includes a set of items that the students go through and discuss. While the set is typically materialized in a list of questions or topics in a handout or textbook, the actual transitions from one item to another are managed locally by the speakers. Using multimodal conversation analysis, this paper investigates how the speakers coordinate their talk and the embodied and material resources when transitioning from one item to another, i.e. how they bring their talk related to one item from the list to a close and how they make another item relevant. This paper builds on audio- and video-recordings of 18 teaching hours in upper-secondary schools (multiple cameras and voice-recorders were used and synchronized), all of which were recorded in intermediate EFL classes in Czechia. The analysis has shown that in addition to verbal resources, such as acknowledgement tokens and assessments (“yeah”, “right – yeah”), the participants manage the transitions by looking at the list of items in close coordination with manipulation thereof (e.g. pointing at or touching the list) and with changes in body posture. Once both participants have displayed the orientation to the list, they achieve the transition to the next item, typically by reading it out loud. The paper adds to the understanding of how EFL students do activity transitions in learning activities where material objects (in this case a list of items) play an important role. |
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