This paper studies tasks-in-process (Breen, 1989) to examine the impact of pedagogical materials on the ongoing interaction. In order to understand the affordances provided by pedagogical materials, it is important to analyze how students use these materials in the classroom (see Kunitz et al., 2022).

Drawing on video-recorded data from EFL students’ dyadic interactions in Swedish upper secondary schools, this study-in-progress uses multimodal conversation analysis to examine and compare the affordances of two types of pedagogical materials (cut-out pictures and actual material objects) in an oral task designed to foster the practice of students’ interactional competence (Pekarek Doehler, 2018) in the L2.

Using a task-based language framework (Ellis, 2003) and a blueprint for open-ended problem-based tasks (Berggren et al., 2023), oral tasks were designed with a focus on manipulating the task input to compare how differences in the materiality of pedagogical artefacts might impact the ongoing task-based interactions in different ways. Previous (Kunitz et al., 2022) and ongoing observations (Hoskins & Kunitz, 2023) suggest that the students seemingly orient to and make relevant the materials both verbally and embodiedly as they engage in collaborative imagining (Murphy, 2005). More specifically, the students co-construct imaginative stories around the items represented on cut-outs and around the material objects provided in the task input. In the case of the cutouts, the students orient to their visual appearance to identify the items represented on the pictures and may exploit visual features to provide alternative identifications while they make sense of the potential roles of the identified items in the developing story. It is further hypothesised that the specific features of material objects also play a role in the developing story. The findings contribute to our understanding of the role of pedagogical materials in the EFL classroom and the impact of task design on task-based interaction

References

Berggren, J., Kunitz, S., Haglind, M., Hoskins, A., Löfquist, A., & Robertson, H. (2023). Combining theory and practice: Findings from a collaborative project on oral task design. In G. Erickson, C. Bardel, & D. Little (Eds.), Collaborative research in language education research: Reciprocal benefits and challenges (pp. 11-28). Mouton de Gruyter.

Breen, M. (1989). The evaluation cycle for language learning tasks. In R. Johnson (Ed.), The second language curriculum (Cambridge Applied Linguistics, pp. 187-206). Cambridge University Press. 

Ellis, R. 2003. Task-based language learning and teaching. Oxford University Press. 

Hoskins, A., & Kunitz, S. (2023, 16 November). The affordances of visual ambiguity in L2 classroom tasks for promoting collaborative interaction. The 7th Nordic Interdisciplinary Conference on Discourse and Interaction (NORDISCO), Tampere, Finland.

Kunitz, S., Berggren, J., Haglind, M., & Löfquist, A. (2022). Getting students to talk: A practice-based study on the design and implementation of problem-solving tasks in the EFL classroom. Languages, 7(2), 75.

Murphy, K. (2005). Collaborative imagining: The interactive use of gestures, talk, and graphic representation in architectural practice. Semiotica, 156, 113–145. https://doi.org/10.1515/semi.2005.2005.156.113 

Pekarek Doehler, S. (2018). Elaborations on L2 interactional competence: The development of L2 grammar for interaction. Classroom Discourse, 9, 3–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/19463014.2018.1437759

This chapter presents the collaborative research project ‘From monologues to dialogues’. The project included several small-scale classroom studies conducted by a research team of teachers and researchers. The collaboration encompassed all stages of the project (design, implementation and analysis), which combined theory and practice to produce findings relevant for the teaching profession. The project was grounded in a practice-based problem: How do we get the pupils to talk to each other in the target language in the classroom? The research team hypothesized that the issue might lie with oral classroom activities and that the problem could be solved by designing meaningful tasks aimed at promoting co-constructed interaction. Our findings related to task design indicate that problem-based tasks with brief instructions and artefacts can elicit ‘good interaction’, which–with the analytical affordances of conversation analysis–we empirically defined as co-constructed interaction where pupils attend to each other’s turns-at-talk and formulate fitting turns that foster the progressivity of the activity. Challenges in our collaboration included negotiating different expectations and perspectives; we argue, however, that the benefits outweigh the challenges. Most importantly, by working side by side in the research process our research team has produced findings that are both actionable and sustainable for the teaching profession.

Ethnomethodological, conversation analytic (CA) research has highlighted the nature of instructions as inherently underspecified plans (Lindwall et al., 2015); yet students orient to instructions as repositories of what it means to accomplish the target task in the “right” way. This paper illustrates such orientation by exploring how a laminated card with printed task instructions is used as a material, pedagogical artifact. The data consist of 6 video-recorded task-based interactions between pairs of upper-secondary school students in Sweden who engaged in an open-ended problem-based task in the English-as-a-foreign-language classroom. All pairs read the instructions at the beginning of their task-based interaction and interpreted the task as entailing the co-construction of narratives. However, they also oriented to the task instructions during their engagement with the task by talking the instructions into relevance while pointing or looking at the instructions card. These instances have been collected and examined with a multimodal CA lens. Our analysis shows that the students oriented to the instructions card to: (a) check their interpretation of the task to determine what to do next; (b) get back on task after extended side sequences; (c) verify their understanding of the scenario described in the instructions; and (d) check their emergent narratives against such scenario. These findings illustrate the students’ emic concern for fostering task progressivity and for doing the task correctly as they oriented to the instructions card as a publicly accessible locus of epistemic authority which embodied a tangible focus of joint attention.

References

Lindwall, O., Lymer, G. and Greiffenhagen, C. (2015). The Sequential Analysis of Instruction. In N. Markee (Ed.), The Handbook of Classroom Discourse and Interaction (pp.142-157). John Wiley and Sons. 

This conversation-analytic (CA) paper contributes to the line of research focusing on the materiality of pedagogical settings (Guerrettaz et al. 2021) and its impact on classroom discourse (Mathieu et al. 2021). Specifically, we explore the affordances provided by cutout pictures that were oriented to as visually ambiguous by students engaged in an open-ended problem-based task. This kind of task was designed to promote students’ collaborative interaction in the English-as-a-foreign-language classroom. The data consist of six video-recorded interactions between pairs of upper secondary school students. The students were given six cutouts illustrating various items (i.e., boomerang, sunglasses) and an instruction card that read: “At an excavation of a cave a person was found together with these items. How did this person end up in the cave?” Our multimodal CA analysis shows that all students co-constructed imaginative narratives revolving around the cutouts and that they oriented to the visual ambiguity of the cutouts when they (a) named the items on the pictures and (b) discussed potential storylines. In particular, the students solved impasses concerning the emerging narrative by suggesting different identifications for the relevant cutouts, which allowed them to develop alternative storylines. Overall, we argue that by interpreting the cutouts as visually ambiguous the students engaged in collaborative interaction as they accomplished a variety of actions such as agreements, challenges, and disagreements. In conclusion, our findings suggest that the selection of material objects such as cutouts has an impact on task-based interaction and is a crucial aspect of task design.

References

Guerrettaz, A.M., Engman, M.M., & Graves, K. (Eds.) (2021). Material Use Across Diverse Contexts of Language Learning and Teaching [Special Issue]. The Modern Language Journal, 105 (S1), 1-185.

Mathieu, C.S., Marcos Miguel, N., & Jakonen, T. (2021) Introduction: classroom discourse at the intersection of language education and materiality. Classroom Discourse, 12 (1-2), 1-14.

This paper focuses on the role that material artifacts play on students’ task-based interactions in the EFL classroom. While conversation-analytic research has focused on students’ implementation of tasks as observable activities (e.g., Balaman & Sert, 2017; Kunitz & Skogmyr Marian, 2017; Lee & Burch, 2017), the role of artifacts on the ongoing task- oriented interactions has just started to be explored (Burch, 2019; Kunitz et al., 2022). Our conversation-analytic study aims to fill this gap by investigating the interactional consequences that the use of specific artifacts might have in six videorecorded task-based interactions between pairs of first-year EFL students. The students were presented with the scenario of a person found during an excavation with various items (illustrated by cut-out pictures). Our fine-grained analyses suggest that artifacts play an important role in: (i) the broader sequential organization of their task-based interaction; and (ii) the actions-in- interaction accomplished in order to complete the task. After an initial artifact-manipulation phase, the students co-constructed emergent narratives based on the scenarios suggested by the artifacts. The discussion over the visual ambiguity and the role of different artifacts on the story behind the excavation involved students in actions-in-interaction such as formulating hypotheses, agreeing, and disagreeing. The findings of this study therefore illustrate the importance of artifacts in task accomplishment and suggest that the selection of artifacts is a crucial aspect of task design that aims to elicit co-constructed, collaborative interaction. 

References

Balaman, U., & Sert, O. (2017). Local contingencies in L2 tasks: A comparison of context-sensitive interactional achievements across two different task types. Bellaterra Journal of Teaching & Learning Language & Literature 10(3). 9-27.

Burch, A.R. (2019) Pedagogical Documents and Language Partner Interaction: The Co-accomplishment of how a Handout Constrains an L2 Interaction. Paper presented at International PragmaticsAssociation (IPrA): Hong Kong

Kunitz, S., Berggren, J., Haglind, M., & Löfquist, A. (2022). Getting students to talk: A practice-based study on the design and implementation of problem-solving tasks in the EFL classroom. Languages. 

Kunitz, S., & Skogmyr Marian, K. (2017). Tracking immanent language learning behavior over time in task-based classroom work. TESOL Quarterly 51(3). 507-535. 

Lee, J., & Burch, A.R. (2017). Collaborative planning in process: An ethnomethodological perspective. TESOL Quarterly 51. 536-570.

This paper focuses on the role that material artifacts and artifact features play on students’ task-based interactions in the EFL classroom. While conversation-analytic research has focused on students’ implementation of tasks as observable activities (e.g., Balaman & Sert, 2017; Kunitz & Skogmyr Marian, 2017; Lee & Burch, 2017), the role of artifacts on the ongoing task-oriented interactions has just started to be explored (Burch, 2019; Kunitz et al., 2022). Our conversation-analytic study aims to fill this gap by investigating the interactional consequences that the use of specific artifacts might have in six video-recorded task-based interactions between pairs of first-year EFL students enrolled in two upper secondary schools in Sweden. The students were presented with the scenario of a person found during an excavation with various items (illustrated by cut-out pictures) and were instructed to answer the question: “How did this person end up in the cave?”. Our fine-grained analyses of the ongoing interactions suggest that artifacts play an important role in: (i) the broader sequential organization of their task-based interaction; and (ii) the actions-in-interaction accomplished in order to complete the task; and (iii) the affordances for topical talk that they provide. After an initial artifact-manipulation phase, the students co-constructed emergent narratives based on the scenarios suggested by the artifacts. The discussion over the visual ambiguity of some artifacts and over the role of different artifacts on the story behind the excavation involved students in actions-in-interaction such as formulating hypotheses, agreeing, and disagreeing. The findings of this study therefore illustrate the importance of artifacts in task accomplishment and suggest that the selection of artifacts is a crucial aspect of task design that aims to elicit co-constructed, collaborative interaction. Overall, the study contributes to the literature on task-based instruction and provides relevant insights for both researchers and practitioners.

References

Balaman, U., & Sert, O. (2017). Local contingencies in L2 tasks: A comparison of context-sensitive interactional achievements across two different task types. Bellaterra Journal of Teaching & Learning Language & Literature 10(3). 9-27.

Burch, A.R. (2019) Pedagogical Documents and Language Partner Interaction: The Co-accomplishment of how a Handout Constrains an L2 Interaction. Paper presented at International PragmaticsAssociation (IPrA): Hong Kong

Kunitz, S., Berggren, J., Haglind, M., & Löfquist, A. (2022). Getting students to talk: A practice-based study on the design and implementation of problem-solving tasks in the EFL classroom. Languages. 

Kunitz, S., & Skogmyr Marian, K. (2017). Tracking immanent language learning behavior over time in task-based classroom work. TESOL Quarterly 51(3). 507-535. 

Lee, J., & Burch, A.R. (2017). Collaborative planning in process: An ethnomethodological perspective. TESOL Quarterly 51. 536-570.

This ethnomethodological, conversation analytic (CA) paper aims to respecify engagement in praxeological terms as a set of observable interactional behaviors. Recently, motivation researchers operating within mainstream SLA have started to discuss the construct of engagement in language learning (Mercer & Dörnyei, 2020; Philp & Duchesne, 2016). The present study intends to contribute to such discussion by exploring engagement through a CA lens, thereby adding to recent studies (Burch, 2016; Evnitskaya & Berger, 2017) in this area within the field of CA-SLA. Specifically, this study explores the practices through which 6 pairs of EFL students enrolled in two upper secondary schools in Sweden visibly do engagement as they accomplish a problem-solving task. The task was designed on the basis of previous cycles of task design, implementation, and analysis which concluded that untimed, open-ended tasks introduced with brief instructions lead to collaborative interaction. At the methodological level, these tasks are particularly suited to the study of engagement in task accomplishment, precisely because of their unstructured nature, which allows the analyst to observe, from an emic perspective, how the students move the task forward and co-construct its completion. The participating students were given a scenario concerning a person found in a cave and, with the aid of cut-out pictures of artifacts, were asked to discuss how that person had gone into the cave. Our analysis shows that the students display engagement by observably: (a) treating emerging narratives as insufficiently developed or illogical; (b) articulating alternative narratives based on different interpretations of the artifacts; and (c) invoking the task instructions in moments of impasse. Through these practices the students orient to task progressivity, while task completion is co-constructively warranted or rejected by invoking the amount of time spent on task. Overall, the study contributes to CA-SLA research on task-based instruction.

References

Burch, A.R. (2016). Motivation in interaction: A conversation-analytic perspective. University of Hawai'i at Manoa ProQuest Dissertations Publishing,  2016.

Evnitskaya, N., & Berger, E. (2017). Learners’ Multimodal Displays of Willingness to Participate in Classroom Interaction in the L2 and CLIL Contexts, Classroom Discourse, 8:1, 71-94. 

Mercer, S., & Dörnyei, Z. (2020). Engaging Language Learners in Contemporary Classrooms (Cambridge Professional Learning). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Philp, J., & Duchesne, S. (2016). Exploring Engagement in Tasks in the Language Classroom. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 36, 50-72.

This paper focuses on oral tasks that involve the use of material artefacts (e.g., cut-out pictures, objects, etc.) and, more specifically, on the role that teacher-selected artefacts and artefact features play on the students’ interactions as they accomplish these tasks in the English language classroom. It has been observed that, when accomplishing oral activities, students often engage in parallel interaction (Galaczi, 2008) that resembles a series of prompted monologues.

To address this issue, a four-year project involving school teachers and researchers was carried out with the goal of designing oral tasks that promote co-constructed, collaborative interaction in the language classroom. Over the years, tasks have been designed, implemented and revised (Ellis, 2003) through an iterative process of three cycles. So far, findings show that task design affects pupil interaction and, specifically, that brief instructions, the use of artefacts and a problem to be solved are task features that seem to be conducive to a more engaged and collaborative interaction among the participants (Berggren et al., 2019). While there has been a growing interest for research on the students’ interpretation and implementation of task instructions and on their co-constructed interaction during task accomplishment (e.g., Balaman & Sert, 2017a, 2017b; Kunitz, 2013; Kunitz & Skogmyr Marian, 2017; Lee & Burch, 2017), the role of material artefacts on the ongoing task-oriented interactions has just started to be explored (Burch, 2019).

With our study we intend to fill this gap by relying on the methodological tools afforded by conversation analysis (Sidnell, 2010) to investigate the interactional consequences that the use of specific artefacts might have in six video-recorded task-based interactions between pairs of first year EFL students enrolled in two upper secondary schools in Sweden. The students engaged in a problem-solving task that was designed based on results from previous cycles; the task revolved around the story behind a person found during an excavation with a series of artefacts illustrated by cut-out pictures. The students were instructed to answer the question: “How did this person end up in the cave?”.

Our fine-grained analyses of the ongoing interactions suggest that artefacts play an important role in: (i) the broader sequential organization of the task-based interactions; (ii) the actions accomplished in order to complete the task; and (iii) the affordances for topical talk that they provide. First, the presence of material artefacts leads students to organize their interactions in two phases: an artefact-manipulation phase (in which they explore the artefacts and try to make sense of what they represent) and a narrative-developing phase (in which they produce emergent narratives based on the scenarios suggested by the artefacts). Second, the discussion over the visual ambiguity of some artefacts and over the role of different artefacts on the story behind the excavation involves students in a series of actions such as formulating hypotheses, agreeing, disagreeing, and reaching consensus. Third, similar artefacts seem to engender similar topical talk along the same line of reasoning, while ambiguous-looking artefacts lead students to explore different lines of reasoning.

The findings of this study therefore illustrate the importance of artefacts in task accomplishment and suggest that the selection of artefacts is a crucial aspect of task design. Overall, the study contributes to the literature on task-based instruction and provides relevant insights for task-based instruction.

References 

Balaman, U., & Sert, O. (2017a). Development of L2 interactional resources for online collaborative task accomplishment. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 30(7), 601–630.

Balaman, U., & Sert, O. (2017b). Local contingencies in L2 tasks: A comparison of context-sensitive interactional achievements across two different task types. Bellaterra Journal of Teaching & Learning Language & Literature, 10(3), 9–27.

Berggren, J., Haglind, M., Löfquist, A., Nyström, K., Anfält, H., Finnson, G., Johansson, E., & Rönquist, A. (2019). En språngbräda till bättre undervisning – att använda ett teoretiskt ramverk för att konstruera uppgifter. Lingua, 1/2019, 8–12.

Burch, A.R. (2019, June 11). Pedagogical documents and language partner interaction: The co-accomplishment of how a handout constrains an L2 interaction [Conference presentation]. IPrA, Hong Kong.

Ellis, R. (2003). Task-based Language Learning and Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Galaczi, E. (2008). Peer-peer interaction in a speaking test: The case of the First Certificate in English examination. Language Assessment Quarterly, 5(2), 89–119.

Kunitz, S. (2013). Group planning among L2 learners of Italian: A conversation analytic perspective [Doctoral dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign]. IDEALS.

Kunitz, S. & Skogmyr Marian, K. (2017). Tracking immanent language learning behavior over time in task-based classroom work. TESOL Quarterly, 51(3), 507-535.

Lee, J., & Burch, A.R. (2017). Collaborative planning in process: An ethnomethodological perspective. TESOL Quarterly, 51(3), 536–575.

Sidnell, J. (2010). Conversation Analysis: An Introduction. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

This paper focuses on the role of instructions during the accomplishment of an oral task in the English language classroom. The study is part of a four-year project originating from the observation that, when accomplishing oral tasks, students often engage in parallel interaction (Galaczi, 2008) that resembles a series of prompted monologues. The project is grounded on the assumption that the way oral tasks are designed and set-up might be problematic and that it should be possible to design meaningful tasks which promote co-constructed, collaborative interaction in the language classroom.

To address this issue, the project engaged school teachers and researchers in the exploration of task design and in the analysis of the task interaction accomplished by the students. Over the years, tasks have been designed, implemented and revised (Ellis, 2003) through an iterative process of three cycles. So far, findings show that task design affects pupil interaction. Specifically, results indicate that “less is more”, in that comprehensive instructions and the use of many instructional materials may hinder the pupils’ interaction (Berggren et al., 2019). What is missing from the research conducted so far is a focus on the role played by instructions during task accomplishment.

In the present dataset we focus on 6 pairs of first year EFL students enrolled in two upper secondary schools in Sweden. The students engaged in a task that was designed based on results from previous cycles, which suggested that brief instructions, the use of artefacts and a problem to be solved are features that might be conducive to a more engaged interaction among the participants. The task revolved around the story behind a person found during an excavation. In the present study, we track occurrences in which the pupils orient to the written instructions as they engage in the task. With the methodological tools afforded by conversation analysis (Sidnell, 2010) we describe the unfolding interaction, with a particular focus on the sequential environment in which such occurrences emerge and on their function.

Our preliminary findings suggest that pupils orient to the instructions when they are uncertain about their interpretation of the task and when they are in disagreement regarding their emerging hypotheses. The orientation to the task instructions therefore seems to have three main functions: (a) checking the pupils’ interpretation of the task in order to determine what to do next; (b) verifying their understanding of the scenario described in the instructions; and (c) checking their own hypotheses. The findings illustrate the pupils’ emic concern for the progressivity of the task, while relying on the epistemic authority (Heritage, 2013) of the task instructions as repositories of what it means to accomplish the target task.

Overall, the study contributes to the literature on task-based instruction and speaks to the need of bridging the gap between practice and theory by promoting the collaboration of teachers and researchers.

References

Berggren, J., Haglind, M., Löfquist, A., Nyström, K., Anfält, H., Finnson, G., Johansson, E., & Rönquist, A. (2019). En språngbräda till bättre undervisning – att använda ett teoretiskt ramverk för att konstruera uppgifter. Lingua, 1/2019, 8–12.

Ellis, R. (2003). Task-based language learning and teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.  

Galaczi, E. (2008). Peer-peer interaction in a speaking test: The case of the First Certificate in English examination. Language Assessment Quarterly, 5(2), 89–119.

Heritage, J. (2012). Epistemics in conversation. In J. Sidnell & T. Stivers (Eds.), The Handbook of Conversation Analysis (pp. 370–394). Oxford: Wiley Blackwell.

Sidnell, J. (2010). Conversation Analysis: An introduction. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell