Requesting assistance in classroom interactions
| Panel: | P72 - Sequential Openings in Second Language Interactions in Educational Settings |
| Author: | Meyer, Anne |
| Author 2: | Evelyne Pochon-Berger |
| Abstract: | |
| When being engaged in a task within the classroom context, it is quite common to find students requesting assistance from someone else to solve a problem they encounter (need for clarification or explanation or request for evaluation) while accomplishing the task. The opening of such a sequence relies on participants’ competence to reorganize the participation structure (Hellermann 2007). Cekaite (2009) also observes in a primary school L2 classroom that soliciting the teacher’s assistance implies for students to deal with two practical issues: gaining the teacher’s attention and accounting for their request for assistance. Furthermore, she notes that novice (L2) learners tend to achieve this solicitation in several steps whereas more competent speakers are able to do it within one single turn-at-talk. In line with these findings, this paper describes how students within different classroom settings request assistance from a third party (the teacher, a peer) during peer work. The study draws on two datasets: one of primary school interactions (Luxembourg) and one of secondary school interactions (Switzerland). Our focus lies on showing similarities in how these students request assistance as well as how such sequences foster learning opportunities. The analysis is two-folded: 1) it describes the sequential organization of requests for assistance sequences in different ages/schooling level and 2) identifies the multimodal resources participants draw on in order to do so. The study of requesting assistance sheds light on the nature of interactional competence in institutional settings: What does this tell us about learners’ competences and what are the implications for teachers’ practices in giving assistance? |
|
