Exiting a Storytelling Sequence in Persian Language Classrooms

Abstract

AbstractResearch on stories as pre-packaged instructional tools in second language (L2) instruction, where stories may function to develop language competence, has a long tradition (e.g., Huang in Engl Teach Learn 30:51–74, 2006; İnal and Cakir in Procedia-Soc Behav Sci 98:675–679, 2014). However, the ways in which stories emerge as naturally occurring activities in L2 classroom interaction remain an understudied research topic. Drawing on multimodal conversation analysis (Burch in Lang Learn 64:651–684, 2014), this chapter focuses on the interactional resources that make transition from storytelling to other instructional matters possible. The chapter explicates how teachers’ and students’ stories in Persian language classrooms are closed down and how the shifts to the next instructional activity are achieved. The data are drawn from two corpora of video and audio recorded interactions in intermediate and advanced Persian language classes at two different North American universities. The analysis shows that the way the stories are received and responded to become consequential for the story closings and transitions. The participants made use of a variety of semiotic resources in multifaceted ways to close down a storytelling and to navigate to the next relevant activity. Such resources included shifts of embodiment and prosodic features, attending to the pedagogical artifacts (e.g., textbook, computer) and using lexical exit devices. By adding to the scant conversation analytic literature on storytelling practices in L2 classrooms in the higher education context (Hellermann in Social actions for classroom language learning, Multilingual Matters, 2008; Lee and Hellermann in TESOL Q 48:763–788, 2013), this chapter illuminates aspects of L2 storytelling in a less commonly taught language and has practical implications for teaching story closing methods in L2 learning in general and in Persian language instruction in particular.