Word search sequences in teacher-student interaction in an English as medium of instruction context

ABSTRACT

This study explores the ways students in a higher education setting engage in word searches. The investigation draws on 30-hour video recordings of content classes in an English as a medium of instruction university in Turkey. Using conversation analysis, the study focuses on the interactionally accomplished functions of vocal and visual practices deployed by the students in the course of a word search. We revealed that word searches are constructed through publicly visible resources (i.e. gaze, body orientation, gestures) and explicit formulaic expressions (i.e. how can I say it?), and accomplished via bilingual resources. It was also observed that the teacher does not orient to word searches when there is a need to interactionally monitor and manage the repairable content (i.e. pedagogical content, subject-specific word), thus prioritizing content over second language (i.e. English) use in the current content-oriented setting. The study contributes to our understanding of how the participants’ situated roles as a student and teacher are contingently negotiated in the ongoing word search in bilingual classroom contexts.

KEYWORDS:

• Classroom interaction
• code-switching
• conversation analysis
• English as a medium of instruction
• word searches

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank our participants for letting us into their classrooms. We are also grateful for the reviewers’ comments; any shortcomings remain our responsibility.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors .

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Derya Duran

Derya Duran is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Language and Communication Studies, University of Jyväskylä. She does research in conversation analysis. Her research concerns interaction in English-medium instruction classrooms and ESL tutoring sessions.

Salla Kurhila

Salla Kurhila is a Professor in Interactional Linguistics at the University of Helsinki. Her area of expertise involves Conversation Analysis and second language interaction. Her recent research focuses on language learning outside the traditional classroom environments, and on workplace interaction and professional language learning.

Olcay Sert

Olcay Sert is the editor of Classroom Discourse (Routledge) and a senior lecturer (English Studies) at Mälardalen University (Sweden), where he leads Mälardalen INteraction and Didactics (MIND) Research group. His book Social Interaction and L2 Classroom Discourse (Edinburgh University Press) investigates language classrooms from a conversation analytic perspective.