Challenging moments as opportunities to learn: The role of nonverbal interactional resources in dealing with conflicts in English as a lingua franca classroom interactions

This study sequentially analyzes interactional conflicts among students and instructors in writing classrooms at a U.S. university in which English functions as a lingua franca, highlighting how students from various linguistic and cultural backgrounds employ nonverbal interactional resources (e.g., silence, gaze, and gesture) along with speech when disagreeing and/or disengaging. The consensus-oriented and cooperative aspects of English as a lingua franca (ELF) interactions have been widely documented (e.g., Mauranen, 2012, Seidlhofer, 2001), but recent research (e.g., Jenks, 2012) has started to illuminate aspects of uncooperativeness in various ELF interactional contexts. Using sequential, multimodal analysis, this study illustrates how students effectively coordinate various nonverbal resources, particularly long silence, body orientation, gaze, smile, and gesture, along with speech to subtly challenge or evade their teacher's epistemic authority while simultaneously taking into consideration politeness. This study's findings suggest the need for applied linguists and language teachers to better understand functions of students’ use of nonverbal resources for managing different types of trouble and to develop approaches for managing conflictive moments with students effectively. Such conflictive, challenging moments in ELF classrooms potentially lead to “learning” moments in which students can make their own arguments and construct new knowledge.
Source: Linguistics and Education - Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research