Connecting the Language Classroom and the Wild: Re-enactments of Language Use Experiences

Abstract

Using multimodal conversation analysis, this article analyses language learning as an in situ process during a teacher-assigned, experientially based pedagogical activity. The activity involved a three-part pedagogical structure, where learners first prepared for and then participated in real-life service encounters, and later reflected on their experiences back in the classroom. The analysis details how the co-constructed telling sequences through which novice second language users re-enact their experiences create an occasion for language-focused activity. We argue that the actions through which the participants display and sustain an orientation to an interactional practice as an object of learning make visible a learning project. The findings illuminate the practices through which language-focused activity is initiated, sustained, and managed to enable in situ learning. They also show how re-enactments function in storytelling and display a novice learner’s interactional competence. Finally, the findings illustrate how experiences gained in everyday social activities can be ‘harvested and reflected upon’ (Wagner 2015: 77) in the classroom and contribute to recent initiatives to develop teaching practices that support learning in-the-wild.

Retrospective Orientation to Learning Activities and Achievements as a Resource in Classroom Interaction

“…To conclude, an inquiry into the ways in which language learning constitutes praxeological construction of change over time in situated learning activities is largely missing in the current CA–SLA literature. As Lilja and Piirainen–Marsh () note, retrospection shows what “participants themselves treat as worth telling and learning” (p. 26). Therefore, directing analytical attention on observable uses of the past in interaction could provide an analytical entry point for exploring how learning involves the bringing together of sometimes unexpected nonlocal resources—experiences, achievements, cognitive states, and so on—dispersed by time and place.…”

“…These kinds of situated learning practices have been explored both in pedagogical settings (e.g., Lee, 2010;Majlesi & Broth, 2012;Merke, 2016;van Compernolle, 2010) and in everyday life (Eskildsen, 2018;Lilja, 2014;Sahlström, 2011;Theodórsdóttir, 2018). Recent work within this literature has examined points of convergence and divergence between the classroom and 'the wild,' with a view on how these life arenas may involve distinct interactional practices for doing learning, and how participants may build bridges between settings (see e.g., Eskildsen & Theodórsdóttir, 2017;Lilja & Piirainen-Marsh, 2018). Yet another focus in the cross-sectional inquiry is represented in the body of literature that takes as its starting point well-established cognitive constructs of SLA to explore their social organization and interactional building blocks.…”

Orientation to Language Learning Over Time: A Case Analysis on the Repertoire Addition of a Lexical Item

“…Thus, the analysis aims at investigating the opportunities that naturally occurring interaction can provide and the ways in which the participants make use of these opportunities. This branch of CA–SLA studies has been successful in defining and exploring various contexts—both sequential as well as externally defined pedagogical contexts (e.g., inside and outside language classrooms)—where participants create and utilize opportunities for language learning (see, e.g., Eskildsen, 2018; Eskildsen & Theodórsdóttir, 2017; Gardner, 2012; Koshik & Seo, 2012; Lilja, 2014; Lilja & Piirainen–Marsh, 2019a; Markee & Kasper, 2004; Reichert & Liebscher, 2012; Svennevig, 2018; Theodórsdóttir, 2018). However, the emphasis on single‐interactional sequences and short time span means that the “orientation to learning” branch of CA–SLA has not necessarily presented evidence of an “independent, productive use of a new learning object” (Markee, 2008, p. 409), thereby failing to show that the change really has occurred.…”

Suomen kielen käyttämisen ja oppimisen mahdollisuudet ammatillisen oppilaitoksen rakennusalan vuorovaikutustilanteissa

“…Tässä mielessä materiaalisen ympäristön sinänsä voi ajatella tukevan kielen käyttöä. Rakennusmateriaalit toimivat näin mahdollisesti "rakennustelinei-nä" (scaffold) myös kielen oppimiselle (van Lier, 2004). Aineistomme havainnollistaa, että osallistujat ymmärtävät toisiaan ja osaavat toimia hyvin tarkoituksenmukaisesti niiden materiaalisten resurssien avulla, jotka ovat tilanteessa läsnä ja tarpeen.…”