Critical learning episodes in the EFL classroom: a multimodal (inter)action analytical perspective

Abstract

The present study centers on exploring how different modes such as speech, gesture, gaze, body posture, and head movement are employed by an EFL teacher and his students during a Critical Learning Episode (CLE) (Davis, M., Kiely, R., and Askham, J. (2009). InSITEs into practitioner research: findings from a research-based ESOL teacher professional development programme. Stud. Educ. Adults 41: 118–137). CLEs are brief instances of classroom interaction where the instructor and the researcher believe that learning is being fostered or inhibited. This article is part of a larger qualitative multiple-case study that took place at a private Colombian University. The lesson was videotaped and then analyzed within a Multimodal (Inter)action Analysis framework (Norris, S. (2019). Systematically working with multimodal data: research methods in multimodal discourse analysis. Wiley Blackwell, Hoboken; Norris, S. (2020). Multimodal theory and methodology: for the analysis of (inter)action and identity. Routledge, London). Findings indicate that CLEs are created in a highly embodied, multimodal, and ecological manner through different modal configurations. Besides speech and writing, modes such as gestures, posture, gaze, and head movement played not a marginal, but prominent role, in performing various pedagogical classroom activities such as enhancing shared/focused attention, strengthening alignment, helping teachers and learners to visually make meaning of morphological and syntactical units, and serving as devices to check for understanding.