Exploring Classroom Interaction through Conversation Analysis: from communicative to interactional competences in language teaching

Abstract

This paper will provide an introduction to the rationale behind the use of Conversation Analysis (CA) (Sacks et al., 1974) to explore language classroom interaction for readers new to the field. CA is the systematic analysis of talk produced in everyday human interaction, that is, talk-in-interaction (Hutchby & Wooffitt, 2008). Since its origins in 1960s, the field has expanded tremendously: from telephone calls to video recordings in Multimodal CA (Mondada, 2018) and has made great impact in the way we explore classroom discourse from an interactional perspective. This paper will first present an overview of the historical development of language instruction comparing both cognitive and socio-interactionist perspectives. It will then introduce CA to readers and will explain its main analytic concepts before exemplifying the kinds of practices that become visible through this approach, such as the temporality of gestural productions and the practices teachers deploy to promote participation. The paper will end with more current perspectives by introducing two teacher training frameworks which have emerged from the application of CA to classroom discourse.