The Case of the Missing “No”: The Relationship Between Pedagogy and Interaction

Abstract

The research from which this article derives (Seedhouse 1996a) relates to classroom instructed second language learning and focuses solely on spoken discourse. The research has a number of implications for research into form-focused instruction: 1 Pedagogical recommendations often tend to assume that the L2 classroom does not have an interactional structure of its own and that pedagogy can translate directly into interaction. It is proposed that L2 classroom interaction as a variety of institutional discourse has its own peculiar organisation, which may be characterised and described. It is also suggested that the relationship between pedagogy and interaction is a complex and reflexive one. Pedagogical recommendations may be transformed by the intervening level of interactional organisation, with quite unforeseen consequences. 2 L2 classroom Interaction may operate in a number of “L2 classroom contexts.” One would normally expect form-focused instruction to operate in a “form and accuracy” context, which has its own peculiar organisation of turntaking and repair combined with a distinctive pedagogical focus. 3 However, the L2 classroom is presented as a dynamic, complex, fluid, and variable interactional environment. Micro-analysis of classroom interactional data often reveals a number of side episodes that lead away from the official business of the lesson and demonstrates that there can be tensions between the teacher's and the learners' agendas. It cannot there-fore be assumed that what is officially designated as a “forms-focused lesson” will actually turn out that way in practice. The article below illustrates a number of the above themes by examining a particular case that involves the preference organisation of repair in form and accuracy contexts. The data reveal a strong dispreference for direct and overt negative evaluation of learner errors in these contexts. This dispreference appears to arise from current pedagogical recommendations that making mistakes should be seen as a positive part of the language-learning process. However, because of the interactional structure of the L2 classroom, this creates the interactional message that making mistakes is an embarrassing, face-threatening matter. In other words, the pedagogical message and the interactional message appear to work in direct opposition to each other. The case therefore provides an example of the importance of relating pedagogy to the interactional organisation of the L2 classroom.