Observing a teacher’s interactional competence in an ESOL classroom: a translanguaging perspective

Abstract

Research on translanguaging practices in multilingual contexts has explored how translanguaging highlights the multilingual and multicultural nature of social interactions and its transformative nature in transgressing established norms and boundaries. This article aims to provide an alternative view of interactional competence by connecting it to the notion of translanguaging and its emphasis on the active deployment of multiple linguistic, semiotic, and sociocultural resources in a dynamic and integrated way. We argue for extending the notion of interactional competence as we suggest that translanguaging is the practice of drawing on a speaker’s interactional competence for constructing new configurations of language practices for communicative purposes. Such a conceptualization reinforces the meaning-making process as a locally emergent phenomenon and a jointly accomplished social action. It also conceptualizes the undertaking of co-constructing social interactions as a process of translanguaging whereby interactants need to seek out available multilingual and multimodal resources and make strategic choices among these resources in order to achieve their social actions on a moment-by-moment basis. This article utilizes Sequential-Categorial Analysis, which combines Multimodal Conversation Analysis and Membership Categorisation Analysis, in its analysis of classroom video recordings of vocabulary instruction in a beginner-level adult English-for-Speakers-of-Other-Languages classroom in order to demonstrate our argument.

Exploring the impact of online learning on university students' classroom interactions

“…In order to effectively use interaction as a technique for mediating and supporting learning, teachers need to possess a specific set of skills. The ability of teachers and learners to use interaction as a tool to mediate and support learning is referred to as interactional competence in the classroom [8]. In the virtual learning environment, fostering interaction skills between educators and students promotes an interesting and productive journey of knowledge acquisition.…”

Prompt effects on assessment of interactional competence in a group oral test

“…Empirical studies on IC have garnered increasing scholarly interest during the past two decades, primarily directed to the following three issues—mechanism and trajectory of development of IC, testing and assessment of IC, and ways to teach and improve IC (Dai & Dave, 2023), among which the second one plays a crucial role. Most studies on this issue have explored relationship between interactional features and test scores (e.g., Galaczi, 2008), compared interactional performance of test takers at different levels of L2 proficiency (e.g., Artunç & Hart, 2020), and investigated effects of various variables on test‐takers’ interactional performance, such as task design, test‐takers’ gender, personality, and acquaintanceship (e.g., Nakatsuhara, 2013; van Moere, 2007).…”

Translanguaging Realities: The Use of First Language in Microteaching Practices vs. Young Learner Classrooms

“…As such, switching between languages is a genuine practice for the speakers, and it is encouraged if it will provide more opportunities for language learning and meaning-making. Tai & Dai (2023) emphasize that translanguaging goes beyond alternating between languages and it involves multilingual resources, such as dialects, styles, or registers as well as multimodal resources, which include "switching between speaking and writing, or coordinating gestures, body movements, facial expressions, and visual images for shaping their verbal talk" (Tai &Dai, 2023, p.7). In a similar vein, Wei (2018) refers to translanguaging as "using one's idiolect, which is one's linguistic repertoire, without regard for socially and politically defined language names and labels" (p. 19).…”