Conversation Analysis Tool as an Effective Means for Teaching the University Courses of English and World Literature

Abstract

This paper aims to demonstrate the effectiveness of the Conversation Analysis Tool in the context of teaching world literature to senior students majoring in English philology. The authors present their experience of undertaking a three-month online course “Constructive Classroom Conversations: Mastering Language for College and Career Readiness,” hosted by Stanford University, and discuss the benefits of applying this tool at universities. The study describes the basic mechanisms of the Conversation Analysis Tool aimed at developing specific communication skills in students of English for Speakers of Other Languages. The central research question is whether this method is as feasible for teaching literature as it is for language classrooms. The authors demonstrate their takeaways from applying this technique in teaching world literature, namely, analyzing literary dialogues in different classroom activities. The research findings indicate that the Conversation Analysis Tool is an efficient method for the formative assessment of senior students in the world literature classroom. This technique helps students reveal the pragmatic features of fiction dialogues, the writer’s narrative intentions, and the reader’s expected reception. The suggested method also demonstrates students’ progress in the studied topics and identifies possible gaps in mastering the educational content. The significance of the study extends beyond the specified context, as the search for novel instruction techniques targeted at improving communication skills in the 21st-century globalized world is relevant for any educational sphere. Consequently, the research findings of this paper can be applied in different teaching settings.