L2 Interactional Competence and Development


Book Description

Drawing on data from a range of contexts, including classrooms, pharmacy consultations, tutoring sessions, and video-game playing, and a range of languages including English, German, French, Danish and Icelandic, the studies in this volume address challenges suggested by these questions: What kinds of interactional resources do L2 users draw on to participate competently and creatively in their L2 encounters? And how useful is conversation analysis in capturing the specific development of individuals’ interactional competencies in specific practices across time? Rather than treating participants in L2 interactions as deficient speakers, the book begins with the assumption that those who interact using a second language possess interactional competencies. The studies set out to identify what these competencies are and how they change across time. By doing so, they address some of the difficult and yet unresolved issues that arise when it comes to comparing actions or practices across different moments in time.




Usage-Based Perspectives on Second Language Learning


Book Description

This edited volume brings together perspectives that find mutual kinship in a view of language as an embodied, semiotic, symbolic tool used for communicative and interactional purposes and an understanding of language use as the preeminent condition for language learning – perspectives that we conjoin under the umbrella term of usage based perspectives.




L2 Interactional Competence and Development


Book Description

Drawing on data from a range of contexts, including classrooms, pharmacy consultations, tutoring sessions, and video-game playing, and a range of languages including English, German, French, Danish and Icelandic, the studies in this volume address challenges suggested by these questions: What kinds of interactional resources do L2 users draw on to participate competently and creatively in their L2 encounters? And how useful is conversation analysis in capturing the specific development of individuals' interactional competence in specific practices across time? Rather than treating participants in L2 interactions as deficient speakers, the book begins with the assumption that those who interact using a second language possess interactional competencies. The studies set out to identify what these competencies are and how they change across time. By doing so, they address some of the difficult and yet unresolved issues that arise when it comes to comparing actions or practices across different moments in time.




English as a Lingua Franca


Book Description

Explores the language behaviour of speakers of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), through the lens of Gricean pragmatics. It will be of interest to a wide range of scholars across the fields of pragmatics, language contact, world Englishes, second language acquisition, and English as a second language.




Classroom-based Conversation Analytic Research


Book Description

This book presents an international range of conversation analytic (CA) studies of classroom interaction which all discuss their empirical findings in terms of their theoretical and methodological contribution to the field of second language studies and their potential pedagogical relevance. The volume is thus unique in its focus on the theoretical and practical insights of CA classroom-based research and on the impact that such insights might have at the pedagogical level, from teaching to testing to teacher education. Given the growing interest in the pedagogical applicability of CA research, this book is a timely addition to the existing literature.




Conversation Analytic Research on Learning-in-Action


Book Description

This volume offers insights on language learning outside the classroom, or in the wild, where L2 users themselves are the driving force for language learning. The chapters, by scholars from around the world, critically examine the concept of second language learning in the wild. The authors use innovative data collection methods (such as video and audio recordings collected by the participants during their interactions outside classrooms) and analytic methods from conversation analysis to provide a radically emic perspective on the data. Analytic claims are supported by evidence from how the participants in the interactions interpret one another’s language use and interactional conduct. This allows the authors to scrutinize the term wild showing what distinguishes L2 practices in our different datasets and how those practices differ from the L2 learner data documented in other more controlled settings, such as the classroom. We also show how our findings can feed back into the development of materials for classroom language instruction, and ultimately can support the implementation of usage-based L2 pedagogies. In sum, we uncover what it is about the language use in these contexts that facilitates developmental changes over time in L2-speakers' and their co-participants' interactional practices for language learning.




A Conversation Analysis Approach to French L2 Learning


Book Description

This book offers a critical examination of second language (L2) learning outside institutional contexts, with a focus on the way second language learners introduce, close, and manage conversational topics in everyday settings. König adopts a Conversation Analysis for Second Language Acquisition (CA-SLA) approach in analyzing oral data from a longitudinal study of L2 learners of French, au pairs in Swiss families, over several years. With this approach the author presents insights into the ways in which L2 learners introduce and close conversational topics in ongoing conversations and how these strategies evolve over time, setting the stage for future research on this little documented process in second language acquisition. This volume contributes toward a greater understanding of L2 learning “in the wild,” making this key reading for students and researchers in second language acquisition, applied linguistics, and French language learning and teaching.




Changing Language Assessment


Book Description

This edited book brings together fifteen original empirical studies from a variety of international contexts to provide a detailed exploration of language assessment, testing and evaluation. Language assessment has a key role in the development and implementation of language and educational policies at the national level, and this book examines some of the impacts - both positive and negative - of different skills testing and examination approaches on learning outcomes and individual students' language learning. This book will be of interest to scholars working in applied linguistics and language education, teacher training, testing and evaluation, as well as stakeholders such as practitioners, educators, educational agencies, and test developers.




Teaching and Testing L2 Interactional Competence


Book Description

This volume features the latest research findings on L2 interactional competence to demonstrate the potential for developing and implementing research-based pedagogy that targets interactional competence (IC) in early instruction in a variety of L2 learning and teaching contexts. Incorporating contributions from both leading and emerging researchers in the area, the book is organized into four sections to provide a systematic account of interactional competence, defined as a set of skills required to co-construct an effective interaction with a variety of interlocutors in a variety of settings, and advocates for IC to be part of a well-rounded curriculum of L2 instruction. The volume provides a comprehensive overview of the different theoretical perspectives on IC within Conversation Analysis, and moves into a discussion of conversation-analytic research findings from a variety of contexts and of their pedagogical implications.The book then presents examples of pedagogy in practice and also illustrates the potential for implementing IC in testing settings. This volume makes a valuable contribution to the growing literature on interactional competence and will be of particular interest to graduate students and researchers in applied linguistics, SLA, language education, curriculum and instruction studies, and educational linguistics. Chapter 13 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.




Teacher Training for English-Medium Instruction in Higher Education


Book Description

English-medium instruction (EMI) has become a pervasive teaching model in recent higher education. The implementation of EMI programs requires changes in university teaching methods since most lecturers need to adapt their contents and the way they teach them to successfully work in foreign language environments. The rapid proliferation of such programs has resulted in concern among teaching staff, who have felt pushed towards teaching their subject content through a non-native language with little or no previous training. As a result, many recent studies have highlighted the importance and urgency to train teaching staff in terms of language proficiency and the appropriate teaching methods, techniques, and strategies to be applied in EMI lessons. Teacher Training for English-Medium Instruction in Higher Education is an academic research publication that provides comprehensive research on effective approaches and experiences in teacher training for EMI at universities both in terms of language skills and teaching methodologies and that analyzes the design and development of comprehensive teacher training programs that successfully engage these EMI programs. It has profound implications for the development of the international profile of higher education institutions as it provides information on how to train highly-qualified lecturers to successfully teach students from different nationalities. Featuring a wide range of topics such as assessment, curriculum design, and learning styles, this book is ideal for pre- and in-service teachers, language specialists, content specialists, administrators, deans, higher education faculty, researchers, practitioners, curriculum designers, policymakers, academicians, and students.