Recruiting help in word searches in L2 peer interaction: A multimodal conversation-analytic study

• Published in: Linguistics and education 2022-02, Vol.67, p.100999, Article 100999
• Main Authors: Tůma, František, Sherman, Tamah
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Accountability; Address forms; Classroom communication; Classroom interaction; Collaboration; Conversation analysis; English as a foreign language; English as a second language; Hearing disorders; Multimodal conversation analysis; Multimodality; Note taking; Pragmatics; Recruiting help; Word searches
• ISSN: 0898-5898; 1873-1864
• DOI: 10.1016/j.linged.2021.100999

•Peer assistance can be recruited by using verbal and embodied resources.•Embodied resources include gaze and gesture.•Verbal resources include metapragmatic search markers, address terms and requests.•Switching into L1 and using L1 equivalents was common in word searches.•Students engaged in taking notes were not heard as accountable for not assisting.•Problems with hearing can account for not assisting in classroom settings. This study investigates how students recruit their peers’ assistance in collaborative word searches during speaking tasks in English as a foreign language (EFL) classes. Multimodal Conversation Analysis was used on a dataset of recordings from 18 upper-secondary classes to scrutinize how accountability and sanctionability of (not) responding are treated by the participants when a peer's help was not initially available. The analysis showed that there are several resources employed to adjust the participation framework in favor of co-operation when a peer is engaged in another activity, namely gaze, gesture, metapragmatic search markers, address terms and turning the word search into an explicitly formulated request. The co-participant may continue pursuing an institutionally relevant task (e.g., note-taking) or account for the lack of response by claiming hearing problems. These findings shed light on the multiple ways in which assistance in peer interaction can be recruited in classroom settings.