Second Language Acquisition as Situated Practice: Task Accomplishment in the French Second Language Classroom

Abstract

This article provides an empirically based perspective on the contribution of conversation analysis (CA) and sociocultural theory to our understanding of learners' second language (L2) practices within what we call a strong socio-interactionist perspective. It explores the interactive (re)configuration of tasks in French second language classrooms. Stressing that learning is situated in learners' social, and therefore profoundly interactional, practices, we investigate how tasks are not only accomplished but also collaboratively (re)organized by learners and teachers, leading to various configurations of classroom talk and structuring specific opportunities for learning. The analysis of L2 classroom interactions at basic and advanced levels shows how the teacher's instructions are reflexively redefined within courses of action and how thereby the learner's emerging language competence is related to other (interactional, institutional, sociocultural) competencies. Discussing the results in the light of recent analyses of the indexical and grounded dimensions of everyday and experimental tasks allows us to broaden our understanding of competence and situated cognition in language learning.OVER THE LAST 2 DECADES, IT HAS BECOME more and more accepted within such different fields as cultural anthropology, language acquisition, and developmental psychology that learning processes, and more generally cognition, have something to do with social interaction. The problem, of course, remains how to pin down that something, that is, how to identify, both theoretically and empirically, the exact contribution of the interactional dimension to learning.This embedded nature of cognitive development in social practices has been the focus of study in two intellectual frameworks. During the last 2 decades, studies undertaken in conversation analysis (CA), as well as in the sociocultural and sociocognitive frameworks, have provided empirical evidence suggesting that the social realm cannot be reduced to a mere background factor in relation to which activities, including cognitive processes, take place, but is an integral part of cognitive development itself. This view has been captured by the notion of situated learning (Lave & Wenger, 1991), according to which learning is rooted in the learner's participation in social practice and continuous adaptation to the unfolding circumstances and activities that constitute talk-in-interaction. Situated learning invites us to look from a new perspective at what the learner is doing when he or she engages in a specific task or activity in a given socio-institu-

'What Can We Do to Talk More : Analysing Language Learners Online Interaction

“…He, 2004;Markee & Kasper, 2004;Mondada & Pekarek, 2004;Kasper, 2006;Pekarek Doehler, 2010;Barraja-Rohan, 2011;Seedhouse, 2013; and more recently CA has begun to be applied in online language learning environments (González-Lloret, 2015). González-Lloret points out that this is a growing area of research, an assertion that is supported by the number of studies in online learning environments that depart from a CA perspective (cf.…”

Emergent learnables in second language classroom interaction

“…Interactionally oriented language learning studies have begun to show how language learning in a social setting is emergent and co-constructed by its participants (Mondada & Pekarek-Doehler, 2004). In second language classrooms, objects of learning have been shown to be contingent upon interaction (Lee, 2010) and practiced through coordinated sense making processes in the interactional organization of talk.…”

“…During the last decade or so a more dialogical and action-based approach has begun to emerge within studies of pedagogical activities (Egbert, Niebecker, & Rezzara, 2004;Koschmann, Le Baron, Goodwin, & Feltovich, 2010;Koshik, 2002;Mondada & Pekarek-Doehler, 2004;Young & Miller, 2004). The significance of interaction, the in situ development of learners' productivity, and attention to different resources at the time of social interaction have steered research in this area toward the endogenous analysis of pedagogical activities (see Firth & Wagner, 2007).…”

“…pedagogical tasks are achieved in collaboration between students and teachers (see also Koshik, 2002). The analysis of the sequential organization of talk has successfully shown the significance of intersubjectivity in second language interaction (Markee, 2000), the situatedness of the process of a language learning activity (Mondada & Pekarek-Doehler, 2004), and the highly interactional competence of second language learners when it comes to the use of various communicative resources and strategies (Carroll, 2000(Carroll, , 2004cf. Faerch & Kasper, 1983).…”

Investigating the Effectiveness of an Interactive IRF-Based English Grammar Learning System

“…According to [2], the IRF routine was successfully applied and replicated in informal peer-to-peer foreign language interactions. Vaish employed IRF exchanges in English courses at elementary and junior high schools [3], while Mondada and Doehler taught children aged 10-12 years old French as a second language with the IRF sequence in Switzerland [4]. Although effective language interaction through IRF dialogue can improve student understand-ing, and language teachers can correct language errors by providing feedback, teachers must contend with heterogeneous language ability levels of students and limited class time, which are the main challenges encountered when teaching [5]; Pauli also found that teachers often ask new questions or offer further explanations without explicitly reviewing the answer or statement of the student [6].…”