Second language pedagogy

8.2.1 A communicative approach to pedagogical tasks or interactional tasks

One of the basic arguments throughout this dissertation is the relationship between pedagogy and communication/interaction. In chapter 3, I described instructions, and in particular tasks, as a pedagogical concept within second language pedagogy. I highlighted the distinction between task-as-workplan and task-in-process (Breen 1987, 1989), and showed how a large amount of research has described how task-accomplishment may be very different from the teacher's intended workplan (e.g., Mondada and Pekarek-Doehler 2004; Mori 2002). In this way, these studies adopt a communicative and interactional

approach to task(-accomplishment), and the results of these studies are of utmost importance for second language pedagogy and second language teachers. This line of research focuses on situations, which are pedagogically grounded since they analyze how

FORMAL pedagogical tasks as accomplished and constructed interactionally.

On the other hand, tasks may be approached not (primarily) in relation to pedagogy, but in relation to communication/interaction. In this way, tasks are described from an emic perspective, where the focus is on what participants themselves orient to as

INTERACTIONAL TASKS. Task is thus not a pedagogical but an interactional concept. In this way, the analyses focus on how classroom interaction sets up specific frames in which students participate, and how the organization of the interaction provides different tasks, that students must deal with. This is the suggested approach in this dissertation. In Mortensen I, I find that the way in which the pedagogical task is organized provides different interactional tasks for the students. I propose that whether or not turn-allocation and the activity are prepared and available to the participants or locally managed set up very different frameworks, which require different ways of relevant participation by the students. In Mortensen I, I describe situations in which the activity is prepared, but where turn-allocation is locally managed. In this context, a relevant task for the students is to display whether they are willing to be selected as next-speaker. For the teacher this means orienting to the students' display of availability. In this way, turn-allocation through current-speaker selects next speaker is managed by the teacher but relies on interactional work between teacher and students. In Mortensen II, I find that when the activity is organized as to allow for self-selection, the self-selecting student orients to establishing recipiency with a co-participant as a relevant interactional task prior to or during the turn-beginning. In Mortensen III, I show that when the teacher highlights a part of his/her ongoing turn-at-talk students orient to the highlighted word(s) as relevant to the ongoing activity, and that the highlight projects a formal vocabulary teaching sequence. In this way, the teacher's highlight sets up a framework, in which a repeat of the highlighted word(s) is relevant in the (students') next-turn.

In this way, task can be approached as a pedagogical as well as an interactional concept, and the argument is not to highlight one of them, but a COMBINATION of them.

Approaching pedagogical tasks from a communicative approach is particularly relevant for designing classroom material. Knowledge about how students engage in task-accomplishment is crucial since students do not necessarily deal with the task in the intended way (e.g., Coughlan and Duff 1994; Mori 2002). This information is important for organizing tasks in the classroom. On the other hand, classroom interaction provides interactional tasks for students even though the focus is not explicitly on pedagogical tasks. For instance, by allowing self-selection the students face the task of negotiating participation roles, i.e. “speaker” and “main recipient”. This may add to the complexity of the (pedagogical) task students are faced with. In situations where students are

“supposed” to have approximately equal amount of speaking time, this may not be the best of managing the classroom interaction, and a more strict “teacher selects next-speaker” may be more beneficial for this purpose. However, since negotiating recipiency

IS a relevant task during conversation (e.g., Carroll 2004; Goodwin 1981), it can be considered as RELEVANT for second language classroom interaction and teaching, and classroom interaction can therefore be designed in ways, which make this interaction task relevant. The aim at this point is not to argue for one way or another of organizing and managing classroom interaction. Rather, this depends on the pedagogical purpose of the ongoing activity. In this way, it is relevant for second language classroom teachers to know which (interactional and/or pedagogical) tasks they provide students with according to the ways, in which activities are organized. These aspects are thus something that second language teachers must orient to prior as well as during the lesson.

8.2.2 Pedagogical tasks are interactively constructed

The dissertation follows an increasing numbers of studies that show how pedagogical tasks are interactively constructed (e.g., Hellermann 2005; Hellermann and Cole forth.;

Kasper 2004; Mondada and Pekarek-Doehler 2004; Mori 2002, 2004; Ohta 2001;

Seedhouse 1999; Szymanski 2003). For instance, in Mortensen III I show how vocabulary teaching (may be) constructed interactively. In particular, the article describes how formal linguistic teaching does not necessarily emerge due to interactional problems,

but due to the pedagogical aim of the activity. In this context, students are faced with the task of orienting to the teacher's highlighted word(s) through repetition, and in this way they participate in the social activity of “doing word explanation”. Similarly, in Mortensen I I show how students orient to the progression of the task. They do this by displaying willingness to be selected as next-speaker before the next task-item has been initiated.

8.2.3 Students' orientation to linguistic fluency in turn-beginning?

In Mortensen II, I show how students may request and establish recipiency with a co-participant before the turn-at-talk is properly initiated. Previous research has showed how this (interactional) task may be dealt with during the turn-beginning (e.g., Carroll 2004;

Goodwin 1981). In this position, the incipient speaker relies on verbal and visual resources for establishing recipiency with a co-participant. The verbal resources include pauses, restarts and hesitations. Carroll (2004; 2005a) argues that these resources serve an interactional purpose, i.e. establishing recipiency, and therefore are not linguistic disfluencies due to lack of linguistic competence. However, the second language classroom is designed for second language learning. By establishing recipiency prior to the proper turn-beginning, the self-selecting student does not have to deal with this interaction task during the turn-beginning, which can therefore be produced in a linguistically fluent way. This may show us that students orient to linguistic disfluent turn-beginnings as somehow “improper” in the second language classroom even though it might serve interactional purposes. This may show that students orient to (“fluent”) linguistic structures not only as relevant, but also as NORMATIVE in the second language classroom. This finding would be important for second language pedagogy and second language teachers since it reveals how students conceive language and language learning. However, it must be left for future research to show whether this is indeed the case.

8.2.4 Non-native speakers are socially competent

Additionally, the dissertation adds to the existing range of literature that describes how second language students, and non-native speakers in general, are social and interactional