Ear cupping in EFL classroom interaction: an embodied means of pursuing students’ response

Abstract

This paper describes one of the embodied resources language teachers use to pursue a response from students: placing one hand behind the ear in an Ear Cupping (EC) gesture. The data analyzed are taken from over 20 h of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom interaction video-recorded at a Japanese university. The paper explores how teachers use EC to pursue a response in cases when a Second-Pair Part (SPP) contribution from the student(s) is sequentially and temporally delayed, missing or inapposite. The findings suggest that the use of the EC gesture to pursue a response demonstrates the teachers’ orientation toward a normative understanding that a question posed within the classroom should be answered, even when a specific respondent has not been nominated. The analysis therefore reveals that the gesture constitutes an embodied means of monitoring intersubjectivity and increasing engagement in large groups of language learners.