Kevin García Cruz (CLIC, Rice University, USA)
Conversation closings in face-to-face interactions
Barraja-Rohan (1997) argues that openings and closings in a conversation are governed by socio-cultural norms. Being aware of these socio-cultural norms allows learners to communicate effectively in the target language.
In Spanish there are various resources that are commonly used to indicate that a conversation is winding down and that the participants are getting ready to terminate it. These include: pauses, interjections like bueno or pues (“well”), and phrases such as tengo que irme (“I have to go”) or me dio mucho gusto verte (“it was nice seeing you”), etc. (see, for example, Coronel-Molina, 1998). Schegloff and Sacks (1979) have identified “pre-closings” used in American English to indicate that one party is ready to leave, while still giving the coparticipant the opportunity to open up the conversation again. Although very similar to English, we will see that “pre-closing” sequences in Spanish tend to be lengthier and continue for multiple turns prior to the “terminal exchange”.
The instructional unit on conversation closings in Spanish was designed following Barraja-Rohan’s (1997, 2011) basic principles for teaching intercultural awareness through the analysis of interactional data. Specifically, this lesson includes the following elements: a) a reflection on language usage in the students’ L1; b) a contrastive analysis of L1 and L2 conversation closing sequences; c) an analysis of naturally occurring closing sequences in the L2; d) opportunities to practice closing sequences in the L2 in writing and speaking; and e) a translingual/transcultural discussion/reflection.
Katharina Kley (CLIC, Rice University, USA)
Expanding basic question-answer sequences
Conversation analysts have found that language users regularly mark acceptance of an interlocutor’s utterance (e.g., okay), indicate receipt of information (e.g., oh), assess an interlocutor’s contribution (e.g., good), and express surprise (e.g., really?). These tokens are called sequence closing thirds as they often bring a sequence to a close (Schegloff, 2007). Further, conversation analysts have observed that conversational partners may pursue a topic through a reclaimer, that is, by bringing the focus back to themselves (e.g., by saying ‘me too, ‘I don’t do that’, ‘I do X…’) after the interlocutor has provided a response (Maynard & Zimmerman, 1984). The use of both a sequence closing third and a reclaimer expands a basic question-answer sequence by one or two turns.
Both sequence closing thirds and reclaimers are also used in German conversations. However, beginning learners of German do not necessarily use expansions; rather, they seem to base their interactions on simple question-answer sequences. The constant shift between asking and answering questions makes interactions with beginning learners sound like interviews rather than everyday conversations. Their conversations could sound more natural if learners expanded basic question-answer sequences by one or two turns.
The instructional unit designed to teach minimal expansions includes the following elements: (1) making students aware that minimal expansions occur in both English and German; (2) having students identify minimal expansions in authentic English and German interactions, and contrast and compare expansions in both languages; and (3) giving students the opportunity to practice expansions in writing and speaking.
Maryam Emami and Hélade Scutti Santos (CLIC, Rice University, USA)
Assessing first year students’ interactional competence
Many researchers agree that assessing speaking ability is a very complex endeavor, influenced by a great number of factors (e.g. Milanovic & Saville 1996, McNamara 1996). It certainly becomes more complex when the students’ interactional competence is assessed on the basis of their interactions with L1 or advanced speakers of the target language. Nevertheless, these interactions allow the assessment of a wider range of interactional skills and seem to allow better inferences in terms of what students can actually do in naturally occurring conversations.
At CLIC, students learn and practice how to appropriately and efficiently interact in the target language as early as in beginning levels. As a requirement of most language courses at Rice, students meet and talk to L1/advanced speakers a few times during the semester. Students are instructed to record these conversations, which then serve as crucial teaching and assessment tools. These recordings are analyzed and implemented pedagogically to fulfill multiple objectives, including increasing students’ awareness of their interactional skills and allowing faculty to create new activities and assessment materials. The two main tools used for assessment are an assessment sheet and a rubric. The assessment sheet is used by both learners (to reflect on their performances) and faculty (to provide learners with ad hoc feedback), while the rubric is used by faculty to assess the students’ performance.
These two assessment instruments have been designed on the basis of our observations of video-recorded student interactions and on the basis of previous research findings concerning language learners’ interactional competencies (e.g. Galaczi 2008, 2014). In our presentation we will illustrate how conversations with L1 speakers of the target language can be used as an instrument for teaching and assessing interactional competence. We will focus on the rationale behind the creation of the rubric and the assessment sheet for first year courses.
Meng Yeh (CLIC, Rice University, USA)
From Objectives to Assessment:
Developing Interactional Competence for beginning students
The descriptors for speaking at the A1 CEFR level do not include basic interactional actions such as taking the floor or asking for clarification. This seems to indicate that beginning students are not expected to accomplish these actions, which are nevertheless at the heart of interactional competence (IC). The present intervention study challenges such views by showing that: 1) students’ L2 IC can develop even in the first semester of instruction; 2) IC-based instruction is effective; and 3) targeted features in IC-based instruction can be adequately assessed. Participants in the study were college level students enrolled in first semester courses of Chinese as a foreign language. One group of students received IC-based instruction; the control group did not. The preliminary findings demonstrate that the group who received IC instruction was able to consistently accomplish the interactional practices that represented the targeted objects of instruction, while not everybody in the control group was able to and not to the same extent. This study is part of a larger project that aims to redesign the first-year Chinese curriculum by integrating a focus on IC. The IC curriculum can be summarized in five steps: 1) collect and select naturally occurring conversations; 2) analyze the interactional actions and practices in the collected conversations with support/data from research; 3) choose a set of IC objectives for each level (first and second semester); 4) develop assessment procedures and rubrics; 5) design pedagogical material targeting such objectives. In my presentation, I will focus on the steps that lead to establishing learning outcomes that are achievable for first year L2 Chinese students. I will also discuss the assessment procedures, both formative and summative, that were adopted to monitor the students’ progress and to evaluate their performance.