ABSTRACT
This article responds to a call for applied linguistics and bilingualism research from a spatial repertoires perspective informed by new materialism. It focuses on the ways international faculty members carry out instructional interactions in STEM using English as an additional language. Using video data, the analysis demonstrates how visual technology, material space and human bodies collectively shape instructional interactions in a structural engineering class in a university setting. The communication shows a complex entanglement of language with technology, visual representations of concrete designs and embodiment. The study details the characteristics of repertoires that are expected in the given instructional space for an effective practice, and it sheds light on what new members can learn and do in order to be competent in their profession. Additionally, the data corpus can be used as an authentic resource for the disciplinary socialization of bi-/multilingual STEM students and scholars for whom English is an additional language.
Acknowledgements
The project was supported by the SEED grant at the University of Idaho. Also, I would like to thank Tenzin Dulal and Ibtesam Hussein who provided important assistance during data collection.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
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Bal Krishna Sharma
Bal Krishna Sharma is an assistant professor of English at the University of Idaho. His research interests include multilingualism, World Englishes, intercultural communication, ethnography, and discourse analysis. His previous publications have appeared in the Journal of Sociolinguistics, Applied Linguistics, Multilingua, Language in Society, and TESOL Quarterly.