Instruction-in-Interaction: The Teaching and Learning of a Manual Skill

Abstract

This study takes an interest in instructions and instructed actions in the context of manual skills. The analysis focuses on a video recorded episode where a teacher demonstrates how to crochet chain stitches, requests a group of students to reproduce her actions, and then repeatedly corrects the attempts of one of the students. The initial request, and the students' responses to it, could be seen as preliminary to the series of corrective sequences that come next: the request and the following attempts make it possible for the teacher to launch instructional sequences specifically designed and addressed to the students who need further guidance. In the interaction between the teacher and the novice student, the reasoned character of the instructed actions is not explained so much as installed and tuned. The materiality of the project makes it possible for the two parties to methodically and meticulously adjust their actions in accordance with each other, and towards the gradual realization of the aimed-for results. In connection to this, a number of issues pertaining to the reproducibility and recognizability of manual skills are raised: how instructions-in-interaction orient towards the progression of the skill rather than the interaction itself; how attempts by and mistakes of the instructed party provide grounds for further instruction; and, consequently, how instructions in the form of corrections build on the instructor's continuous assessments of the instructed actions.

Finger dialogue: The embodied accomplishment of learnables in instructing grammar on a worksheet

“…also Keevallik, 2010;Lindwall & Ekström, 2012) where the teacher brings the student's attention to the mistake he has made in his written sentence. The sentence is part of a short passage in Swedish that the student has written as a task.…”

“…What is understood and learned may be exhibited and observed in the student's production as an embodied achievement (e.g. Lindwall & Ekström, 2012;cf. Keevallik, 2010).…”

Learnables in Action : The Embodied Achievement of Opportunities for Teaching and Learning in Swedish as a Second Language Classrooms

“…Ekström, Lindwall & Säljö, 2009;Lindwall & Ekström, 2012), dance skills (e.g. Keevallik, 2010), music skills (e.g.…”

“…Weeks, 1996;Nishizaka, 2006;Szczepek Reed et al, 2013), dance lessons (e.g. Keevallik, 2010), educational practices in laboratory work (Lindwall & Lymer, 2008), design reviews for architectural education (Lymer, Ivarsson & Lindwall, 2009), medical classes (Koschmann & LeBaron, 2002), training of dentists (Hindmarsh, Reynolds & Dunne, 2011), and surgeons (Koschmann, LeBaron, Goodwin & Feltovich, 2011), handicraft education (Ekström et al, 2009;Ekström, 2012; teaching crocheting in Lindwall & Ekström, 2012), or instructing how to repair bikes (Arnold, 2012).…”

“…Sidnell, 2006) in interaction with the students. Lindwall & Ekström (2012) show how following the teacher's instruction is also achieved through a close interactive collaboration between the teacher and the student while teaching the manual skill of crocheting. Responding to the teacher's request to follow the instruction is not just done by accepting it, but through a visible display of action, which is the witnessable evidence of understanding or non-understanding of the instruction.…”