A Child's Development of Interactional Competence in a Swedish L2 Classroom

Abstract

This study explores a child's emergent second language (L2) interactional competence during her first year in a Swedish immersion classroom. Within the theoretical framework of situated learning, it focuses on how she acquires expertise in a specific classroom practice: multiparty classroom talk. The data cover three periods (the early, middle, and late phases) of her first school year. The methods adopted combine a microanalytic approach with ethnographic fieldwork analyses of L2 socialization within a classroom community. The analyses revealed systematic changes in the novice's interactional engagements. An interplay of language skills and turn‐taking skills influenced her participation in multiparty talk during the three periods, casting her as (a) a silent child, (b) a noisy and loud child, and (c) a skillful student. These changes indicate that learning cannot be seen as the unilinear development of a single learner identity. It is argued that a detailed longitudinal analysis may provide important insights into the relationship between participation and L2 learning. Instead of unilinear development of a single learner identity, we may find different participation patterns linked to distinct language learning affordances over time.