This article uses multimodal conversation analysis to investigate how the smartphone as a personal cognitive artifact features in second language (L2) use and learning. The data come from a pedagogical intervention that was organized as part of an integration learning course for adult L2 students with emerging literacy. The purpose of the intervention was to guide the students to participate in everyday interactions outside the language classroom and to learn from them. The analysis concentrates on a focal student's smartphone use during different phases of the intervention and offers a detailed account of how the smartphone provides affordances for the student to formulate recognizable social actions and participate in different phases of the pedagogical activity. The analysis adds to our current understanding of the role of mobile technology in L2 learning and illustrates how experiential pedagogy supports language learning as social activity. The findings can be used in designing pedagogical practices that support L2 students to develop their interactional competences on the basis of their own needs and goals.

Tässä artikkelissa analysoidaan multimodaalista keskustelunanalyysia hyödyntäen, miten sanelun jälkeiset sekvenssit rakentuvat aikuisten luku- ja kirjoitustaidon koulutuksen luokkahuoneen vuorovaikutuksessa. Pitkittäinen aineisto on kerätty etnografisesti aikuisten luku- ja kirjoitustaidon koulutuksen yhteydestä sekä luokkahuoneen että arjen vuorovaikutustilanteista kahdeksan kuukauden aikana. Artikkelin aineisto sisältää 68 tuntia videotallenteita.  Artikkelissa osoitetaan, että tyypillisesti huomion kohteeksi tuotu sana aluksi toistetaan, mitä seuraa yhdessä rakennettu multimodaalinen sananselitys. Tämän jälkeen fokusoidaan sanan semantiikkaan ja lopuksi sana taas toistetaan. Sananselitykset koostuvat yleensä ikonisista eleistä tai kehollisista esityksistä. Opiskelija saattaa esimerkiksi demonstroida juomistoimintaa selittääkseen, mihin vesipullo viittaa tai kehollisesti esittää avaavansa oven opettajan kysyttyä, mitä avata-sana tarkoittaa. Näin ollen analyysissa pohditaan, miten ymmärtämistä voidaan osoittaa kehollisilla vuoroilla, kun osallistujien yhteiset kielelliset resurssit ovat vähäiset. Artikkeli tuo uutta tietoa luku- ja kirjoitustaidon koulutuksen sananselitysten rakenteesta ja kehollisten ja materiaalisten resurssien merkityksestä niissä. Lisäksi esitetty analyysi nostaa esiin tarpeen tutkia, miten lukutaito-opiskelijoiden multi­modaalisten resurssien käyttö mahdollisesti muuttuu ja kehittyy ajan kuluessa.   Embodied and material word explanations in adult literacy-training classroom interactions In this article, multimodal conversation analysis is employed to analyse classroom inter­action between users of Finnish as a second language. More specifically, the author investigates the structure of co-constructed multimodal word explanation sequences that occurred after a dictation exercise during a classroom interaction given as part of adult literacy training. Typically, the salient word is repeated, there then follows a co-constructed multimodal word explanation, after which the conversation focuses on the semiotics of the word in question. Finally, students repeat the word again. To explain words, students primarily use embodied resources, most often iconic gestures or embodied enactments. For instance, a student might demonstrate the action of drinking to explain what the word vesipullo (‘water bottle’) refers to, or physically enact opening a door when the teacher has asked what avata (‘to open’) means. The analysis discusses how comprehension is demonstrated in embodied turns in which the participants’ shared linguistic resources are limited. The longitudinal data was collected ethnographically over eight months, both from classroom interactions and everyday encounters with groups of adult second-language and literacy learners in Finland. The data for the article comprises approximately 68 hours of video and audio recordings. The empirical findings of this study present new information about the structure of word-explanation sequences and the role of embodied and material resources used therein. Moreover, they shed light on questions of the role of multimodal resources in second-language and literacy training and call for further research into the development of their use over time.

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