Extended Response-Pursuit Practices in L2 Listening-Speaking Classroom Interaction

Abstract

Student participation in L2 classroom interaction is paramount in foreign/second language learning; however, teachers often encounter silence after posing interrogatives. In this regard, though a substantial body of research has documented response-pursuit practices across diverse pedagogical and non-pedagogical settings, a gap remains in how these practices are orchestrated in extended sequences. Addressing this gap, this study documents how and to what extent extended response-pursuit practices mobilise student responses in face-to-face L2 English preparatory listening-speaking classroom, which has been underexamined from a micro-analytic perspective. Drawing on Multimodal Conversation Analysis, this study analyses 41 hours of video-recorded L2 English listening-speaking classroom interaction in higher education in Türkiye. The findings are presented within Extension x Contingency framework in accordance with extended response-pursuit practices where the teacher employs at least two different response-pursuit practices after his initial inquiry fails to elicit a student response (Yütük & Can Daşkın, in production). The analyses reveal that student responses are successfully mobilised across seven response-pursuit practices which have been classified as the resolution points at which student responses are secured: (i) contextualisation, (ii) modelling, (iii) individual nomination, (iv) topic shading, (v) hinting, (vi) building on students’ candidate responses, and (vii) use of classroom artifacts. The study also showcases the contingencies of such practices through the analysis of deviant cases that illuminate the conditions necessary for pursuing student responses: (i) lack of recall, (ii) time pressure, and (iii) epistemic incongruence. This study advances understanding of response-pursuit practices and provides implications for Classroom Interactional Competence and L2 teacher education.