This paper uses a conversation analytic methodology to demonstrate how participants in a small group work-mediated ESL class construct problem ownership. More specifically, the paper asks the apparently simple question, "For whom is the phrase 'We cannot get by Auschwitz' problematic?" Using a collection of eight thematically-related excerpts of "Auschwitz" talk that occurred during two phases of small group work, the analysis shows: (a) how complex the students' behavior is in its own terms; and (b) how difficult it was for the teacher to intervene effectively on the basis of the real-time information that was available to her. The paper concludes with a discussion of the insights that can be gained from using CA as a methodological resource for conducting Second language Acquisition research.

 

This paper examines ESL textbook telephone dialogues against the backdrop of what is reported about real telephone interaction based on research in conversation analysis (CA). An analysis of 8 ESL textbooks reveals that the fit between what conversation analysts say about the nature of natural telephone conversation and that found in textbooks is unsatisfactory.The paper argues that as the focus in language pedagogy increasingly turns toward the development of teaching materials which are informed by studies in discourse analysis, it may be important for materials writers and language teachers to pay attention to interconnections among language (or talk), sequence structure, and social action.

This paper will show how conversation analysis methodology, which analyzes courses of action implemented through talk, can provide new insights into aspects of teacher/student talk which are unavailable when utterances are taken from their sequential context and coded according to pre-determined categories. Mehan's (1979, 1985) initiation/reply/evaluation (IRE) sequence structure, initially used to characterize a specific speech event, i.e., recitation sessions in elementary school classrooms, has often been assumed to describe pedagogical talk in general, and has been used to categorize a variety of different pedagogical speech events. Teacher questions have been coded according to whether they ask for students to display knowledge which the teacher already knows, as in the initiation turns of the IRE sequence, or whether they are asking for unknown information, as in conversation. In the L2 pedagogical literature, the two question types are referred to respectively as "display" and "referential" questions (e.g. Long & Sato 1983, Brock 1986, Pica & Long 1986, Chaudron 1988, Tollefson 1988, Allwright & Bailey 1991, Markee 1995). This paper will analyze three sequences of teacher/student talk in the same type of speech event, a one-one writing conference. Each sequence contains teacher questions which could be categorized as "display" questions. Although the sequences contain elements of the IRE pattern, I will show that each sequence has a more complex structure which sustains a particular course of action and assists the student to understand and participate in that course of action. Teachers' "known-answer" questions are not used merely to elicit knowledge displays but are used for a variety of purposes within these courses of action. Categorizing these questions prematurely, without a close analysis of the talk in its sequential context, can prevent us from seeing what these questions accomplish pedagogically. Similarly, categorizing pedagogical discourse into a simple IRE pattern can oversimplify the structure of the sequences in which known answers are elicited and can limit our understanding of how sequence design contributes to the action which the turn is being used to accomplish.