This paper studies how unplanned ‘learnables’ emerge in classroom interaction. A ‘learnable’ is defined as whatever is interactively established as relevant and developed to become a shared pedagogical focus. A learnable can thus be related to any social practice. In the context that we are studying, a Swedish as a second language classroom, we show how interactive processes constructing something as a learnable may originate not only in the use of an unknown Swedish word whose meaning is then asked for (which amounts to a verbal source for a learnable), but also in an unknown name for an object (a material source for a learnable) or an unknown meaning of a gesture (a gestural source for a learnable). These last two sources have not been much described in the existing literature on objects of learning. Through detailed analyses of video recorded classroom interaction, focusing on the ways in which participants gradually accomplish learnables, we show how learnables can arise, step by step, in and for the relevant needs of an emergent learning project that may be quite different from the teacher's pedagogical agenda.

This study is about embodied and endogenous grammar instruction on worksheets in teaching Swedish as a second language. It is demonstrated how an ‘awareness’ to produce a linguistic construct ‘grammatically correct’ is co-achieved by the teacher and the student. To see and understand the grammatical features of the words, an interactive instructional sequence is initiated by the teacher. This interactive scaffolding between the teacher and the student, to use meta-talk and to talk about abstract grammar, requires some concrete referents on a surface jointly attended to, and which are seen, pointed to and talked about. It is shown in detail how the interactional business of the interchange is dependent upon a constant integration of talk, gesture and orientation to the written grammatical construct on a sheet of paper. Teaching grammar is, thus, done through the objectification of quite abstract linguistic units and categories, and the transposition of the abstraction onto tangible and visible objects on the paper. Therefore, the result of the organization of order in instruction is a moment-by-moment sense-making, including accounting for how to understand a grammatical phrase, and the rationale behind the relations of the grammatical constructs, and, also, transforming the organization of knowledge. This study shows that foregrounding grammatical learnables on a paper are actualized by the mobilization of diverse semiotic resources resulting in seeing, understanding and reaching an instructed vision (cf. Goodwin, 1994) as the progressive achievement of observable and reportable embodied actions (Garfinkel, 1967, 2002). Grammatical learnables are, therefore, the procedural outcome of the hands-on practices as mutually achieved embodied accomplishments.

This study is about teachers’ responsive matching gestures in small instructing/learning projects in Swedish as a second language classes. Matching gestures are those gestures that are similar, if not identical, to those in the prior turns-at-talk. The focus of this study is on the repeated gestures, which are used, among other practical purposes, as teaching devices. They are examined in different sequence types such as correction, reformulation and explanation sequences. The data used for this study is a collection of excerpts extracted from the video recordings of teacher-student conversations. An ethnomethodological / conversation analytic framework is adapted for examining the phenomenon. The multimodal analysis of the excerpts shows that matching gestures in language learning situations have a double function. They are used for maintaining and sustaining intersubjectivity, and also for constructing teachable moments as well as learning opportunities. They are used as tying devices to connect teachers’ actions to the students’ prior actions, and are resources for the display of interactive coengagements and strong co-participations. Moreover, matching gestures are used as teaching devices indicating lapses in the competence of the students demonstrated in their verbal productions. The teachers employ matching gestures along with some  verbal affiliates, when the matching gestures are crucial parts of the teachers’ contributions foregrounding the verbal forms as substitutes or remedial proposal for (enhancing) the students’ utterances. That is, matching gestures are used in second language learning situations for proffering learnables through highlighting an alternative way of telling and exhibiting in that language.

The question that this article is concerned with is the following: When training new members of a community, for example, in novice-professional, trainer-trainee, or teacher-student activities, what is it that is being learned? What is it that is offered as something to learn, and how do teachers and students make sense of things as learnables? If one assumes that the issue of learning is always the issue of learning something, this article is about that something, and the resources and consequences of its emergence and existence in learning activities. I shall use the term ‘learnable’ about evolving or emergent objects of learning in social activities. Based on the phenomenological-sociological view on intersubjectivity developed by Husserl (1983, 1989; see also Schutz, 1932/1967, 1975), I will argue for a praxeological (Garfinkel & Sacks, 1970/1986) and dialogical (Bakhtin 1981, 1986; Linell, 2009) investigation of learnables as objects of any sort, whose objective reality is accomplished in the social activity at hand. In language learning classroom interactivities, that are this article’s concern, the phenomena we are talking about are  linguistic expressions, their forms, and their functions. It will be argued that their objective reality is an accomplished reality, and their rationale is an achievable phenomenon in social activities.