Understanding-in-Interaction:

The Case of the Adult ESL Classroom

Carol Hoi Yee Lo

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education in

Teachers College, Columbia University

2022

© 2022

Carol Hoi Yee Lo All Rights Reserved

Abstract

Understanding-in-Interaction: The Case of the Adult ESL Classroom

Carol Hoi Yee Lo

For decades, the majority of educational research has been preoccupied with

understanding as a product—as various “learning achievements” and “subject mastery” to be

measured and subsequently represented as statistics or test scores. This preoccupation is also

observed in the field of second language education, whose attention has focused on how the

outcome of language acquisition can be improved at a curriculum or activity level. However,

what is equally important, and yet largely underexplored, is understanding as a process: how

understanding is achieved and facilitated in and through classroom interaction.

To fill this research gap, this study respecifies understanding as a social and interactional

phenomenon and investigates how it is enabled, managed, and restored in the adult ESL

classroom in situ. Data comprise 27 hours of video- and audio-taped classroom interaction

collected from two research sites serving adult ESL learners: an academic ESL program and a

community-based ESL program located on the East Coast of the United States. Participants were

two experienced teachers with over two decades of teaching experiences and 20 students with

low to intermediate English proficiency. Data were analyzed within the conversation analytic

framework.

Findings include three teacher practices concerning understanding-in-interaction. First,

teachers can facilitate students’ understanding of grammatical errors by an embodied repair

practice that I called “finger syntax.” By counting syntactic elements on fingers on display, the

teacher can scaffold learners’ understanding of the location of the error, the nature of the error,

and even the method of repair. Finger syntax can be deployed to initiate learner self-repair or

demonstrate other-corrections. Second, teachers can answer students’ language-related questions

by doing more than answering or doing approximate answering. In attending to both the what

and the why, doing more than answering helps learners develop a principled understanding of a

grammatical item. Doing approximate answering, on the other hand, is shown to be less

responsive to students’ understanding troubles. In the absence of an agreement of what an

ambiguous question actually asks, the teacher’s response deviates from students’ learning

concerns to varying degrees. Lastly, teachers can respond to trouble-laden learner contributions

that result in a (potential) breach of intersubjectivity in a stepwise fashion. Specifically, their

displays of understanding can be leveraged as a springboard for form-focused work, enabling a

stepwise entry into linguistic feedback carefully aligned to meaning that a learner has struggled

to articulate. Findings thus contribute to research on repair and corrections, on responses to

learner questions, and on understanding-in-interaction in the context of the language classroom.

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Table of Contents

List of Tables ................................................................................................................................. iii

List of Figures ................................................................................................................................ iv

Acknowledgments .......................................................................................................................... vi

Chapter 1 – Introduction ................................................................................................................. 1

Statement of the Problem .................................................................................................... 2

Purpose of the Study ............................................................................................... 5

Research Question .................................................................................................. 5

Definition of Terms ................................................................................................. 5

Chapter 2 – Review of the Literature ............................................................................................ 11

Enabling Understanding in Pedagogical Interaction ......................................................... 11

Verbal resources .................................................................................................... 12

Embodied resources .............................................................................................. 13

Restoring Understanding in Pedagogical Interaction ....................................................... 16

Teacher-initiated Practices and Student Responses .............................................. 16

Student-initiated Practices and Peer Responses .................................................... 21

Summary of the Literature Review ................................................................................... 23

Chapter 3 – Methodology ............................................................................................................ 26

Research Site and Participants .......................................................................................... 26

Data Collection ................................................................................................................. 29

Data Analysis .................................................................................................................... 30

Chapter 4 – Syntax-in-Sight: Finger Counting as a Teacher Resource for Repair ....................... 35

Finger Counting as Other-Initiation of Self-Repair .......................................................... 36

Finger Counting as an Ineffective Repair Initiation ............................................. 51

Finger Counting as Other-Initiated Other-Repair ............................................................. 59

Discussion and Conclusion ............................................................................................... 76

Chapter 5 – Responding to Student Questions: Doing More than Answering and Approximate

Answering ..................................................................................................................................... 80

Doing More Than Answering ........................................................................................... 83

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Doing Approximate Answering ........................................................................................ 92

Answering the “Possible” Question ...................................................................... 93

Answering a Related Question ............................................................................ 103

Answering the Wrong Question .......................................................................... 111

Establishing the Problem before Answering ................................................................... 121

Discussion and Conclusion ............................................................................................. 123

Chapter 6 – Stepwise Entry into Linguistic Feedback ................................................................ 128

Begin with Non-Understanding ...................................................................................... 129

Begin with Formulating Student Talk ............................................................................. 139

Offer Linguistic Feedback without Stepwise Entry ........................................................ 149

Discussion and Conclusion ............................................................................................. 152

Chapter 7 – Discussion and Conclusion ..................................................................................... 156

Summary of the Findings ................................................................................................ 157

Theoretical Implications ................................................................................................. 160

Repair and Corrections in the Language Classroom ........................................... 160

Answering Practices in Institutional Talk ........................................................... 162

Understanding in Pedagogical Interaction .......................................................... 164

Pedagogical Implications ................................................................................................ 166

References ................................................................................................................................... 170

Appendix: Transcription Notation .............................................................................................. 186

iii

List of Tables

Tables Page

3.1 Participating teachers and their students ............................................................................... 26

3.2 Data overview ........................................................................................................................ 28

iv

List of Figures

Figure Page

4.1.1 Cory taps left pinkie ............................................................................................................ 35

4.1.2 Cory holds tap at left thumb ................................................................................................ 35

4.1.3 Cory places right thumb next to left thumb ......................................................................... 35

4.2.1 Cory taps left pinkie ............................................................................................................ 39

4.2.2 Cory taps left middle finger ................................................................................................. 39

4.2.3 Cory taps left thumb ............................................................................................................ 40

4.2.4 Cory taps middle and index finger repeatedly ..................................................................... 40

4.3.1 Bonnie taps left pinkie ......................................................................................................... 43

4.3.2 Bonnie taps left middle finger ............................................................................................. 43

4.3.3 Bonnie taps left index finger ............................................................................................. 43

4.4.1 Bonnie moves her left pinkie back and forth .................................................................... 46

4.5.1 Bonnie taps her left ring finger ............................................................................................ 49

4.6.1 Cory puts two markers next to thumb ................................................................................. 51

4.6.2 Cory displays his left thumb and two markers ................................................................... 52

4.6.3 Cory slightly rotates right hand with markers ..................................................................... 52

4.7.1 Cory points at left pinkie and ring finger ............................................................................ 58

4.7.2 Cory points at left index finger ........................................................................................... 58

4.8.1 Cory taps left thumb emphatically .......................................................................................61

4.8.2 Cory points next to left thumb ............................................................................................ 62

4.8.3 Cory holds finger configuration .......................................................................................... 62

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4.9.1 Min leans froward and cups her left year ............................................................................ 65

4.9.2 Min counts words on her fingers ......................................................................................... 66

4.10.1 Cory’s right index finger makes beats................................................................................ 69

4.10.2 Cory points next to left thumb ........................................................................................... 69

4.10.3 Cory’s right hand, holding two markers, moves away from left thumb ............................ 69

4.10.4 Cory’s right hand moves further away .............................................................................. 69

5.6.1 Nisa’s thumb and index finger form a space ....................................................................... 93

5.6.2 Nisa moves the space to her right ........................................................................................ 93

5.6.3 The blackboard .................................................................................................................... 93

5.7.1 Cory holds tap at his left thumb ............................................................................................97

5.7.2 Cory points at his ring finger and furrows brows ................................................................ 97

5.7.3 Cory places right thumb next to left pinkie ..........................................................................97

6.1.1 Rebekah points to her mouth ............................................................................................. 128

6.1.2 Rebekah points away ......................................................................................................... 128

6.1.3 Rebekah points to her mouth emphatically ........................................................................ 128

6.7.1 Jing motions hands to chest .................................................................................................147

6.7.2 Jing’s right hand “scoop” motion ...................................................................................... 147

6.7.3 Jing gestures “lifting” an object ..........................................................................................148

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Acknowledgments

Skilled and experienced teachers are by no means easy to find, and those who open their

classrooms to researchers are even more rare. I wish to thank “Cory” and “Bonnie” for

participating in my study. The expertise that I documented is theirs, and this dissertation would

not have been possible without their open mind and generosity.

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the dissertation committee members.

Howard Williams has been a wonderful mentor since my days as an MA student. His careful

reading and thoughtful engagement with this project have pushed me to refine my arguments and

writing. Sarah Creider, whose excellence I aspire to emulate, is a role model in every way. I

appreciate how she listens to my struggles in balancing motherhood, teaching, and a

dissertation—three tasks that she accomplished brilliantly. Erika Levy, in additional to

embodying kindness and care, pushed me to think about disciplinary differences crucial for

research dissemination. Finally, I am immensely indebted to Hansun Waring, my sponsor and

advisor, for making me the scholar I am today. I need not mention her formidable intellect, her

uncanny ability to articulate complex ideas, and her impeccable sense of clarity. Hansun shows

me that a mentor can be critical and caring at the same time, and I am eternally grateful for how

she shares her incredible gift and wisdom with me.

I would not have been able to complete this journey without the support of a wonderful

academic community and dear friends. My doctoral seminar has been a source of inspiration and

comfort all these years. My friendships with Nadja Tadic, Di Yu, and Elizabeth Reddington, my

conference buddies and frequent collaborators, are a true gift. Ladies, thank you for being there

to celebrate and commiserate with me. Your advice, insights, and encouragement lifted me in

ways I cannot express. Text messages from Junko Takahashi always light up my day, and despite

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the long distance, our friendship has been a source of joy. Julissa Ng, along with my dear church

friends, pray with and for me so I could be centered and grounded. Susan Cafetz—the kindest

soul—always reminds me that my class is half full and not half empty. Jean Wong, Lubie

Alatriste, and Shelley Saltzman have given me invaluable advice and guidance both

academically and professionally. Their wisdom is an incredible resource.

I dedicate this dissertation to my parents, from whom I understand what unconditional

and selfless love truly means. Thank you for letting me fly and catching me when I fall. My

husband’s family, especially Hossein Sarfehjooy, Stephanie Sarich, and Suzie Cramer, have been

cheering me on along the way. Finally, to my husband, Kaveh Sarfehjooy: I could not have

overcome the chaos and stress of writing a dissertation while raising a young child in a pandemic

without you. You held my hand and persevered with me through the high highs and low lows of

this journey. I am moved by your love, patience, and devotion. And to my daughter, Temple

Sarfehjooy: Thank you for teaching me how to love and for reminding me daily what is most

important in life.

C.L.

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Chapter 1 – Introduction

Neither knowledge nor learning begins its life in dark places. They begin in full and public view, available from any chair in the room. (Macbeth, 2011, p. 447) Do you guys know what I’m saying? Do you want me to write that on the board? A

novice teacher asked. Her embarrassment deepened as the silence in the classroom grew more

palpable, her voice betraying her uncertainty.

I could empathize. The students’ facial expressions spoke volumes. That was me thirteen

years ago, a new teacher who panicked whenever students showed the smallest sign of trouble.

Now sitting at the back of the classroom as an observer, I took notes as I watched the class

unfold. In our post-observation meetings, I would be sure to discuss alternative ways to promote

understanding.

As I recently ventured into teacher education for the first time, mentoring novice teachers

allowed me to reflect on my journey as an English as a Second Language (ESL) instructor.

While the process of learning a language is often filled with moments of confusion, uncertainty

and misunderstanding, it has been my goal to ensure students can find clarity in my classroom.

Having gone through trial and error, I realized that the ability to facilitate understanding is truly

what makes teaching an art and a science. However, despite having taught for more than a

decade, I could only recall episodes of myself doing extremely well or exceptionally poorly.

Quite often, discussions with experienced colleagues only seemed to yield descriptions of good

practices in very broad strokes. I could not describe in sufficient detail how facilitating

understanding can be done, nor could I adequately specify the resources and practices that

address student understanding.

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This project, then, is developed out of my deep desire to document and articulate

expertise. How do experienced adult ESL teachers facilitate understanding of the subject matter?

How do they identify and respond to students’ signals of non- or misunderstanding? What

practices do students employ when they have trouble understanding and completing a group

task? The goal of this project is to find the answers to these questions. It aims to explicate the

architecture of understanding in the adult ESL classroom by examining how understanding is

enabled, maintained, and restored.

Statement of the Problem

Understanding has been the cornerstone of much educational research. Dewey (1933), in

How We Think, defined understanding in terms of whether students are able to conceptualize and

make meaningful inferences from facts. Blooms (1956), when developing his famous taxonomy

of learning, considered the ability to transfer skills and knowledge—to apply, analyze,

synthesize, and evaluate facts—as the benchmark of understanding. Similarly, for Bruner (1957,

1966), understanding requires learners to go beyond memorizing facts and to take part in

knowledge production. For many influential thinkers in education, understanding is a mental

construct through and through.

Although such seminal views of understanding have long provided useful principles for

designing curricula, assessments, teaching strategies, classroom activities, and assignments (See

Wiggins & McTighe, 2005), what remains much less clear to practitioners is how to enable

understanding in the classroom in situ and what the interactional work of resolving

understanding issues looks like in the classroom. Many teachers, especially novice teachers,

remain ill-equipped to address unforeseen and unexpected understanding issues that arise during

instruction. While students’ work does allow teachers to evaluate their understanding and

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subsequently address problems in the form of written feedback, classroom interaction is in fact

where understanding is nurtured and where lapses in understanding can surface and be addressed

in real time. It is these interactional moments in the classroom that cumulatively define and build

one’s learning experiences. As Schegloff, Koshik, Jacoby, and Olsher (2002) write:

Explaining and understanding are very likely to constitute the main line of activity

occupying [classroom] talk, and problems of understanding and dealing with such

problems are endogenous to the core activities of the setting. (p. 7-8)

In the case of the adult ESL classroom, the task of cultivating understanding takes on

special significance. As the population of adult English learners in the United States is large and

diverse (Center of Applied Linguistics, 2010; U.S. Department of Education, 2016), such

diversity in socio-cultural, educational, and linguistic backgrounds in the adult ESL classroom

could render the basic notion of intersubjectivity vulnerable (Kramsch, 2009). And since adult

second language learners, especially those who have limited proficiency, do not have sufficient

language resources at their disposal, many struggle to understand and be understood. In order for

language learners to become competent participants in American society, the majority of them

must first become competent participants in the language classroom. Therefore, to help students

engage in meaningful classroom conversations in their second language (L2), it is crucial for the

language teacher to facilitate ‘dual’ understanding—not only understanding of the subject matter,

but also understanding between classroom participants.

For the ESL population, problems of understanding, if left unaddressed, will clearly

affect their learning outcome. Failure to master English is particularly consequential in their

lives—and livelihoods. Whether the student population consists of immigrant youth, immigrant

adults or international students, a lack of English proficiency can impede their social, cultural

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and academic adaptation, which can in turn lead to linguistic isolation, a high dropout rate, and

failure to obtain academic credentials. At worst, it could compromise their opportunities to move

upward socially (National Conference of State Legislatures, 2005). In addition, at a time when

all adult language programs are held accountable for reporting learning outcomes in order to

continue receiving federal funding (U.S. Department of Education, 2016), it is imperative that

we explore effective, evidence-based classroom practices so that promoting understanding can

become tangible for all language teachers. To this end, Lee (2007) emphasizes the importance of

tracing and documenting how language teachers perform complex “real-time interpretive work”

to gauge what students know or do not know (p. 1226). Mondada and Pekarek-Dohler (2014)

similarly stress the importance of examining how L2 learners make sense of interactional

activities in the classroom. It is these participant-oriented, situated accomplishments of

understanding that are vital to our appreciation of successful language teaching and learning.

To effect change in education, then, a good starting point is to document teaching. In the

field of education, there have been strong calls for detailing efficient and effective instructional

practices. Elmore (2009), a national leader in instructional improvement and school reforms,

argues, “You cannot change learning and performance at scale without creating a strong, visible,

transparent common culture of instructional practice” (p. 9). In the same vein, the Modern

Language Association’s Ad Hoc Committee on Teaching (2001) stresses the need to “[make

language] teaching more visible to ourselves, one another, and the profession at large (p. 229).

Cazden (2001), similarly, supports this call for a solid knowledge base of teacher practices by

citing the words of Sapir: “It is sometimes necessary to become conscious of the forms of social

behavior in order to bring about a more serviceable adaptation to changing conditions” (Sapir,

1929, cited in Cazden, 2001, p. 3). This project is a response to these calls for action, focusing on

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documenting and analyzing how the work of understanding is accomplished turn-by-turn and

sequence-by-sequence in the adult ESL classroom.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this study is to examine understanding-in-interaction in the specific

context of the adult ESL classroom. In other words, it aims to shed light on how the architecture

of understanding is co-constructed and jointly accomplished by classroom participants. By taking

a bottom-up, conversation analytic approach to classroom interaction, this study seeks to uncover

and document the complex and nuanced work undertaken by both the language teacher and

learners to enable, maintain, and restore understanding in situ as instruction unfolds in real time.

Research Question

How do adult ESL classroom participants enable, manage, and restore understanding

during instruction?

Definition of Terms

Before discussing how the research question can be answered, the definition of two key

terms—understanding and intersubjectivity—is in order.

Understanding. Conceptualizing and theorizing understanding has been a central

concern in a number of disciplines, including philosophy, sociology, and cognitive science. I will

provide a brief overview of two major theories that connect language and understanding before

explicating why a social, interactional, and situated approach to understanding best aligns with

the purpose this study.

Both hermeneutics and cognitive science have traditionally considered understanding as

comprehension or interpretation of non-interactive texts (Deppermann, 2015). Hermeneutics,

which refers to a theory or philosophy of interpretation, is originally concerned with methods

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and approaches to understanding literary and historical texts. In particular, Gadamer (1970)

highlights that language is a precondition of understanding and that an individual’s subjectivity,

including social positions, cultural background, and beliefs and presuppositions, can influence

the process of understanding (Baranov, 2012). Ricoeur (1995) goes a step further and posits that

new textual understandings are derived from abandoning preconceived notions and risking

assumptions. Similarly, in psycholinguistics, understanding is conceptualized as the product or

outcome of one-way communication—understanding a lecture or a reading is equivalent to

reading or listening comprehension (Byrnes, 1984; Kintsch, 1998). Understanding is thus a

private, cognitive event: a recipient’s successful decoding of linguistic information, which in turn

yields an accurate mental representation of a text (Perfetti, 2007). Additionally, from a

psycholinguistic perspective, understanding can be seen as the outcome of reader characteristics

such as working memory and background knowledge interacting with text characteristics such as

topic and vocabulary (Pressley & Afflerbach, 1995).

Although these conceptualizations of understanding have important empirical and

theoretical import for applied linguistics, they are primarily concerned with one-way modes of

communication and textual understanding. Such conceptualizations are thus fundamentally

incompatible with the phenomenon of interest for two clear reasons: The object of understanding

in a language classroom is clearly not limited to texts or speeches, and classroom talk involves

face-to-face, real-time interaction jointly produced by participants. For one, the speaker of a

lecture or the author of a reading text is not accountable for ensuring a recipient’s “there and

then” understanding, neither is the recipient required to display understanding to the speaker or

the author. For another, with the advent of technology, the production and reception of a lecture,

for instance, need not be simultaneous. This mode of communication is distinct from classroom

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interaction, where the speaker and recipients are typically physically co-present. And while

literary and mass communication are inevitably logocentric (e.g., verbal resources as a

fundamental means of expression); in talk-in-interaction, participants’ gesture, gaze, prosody,

facial expressions, and semiotic resources such as the textbook and the physical affordance of the

classroom all contribute to meaning making. Finally, if it is accepted that language pedagogy is

talk, a form of social interaction, then it is imperative that we define understanding in way

congruent with how it is displayed and accomplished in the reality of the language classroom.

Therefore, in this study, I draw on Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis

(EMCA) to reconceptualize understanding as a situated, social, and interactional phenomenon. In

other words, the type of understanding that this study focuses on does not reside in the mind,

inaccessible to the analysts; instead, it is a phenomenon observable and locatable in talk-in-

interaction, available to both the participants and the analyst. In fact, it is a perspective that best

reflects the participants’ orientation to their own and others’ understanding in the moment-by-

moment unfolding of classroom interaction. As Koschmann (2011) writes:

Instruction, by its nature, calls for the production of new understandings. This is, in

essence, instruction’s work. But it is also the case that as a part of carrying out this work,

participants must routinely and repeatedly place their understanding on view. (p. 436,

emphasis added)

Along the same line, Wittgenstein (1953) also suggests a radical reconsideration of

understanding:

Try not to think of understanding as a ‘mental process’ at all. – For that is the expression

which confuses you. But ask yourself: in what sort of case, in what kind of

circumstances, do we say, ‘Now I know how to go on.’ (p. 154, author’s emphasis)

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Seen this way, understanding can thus be conceptualized as a fundamental property of social

interaction—whether participants share sufficient common ground and can thus proceed with the

interaction. In talk-in-interaction, as Moerman and Sacks (1988) describe, “participants must

continually, there and then…demonstrate to one another that they understood or failed to

understand the talk that they are party to” (p. 185). In their seminal turn-taking paper, Sacks,

Schegloff, and Jefferson (1974) similarly note that without understanding the prior turn’s action,

and thus what it calls for, participants would not be able to go on and produce the next turn. Said

differently, the very task of producing the next turn requires a co-participant to evidence

understanding of the prior turn, often in an en passant fashion, which can then be confirmed or

rejected by the speaker of that prior turn. As Sacks (1992) suggests, the completion of a turn

construction unit (TCU)—where a recipient can legitimately take the next turn—is an

“understanding position” (p. 85).

Finally, following Sacks (1992), I further distinguish two different manifestations of

understanding: claiming understanding and demonstrating understanding. The different ways

participants show understanding of prior talk have been a pervasive topic in Sacks’ lectures of

conversations. Sacks (1992) uses the following (hypothetical) example to show two different

formulations of responses to a location:

1 A: where are you staying

2 B: Pacific Palisades

3a A: oh at the west side of town

vs

3b A: oh Pacific Palisades (p. 141)

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Lines 3a and 3b exemplify an interesting scenarios that sheds light on whether A indeed

recognizes Pacific Palisades. With 3a, at the west side of town, A demonstrates his

understanding by formulating where Pacific Palisades is located in town. In contrast, oh Pacific

Palisades merely repeats the location and can thus be characterized as a claim of understanding.

Aside from such response formulations, Sacks (1992) also highlights that the principle of

exhibiting understanding in interaction is ‘to produce another that [a participant] intend[s]

belongs, given what has just been done’ (p. 112). Using storytelling as an example, Sacks

explains that when a recipient produces a second story with themes and elements similar to the

first story, the recipient is demonstrating understanding. On the other hand, saying I know what

you mean would be claiming understanding. Importantly, applying this distinction enables

classroom participants, as well as the analyst, to gather evidence on whether and to what extent a

learning object or a turn at talk is properly understood.

Intersubjectivity. Another concept integral to this study is intersubjectivity, which refers

to shared or mutual understanding between participants in talk. Intersubjectivity involves

“sharing a world in common,” where participants hold the same “collective intentionality” so

that their joint actions and interactional projects can be coordinated (Sidnell, 2014, p 371), and in

turn, they can be “co-producers of an increment of interactional and social reality” (Schegloff,

1992, p. 1299).

Displays of understanding are the building blocks of intersubjectivity. While

understanding is sequentially organized in two turns—a turn communicating an action and the

next turn displaying how the action is understood, Deppermann (2015) points out that

intersubjectivity can only be accomplished after the producer of the original action confirms if

the recipient’s understanding is accepted in third position. As he eloquently phrases,

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“Intersubjectivity not only requires a response from the partner, but a reciprocal display of

interpretations of interpretations” (p. 78). Sequentially, if a recipient has misunderstood the first

speaker’s action, it is also at this position where misunderstanding can be corrected; the third

position is therefore what Schegloff (1992) calls “the last structurally provided defense of

intersubjectivity” (p. 1295).

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Chapter 2 – Review of the Literature

In this chapter, I review empirical work examining interactional resources that

participants employ to facilitate understanding and repair intersubjectivity in pedagogical

interaction, with an emphasis on discourse-analytic or microanalytic research using naturally-

occurring data. To position the current study within the existing literature on classroom

discourse, I include a variety of pedagogical talk (e.g., tutoring sessions, laboratory sessions),

covering a wide range of subjects (e.g., ESL, math, science). In light of the diverse pedagogical

contexts reviewed here, the term “teacher” will be used as a broad term to cover a range of

teaching roles (e.g., instructors, tutors, facilitators). I begin with work examining resources that

enable understanding in pedagogical interaction, focusing on strategies that facilitate

understanding. I then discuss research on resolving non- and mis-understanding in pedagogical

interaction, covering practices initiated by teachers and students. In the final section, I conclude

with a summary of major themes that emerged from research findings, followed by a discussion

of gaps in the literature that this study attempts to address.

Enabling Understanding in Pedagogical Interaction

As teaching can be viewed as “guided construction of knowledge” (Mercer, 1995, p.1),

an essential teaching skill, then, is to present new and complex ideas in ways that are tailored and

sensitive to students’ emergent understanding. To appreciate the teachers’ craft of enabling

understanding, one fruitful starting point is to examine the work of ‘doing instruction,’ where

potential understanding issues can be anticipated and thus preemptively resolved. An array of

verbal and embodied resources has been found to play a crucial role in facilitating such

understanding.

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Verbal resources

Explanations are paramount in all types of pedagogical encounters. Notably, Koole’s

(2010) exemplary study on explanations in Dutch secondary math classrooms provides a useful

way to understand how explanations are sequentially structured. There are two sequential

organizations of teacher explanations, namely, discourse units and dialogues. In teacher

discourse units, the explanation typically consists of multi-unit turn instruction followed by

understanding checks. Students, however, usually respond by offering acknowledgement tokens

in between multi-unit turns and claiming understanding after the teacher’s understanding check,

irrespective of whether they understand the explanation or not. In contrast, in the dialogue

organization, the teacher and students engage in a series of initiation-reply-evaluation (IRE)

sequences, which provide opportunities for students to display knowing (i.e., demonstrate

previous knowledge) and produce oh-prefaced demonstrations of understanding following the

explanation.

A number of researchers have focused on explanations of vocabulary items in language

classrooms. Mortensen (2011) illustrates that unplanned, “on the fly” vocabulary explanation

sequence begins with the teacher highlighting a target word or phrase from the immediate

context, making it the pedagogical focus of the moment. Depending on how the students repeat

the highlighted word, the teacher can either elicit an explanation from the students or provide an

explanation directly. A similar finding can be found in Waring, Creider, and Box (2013), who

describe what they called an “analytic” approach to vocabulary explanations, a strategy that

relies only on verbal and textual resources. As they demonstrate, after setting a word in focus and

contextualizing the word, the teacher can then initiate understanding-display sequences to engage

learners in clarifying the meaning of the word or offer an explanation directly. Morton (2015), in

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his study of incidental vocabulary teaching in the content and language integrated classroom,

finds that content learning provides resources for contextualizing vocabulary. In dialogic

vocabulary explanations in particular, the teacher pursues both understanding and knowledge

displays.

Frequently occurring after explanations are understanding checks launched by the

teacher. Drawing on data from adult ESL language classrooms, Waring (2012a) offers an in-

depth analysis of the nature of understanding checks. Post-explanation understanding checks

(e.g., do you understand? Any questions?), which seek to pursue an explicit claim of

understanding from students, strongly prefer a “no problem” response, as any indication of non-

understanding could suggest a lack of competence either on the students’ or the teacher’s part.

Similarly, those understanding-checks that appear in activity boundaries favor a “no problem”

response that aligns with pre-closing. Thus, contrary to their intended purpose, understanding

checks do not always effectively gauge students’ understanding.

Embodied resources

Gestures constitute another important tool in a teacher’s pedagogical repertoire for the

achievement of intersubjectivity. Much research analyzing discourse in the math and science

classrooms has shown that gestures facilitate students’ understanding of concepts (Alibali &

Nathan, 2007; Corts & Pollio, 1999; Crowder, 1996; Roth, 2001) and embody discipline-specific

thinking and knowledge (Alibali & Nathan 2012; Crowder & Newman, 1993; Ochs, Jacoby, &

Gonzales, 1994; Roth, 2000). For language learners in particular, gestures provide much-needed

support to enhance comprehension of instruction (Gullberg, 1997).

A number of researchers have specified the functions of gestures in math and science

instruction. Suggesting that gestures are a means of scaffolding, Alibali and Nathan (2007)

14

examined the “grounding functions” (p. 350) of teacher gestures in a sixth-grade math lesson and

found that gesture use was particularly robust when the teacher introduced new materials and

complex and abstract concepts. In another paper focusing on gestures and intersubjectivity,

Nathan and Alibali (2011) showed how an elementary school math teacher noticed an impending

communication problem and used gestures to self-repair an unclear referent in previous talk.

Similarly, learners also employ gestures to articulate their understanding of concepts.

Koschmann and LeBaron (2002) documented how medical school students and faculty

articulated their medical knowledge through gestures in problem-based learning meetings.

Gestures enabled the participants to make conceptual links between ideas in the discussion, thus

are essential to achieving “interactional jointing” (p. 271)—connections between contributions

by different participants.

Meanwhile, the role of gestures in vocabulary teaching has also gained considerable

attention among L2 scholars. Allen (2000) criticizes that most SLA research only focuses on

how a teacher’s input is made comprehensible verbally. To show the importance of gestures, she

catalogued a wide array of gestures employed by a high school Spanish teacher, including iconic

and deictic gestures, arguing that these gestures are equally crucial to teaching and learning.

Lazaraton (2004), in her study on one adult ESL teacher’s lesson, also found that gestures played

a key role in conveying the meaning of verbs. Similar observations have also been made in

recent studies: Gestures can be used to animate the meaning of target words (Waring, Creider, &

Box, 2013), to reinforce and disambiguate word meanings, and to maintain cohesiveness in

explanation talk (Belhiah, 2013).

Several scholars have recently extended the study of gestures to grammar instruction in

the language classroom. Analyzing how a Swedish as a Second Language teacher and student

15

jointly finished a grammar worksheet, Majlesi (2014) demonstrated how grammatical

‘learnables’ were made “indexically prospective” (p. 40) through the use of pointing gestures.

Matsumoto and Dobs (2017) observed that the teaching of tense and aspect in the ESL classroom

was greatly facilitated by deictic and metaphoric gestures. Pointing, for example, is used to

contrast different tenses (e.g., the past and the future) and metaphoric gestures like ‘container’ or

circular motion can help explain aspect (e.g., the perfect or the progressive).

In addition to vocabulary and grammar, recent microanalyses have also shed light on how

gestures contribute to bridging gaps in knowledge and displaying alignment and recipiency. In a

study on tutor-tutee interaction by Kim and Cho (2017), co-speech gestures were found to

compensate for the tutee’s lack of lexical and grammatical knowledge. Belhiah (2012) examined

hand gestures concurrent with talk between two Korean students and their American tutors, and

demonstrated how they repeated or coproduced each other’s gestures to display alignment.

Furthermore, Majlesi (2015) showed that teachers can recycle or match a learner’s gestures when

doing vocabulary explanations or reformulating student expressions as a form of “heightened

display of recipiency” (p. 32); through gestural repeats, the teacher accomplished

“intersubjectivity on the one hand and a teaching moment on the other” (p. 39).

In sum, a range of verbal and embodied teacher practices have been examined for how

they facilitate learners’ understanding and maintain intersubjectivity in various educational

settings. Comparing research on these two sets of practices, microanalytic work unpacking the

use of embodied resources and their functions is more robust, with the role of gestures in

vocabulary and grammar teaching beginning to gain more attention. Existing work on verbal

resources, though illustrating the sequential organization of a few pervasive teacher practices,

has largely focused on explanations. In addition, there is also a notable lack of work on strategies

16

that encourage learners to demonstrate, rather than just claim, understanding. Thus, research on

enabling understanding has much room for further inquiry.

Restoring Understanding in Pedagogical Interaction

Since teaching and learning is a constant process of intellectual inquiry and challenge, it

is not uncommon for participants to have trouble knowing “how to go on” (Wittgenstein, 1953,

p. 154). Restoring understanding is therefore an integral component of teaching and learning.

This section addresses how participants in pedagogical interaction initiate and address troubles

related to understanding when they surface in pedagogical interaction.

Teacher-initiated Practices and Student Responses

In pedagogical interaction, the prevalence of the initiation-response-feedback (IRF)

structure has given teachers the ultimate right to control student participation, topic initiation,

and topic development (Cazden, 2001; McHoul, 1978; Mehan, 1979); at the same time, as Koole

and Koivisto (2018) suggest, teachers also assume primary accountability for intersubjectivity in

pedagogical interaction. The canonical IRF sequential framework in particular, where the teacher

solicits and evaluates displays of understanding (cf. Lee, 2007; Macbeth, 2011), has provided

scholars who are interested in pedagogical interaction a key site to examine how the teacher

performs the heavy lifting of restoring understanding.

In their paper examining problem-based learning tutorials in a medical school, Zemel

and Koschmann (2011) demonstrated how a medical doctor serving as a tutor in a problem-based

learning tutorial withheld evaluations and modified his question to repair intersubjectivity

between tutorial participants. Instead of correcting a student’s answer, the tutor’s repair move of

reformulating his question suggested that the trouble source was in fact located in his initiating

action rather than in the student’s answer. Such question-revisions allowed the tutor to guide the

17

students to consider a medical problem from a medical professional’s point of view, coproducing

a conjoint and proper understanding of the medical issue at hand.

Depending on the students’ answers, the teacher can also operate on a student’s answer or

offer the student assistance to promote understanding and to maintain progressivity

simultaneously. For example, as discussed in Sert and Walsh’s (2013) study in an English as a

Foreign Language (EFL) classroom, teachers frequently receive an overt claim of lacking

knowledge or understanding (e.g., I don’t know) as a response to teacher initiation. Upon hearing

a claim of insufficient knowledge from a student, the teacher can allocate the turn to other

students in order to maintain progressivity. These claims can also be managed using two

resources, namely, embodied vocabulary explanations and designedly incomplete utterances to

help students recall information. In another paper in the same context, Sert (2013) describes

teachers’ use of epistemic status check (e.g., no idea?) when the answer to a teacher question is

delayed. Therefore, by articulating students’ insufficient knowledge, an epistemic status check

enables a teacher to prepare for speaker change, re-establish participation framework, and

importantly, restore progressivity of the lesson. A recent study by Ro (2018) examined how a

facilitator managed and organized an L2 book club, focusing on how participants made sense of

presentations and discussions. When a student answer reflected trouble understanding the

discussion questions, the facilitator could either rework the prompt or formulate the upshot of a

participant’s partial answer and, in either case, wait for the participant’s further responses.

Research has also revealed how gestures, language switching, and even students’

uninvited contributions can become resources to assist the teacher with restoring understanding.

In tutorial sessions, for instance, Seo and Koshik (2010) found that instructors used gestures such

as head tilts and head pokes to initiate repair. These gestures occurred in transitional relevance

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places, functioned like open class repair initiators, and were maintained until the trouble source

was resolved. Several researchers have documented language-switching practices in EFL

contexts, where teachers strategically switch to the learners’ L1 to pursue a response or to

establish understanding (Hoang & Filipi, 2016; Sert, 2015; Üstünel & Seedhouse, 2005). More

recently, Matsumoto (2018) identified what she termed “third party repair” in the adult ESL

classroom. This type of repair occurs when a teacher cannot understand a student’s contribution

and his or her repair efforts fail to resolve the problem. Other students share their interpretation

of the original student’s utterance or present the student’s point of view, which helps resolve the

communication impasse. Such joint effort in resolving misunderstanding can foster a classroom

norm in which achieving mutual understanding is everyone’s responsibility.

Breakdowns in intersubjectivity in the classroom can also become extended, particularly

when the trouble source is difficult to identify. Ekberg, Danby, Davidson, and Thorpe (2016)

used a single case analysis to demonstrate how a pre-school teacher identified and addressed

what they called “equivocal trouble” (p. 3), that is, when the nature of the threats to

intersubjectivity is unclear to participants. Their study focused on the teacher’s action after

instruction was stalled because a student was unable to identify the image of a tick that had bitten

her the day before. To infer the source of trouble, the pre-school teacher elicited information

related to the size of the tick from the student repeatedly. Another strategy was to resume the

activity by revising the search criteria (e.g., tick on human skin). The authors suggest that these

strategies of restoring intersubjective understandings are more prevalent when the

communicative competence of the producer of the trouble source is insufficient.

Student-initiated Practices and Teacher Responses

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As Allwright (1980) reminds us, “Learners are not wholly under the control of the

teacher…they have some freedom concerning the nature and extent of their participation in

class” (p. 166). One common way through which students clarify problems is asking questions.

However, insofar as opportunities to pursue understanding are contingent upon opportunities to

participate in the classroom, initiating questions has remained a challenge for many students

because of tightly structured sequences and activities (cf. Waring, 2009; Jacknick, 2012). In light

of the importance of student questions, some research has generated important insights into the

pedagogical benefits of these questions and how they are subsequently managed by the teacher.

In a recent study, Kääntä and Kasper (2018) investigated students’ use of clarification

requests in a content-and-language-integrated physics classroom in Finland. These requests were

raised at the transition-relevant place after an explanation or when the explanation was

temporarily suspended due to intervening pedagogical activities (e.g., writing on the board). As

the authors conclude, the turn design of these questions can inform the teacher whether the

interactional trouble is related to content (e.g., physics) or language (e.g., English). By

proactively voicing their non-understandings, students offer “necessary feedback for the teacher

to navigate and move forward in his instructional agenda” (Kääntä & Kasper, 2018, p. 19).

With regards to how teachers manage student questions, findings have been inconclusive.

In St. John and Cromdal’s (2016) exemplary study on Swedish bilingual content classrooms, the

teacher responded to students’ questions regarding classroom task instructions by routinely

addressing both the student who raised the question and the entire cohort, thus using students’

questions as a resource that can make instructions followable for the entire class. In other studies

that focus on the language classroom, however, Markee (1995, 2000) found that some ESL

teachers asked counter-questions when responding to vocabulary-related questions, which

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allowed the teacher to regain control in turn-taking and speaking rights. While the deployment of

counter-questions appeared to invite the students to resolve the problem for themselves, Markee

is careful to point out that it is unproductive in scaffolding understanding. Ohta and Nakaone

(2004), on the other hand, argue that this practice cannot be generalized across all language

teaching contexts. In their study of a Japanese as a Foreign Language class, the authors found

that teachers often answered language-related questions directly; when counter-questions were

used, the questions helped establish shared background knowledge and alignment, thereby

serving the important function of building intersubjectivity. Finally, besides answering questions

directly, as Fagan (2013) demonstrated, an experienced teacher can also delegate answering to

other students when there is evidence that they are capable of doing so.

Importantly, some studies have shown that when students take the initiative to seek help,

teachers need to be cognizant of and responsive to the source of students’ problems. Turning to

the math classroom, Koole (2012) and Koole and Elbers (2014) have identified a number of

common teacher practices that fail to resolve students’ problems. When responding to a student

question, it is not uncommon for Math teachers to formulate the problem on behalf of the student

or start an explanation without exploring the precise nature of the student’s problem.

Consequently, as Koole (2012) poignantly observes, “What gets to be explained is the teacher's

problem rather than the student's” (p. 1912). In addition, teachers’ explanations often end with

inviting the student to claim understanding or knowing, which, nearing the closing of a sequence,

sequentially prefers a ‘yes’ answer. Ironically, what the teacher perceives as an indication that

the student’s problem is resolved is in fact a mere acknowledgement of having received the

explanation.

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Student-initiated Practices and Peer Responses

In many classrooms, particularly in language classrooms, various group and peer work

activities are organized to generate greater student participation and to complement teacher-

centered classroom time. Given the prevalence of peer interaction, researchers have also looked

into such interaction to uncover practices and resources students employ to manage

intersubjectivity and pursue understanding among themselves.

One line of work related to the management of understanding in content classrooms has

explored how students’ negative epistemic claims make relevant the interactional work of

resolving understanding. For instance, Jakonen & Morton (2013) discussed how learners

managed epistemics when they jointly completed pedagogic tasks in a content-based language

classroom. They found that information requests led to what they called epistemic search

sequences, where both knowing and not-knowing responses were followed by accounts

explaining why one knew or did not know. One key affordance of peer interaction, as Jakonen

and Morton conclude, is that learners can exercise agency in discovering and resolving gaps in

knowledge when interacting with peers.

Lindwall and Lymer (2011) analyzed a collection of students’ explicit formulations of

“understanding” (e.g., I don’t get it) and discussed their distributional patterns in group

interaction in a mechanics lab. Sequentially, such claims of non-understanding can be

characterized as pre-requests, often followed by questions or formulations of trouble, and were

thus used to initiate an instructional sequence both from their peers and their instructor. Claims

of understanding, on the other hand, were found in closings of tasks, often taken as an invitation

for closing and moving on to the next task. This distribution of students’ uses of “understanding”

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in task-based activities provides evidence that students orient to grasping the subject matter as a

desirable outcome of the activity.

For language learners who share the same first language (L1), their L1 is an important

resource to establish intersubjectivity. Many studies of peer interaction within the sociocultural

tradition have argued how the use of L1 can facilitate and mediate the L2 learning process (cf,

Lantolf, 2006). For example, in two studies by Antón and DiCamilla (1998) and DiCamilla and

Antón (2012), learners of Spanish, particularly the beginners, used L1 to solve lexical and

grammatical challenges in a collaborative writing task. Similarly, Lehti-Eklund (2012) examined

how Finnish learners in a Swedish as a Foreign Language classroom code-switched during repair

to solve problems in peer interaction. The repair sequences, often as side sequences, were

produced in the students’ first language (i.e., Finnish); learners then code-switched back to the

target language (i.e., Swedish) to resume a task after the problem was resolved. Differing from

ordinary conversations, where the trouble source is often located in a previous turn, Lehti-Eklund

points out that the trouble source in language classrooms is often related to understanding texts

in the target language or following the institutional agenda.

Lastly, focusing on group interaction in the adult ESL classroom, Markee (2000)

compared a successful and an unsuccessful case of extended repair prompted by non-

understanding of vocabulary items. In the successful case, learners collaboratively provided

relevant information to co-construct a definition of a lexical item, which was subsequently

recycled in the whole-class discussion. In the unsuccessful case, however, the nature of the

trouble involved not only comprehending the literal meaning but also the cultural and historical

meanings represented by the target word. As the precise nature of the trouble source was more

complex, the repair attempts were unsuccessful.

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Thus, work to date has provided important insights into how participants in pedagogical

interaction restore understanding when they have trouble knowing “how to go on” (Wittgenstein,

1953, p. 154). For teachers, a substantial body of work on teacher-initiated practices has

concentrated on the triadic IRF framework, showing that to restore understanding, the teacher

can repair the initiation or operate on a student response. For learners, as the literature has

documented, asking their teacher or peers questions and making claims of insufficient

knowledge or non-understanding are some common ways to pursue understanding. It should be

noted that despite the pedagogical benefits of student questions, as some work in this section has

highlighted, it is how teachers respond to their questions that determines whether students’

understanding can be successfully restored. Finally, while learners appear to exercise more

agency in identifying and resolving understanding issues when interacting with their peers,

attempts of resolving non-understanding might not always be successful.

Summary of the Literature Review

As this review of literature has shown, many scholars in education and applied linguistics

have been interested in examining how participants in pedagogical interaction lay the

groundwork for enabling understanding and how they restore understanding when having trouble

knowing how to go on. Research on teachers’ work of enabling understanding, the first strand of

research reviewed here, has presented a variety of verbal and embodied resources, with

pedagogical gestures receiving more attention thus far. Existing work focusing on verbal

resources, despite capturing a few prevalent teacher practices, remains scant. There is also a clear

dearth of work on skillful questioning that elicits a display rather than a claim of understanding.

Thus, further research is needed to document other recurrent verbal practices in an experienced

teacher’s repertoire.

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The second strand of research reviewed here explores how participants in pedagogical

interaction restore understanding. Teachers in different pedagogical contexts, as the literature on

teacher-initiated practices has shown, deploy a diverse range of strategies targeting at a

heterogeneous range of understanding issues. This suggests that there is no singular ‘panacea’ for

restoring understanding; rather, teachers need to practice contingency in their online pedagogical

decisions (Waring, 2016). While the majority of teacher-initiated practices involves repairing

teacher initiation or student response, Schegloff et al (2002) remind us that “not every problem in

understanding implicates the operations of repair for its solution” (p. 8). It is therefore crucial to

explore other methods through which problems of understanding can be addressed in the

language classroom. In addition, recent work has also begun to examine how teachers manage

understanding issues that result in an interactional impasse. Further research, then, can also

examine how classroom participants negotiate between securing a certain level of

intersubjectivity and moving the lesson forward (Heritage, 2007, 2009).

Work on learner-initiated practices to restore understanding has demonstrated that

learners can solicit help from teachers or their peers. By far, much research has concentrated on

how learners ask questions to resolve learning problems. However, teacher responses to student

inquiries, as shown in this review, vary from context to context, and a number of responses

documented in the literature fail to effectively address the root of students’ understanding issues.

On the other hand, studies have shown that when students enlist their peers for help, despite

varying success in resolving problems, they take much greater initiative to identify problems in

learning. Given that addressing learner questions requires considerable communicative

competence, it would indeed be crucial to examine student question types and whether

corresponding teacher practices are effective.

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Lastly, it should be pointed out that much of the work reviewed has been conducted in

content classrooms or language and content integrated classrooms. Although many practices

uncovered thus far appear to be applicable across many pedagogical settings, relatively less work

is dedicated to the adult ESL classroom, which makes this area all the more an important venue

for further investigation. Taken together, these gaps in the literature suggest that more research is

needed to illuminate the work of enabling and restoring understanding in language education.

Therefore, in this study, I aim to contribute to this important research undertaking by focusing on

the specific context of the adult L2 classroom and identifying effective practices that the L2

teacher and learners deploy to achieve understanding in situ.

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Chapter 3 – Methodology

Research Site and Participants

Two research sites located in a metropolitan city in the East Coast of the United States

were included in the study. These two sites were selected as each of them presents a unique

constellation of teacher and learner attributes, which in turn enhanced the robustness and

generalizability of the findings.

The first site is a community-based English program affiliated with a major graduate

School of Education. It is the “lab school” of the Applied Linguistics and Teaching English as a

Second Language Program (TESOL) where master’s students conduct their student-teaching and

where many doctoral students in the program teach and conduct research, with some of them

serving as master teachers. The community language program’s mission is to provide quality and

low-cost English and foreign language instruction to adults in the local community. Currently,

courses offered include general English courses, conversation, writing, pronunciation, and a

TOEFL preparation course. Recently, the program has expanded course offerings to include

courses designed to help international researchers improve academic writing and speaking skills.

The student population is highly diverse, representing an impressive range of ages, native

languages as well as educational and professional backgrounds.

For the purpose of this project, I was interested in the ten-week general English courses.

Similar to many other language programs in the country, the community English program offers

beginner to advanced level classes, ranging from 10 to 14 students per class. Level placement is

determined by a placement test administered in the beginning of each semester. There are

morning and evening classes offered during the week, and both typically meet three times a week

for two hours. It is interesting to note that while instructors are given the syllabus and the

27

textbook provided by the program, they have a great deal of freedom to use their own activities

and materials so long as the learning objectives are met. Multiple measures are used for

assessment of learning, and the program requires students to pass the course in order to receive a

certificate of completion. As mentioned, since the program is the training ground for many

novice teachers, given my interest in documenting teacher expertise in facilitating understanding,

I only approached ‘master teachers’ with over 10 years of experiences.

The second research site is an academic English program housed in a large private

university. Founded in 1911, the program is one of the oldest ESL programs in the country. It

provides both credit and non-credit academic language courses to international students enrolled

in degree programs and English learners who study at the program full time. As an example of

the program’s academic rigor, it partners with various graduate schools of the university to

provide academic English support to graduate students of their specific discipline (e.g., Law,

Social Work, etc.). I was particularly interested in their intensive English program, which

provides eight levels of instruction catering to pre-intermediate to highly advanced English

learners. Similar to the community language program, the class size is relatively small (i.e., 8-15

students). All applicants first take an online placement exam and will be re-tested upon arrival to

determine their level placement. There are two major differences between the two research sites.

First, courses provided by the academic English program are much more intensive: Students

meet 18 hours per week as opposed to six at the community English program. Second, the

academic English program sponsors F-1 visas but the community English program does not.

Most students enroll in the academic English program to achieve their academic goals; many use

the program as an important stepping stone before applying for an undergraduate or graduate

degree in the United States.

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One important reason why I selected the second site was the expertise of the faculty.

Many of the full-time instructors have written highly rated ESL textbooks and have regularly

attended and presented at national and international conferences. The full-time faculty have

between twenty and forty years of teaching experience while the part-time faculty have between

ten and twenty years of experience. Another unique feature of the program is team-teaching,

which encourages instructors on the same team to collaborate and share teaching ideas. Having

taught there for nine years at the time of this study was conducted, I have grown tremendously as

an ESL educator and have been continuously inspired by the faculty’s passion, expertise, and

professionalism. In order to document skilled (and skillful) teaching, I recruited instructors with

ten years or more experience.

After approaching instructors who met my initial sampling criteria, two teachers, one

from each research site, were recruited through convenience sampling. At the time of data

collection, the two participants, Cory and Bonnie (pseudonyms), had over two decades of

experiences teaching ESL within the U.S. and abroad. When data for this project were collected,

the instructors were assigned to teach high-beginner and low-intermediate courses, with 12 and

eight students enrolled in their course, respectively. Table 1 summarizes the characteristics of

their respective classes, including class size and diversity of home languages represented.

Table 1

Participating teachers and their students

Research Site

Instructor Pseudonym

Course CEFR level

Number of Students

Home Languages

Represented Community-based ESL Program

Cory Integrated ESL A2 12 7

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Academic ESL

Program

Bonnie Integrated ESL B1.1 8 4

Data Collection

Prior to data collection, I obtained informed consent from all participating teachers and

students. All students in both classes consented to being video-recorded. Meetings with the

participating teachers were held to discuss their teaching schedules, preferences, and special

requests (e.g., avoiding testing, recording only half of the class session, etc.). In order to clearly

capture all classroom participants’ talk and embodied conduct, two high quality video cameras

with wide angles and two audio-recorders were used for each recording session. One video

camera was mounted at the back of the classroom facing the teacher and the blackboard, and the

other was positioned at the front corners of the classroom facing the students. The two audio-

recorders were placed on students’ desks to capture talk produced by students sitting far from the

video cameras. Having a variety of angles, along with using additional audio-recorders, helped

ensure that all classroom participants’ verbal and embodied conduct during whole-class

interaction and group activities would be faithfully represented in the transcripts.

Data collection was conducted from February to April 2019, with one class session

recorded at each site per week. At the request of the instructors, I only stayed in the classroom

for the first 15 minutes to set up the cameras and recorders. This, coincidentally, minimized the

researcher’s presence and in turn preserved the “naturalness” of the classroom data (c.f.

Mondada, 2013). I reviewed the footage after each recording session briefly for two reasons. As

the classes met in different classrooms due to scheduling reasons, I wanted to make sure camera

positions were properly adjusted for subsequent recording sessions. Additionally, reviewing the

recordings promptly also allowed me to clarify teaching tasks and activities if instructions were

30

follow-up activities from a lesson that was not recorded. Table 2 shows the total number of class

sessions and corresponding instructional hours recorded.

Table 2

Data overview

Research Site Instructor Pseudonym

Number of Class Sections Recorded

Number of Hours Recorded (Approx.)

Community-based ESL Program

Cory 10 16

Academic ESL Program

Bonnie 10 11

Total 20 27

To fully appreciate the instructors’ pedagogical goals, I collected the course syllabus, textbooks,

handouts, and other relevant teaching materials. I also took pictures of the white/blackboard at

the end of each recording session in case explanations written on the board were unclear from the

video. These supplementary materials provided contexts crucial for understanding the

instructional activities that transpired.

Data Analysis

Data analysis was guided by the principles of Conversation Analysis (CA). Emerged in

the 1960s and founded by the late sociologist Harvey Sacks1, CA conceptualizes talk-in-

interaction as “the primordial site of human sociality and social life” (Schegloff, 1987, p. 101)

and aims to uncover how social actions are understood and accomplished through turn-by-turn,

detailed analysis of naturally-occurring talk. Since its conception, CA has greatly contributed to

1 Though CA began with Harvey Sacks’ famous lectures of conversations at UCLA, Emmanuel Schegloff and Gail Jefferson collaborated with Sacks to establish fundamental concepts that define the field. They are therefore widely considered as co-originators of CA.

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developing “a science of human interaction” (Hepburn & Bolden, 2017, p. 10). A central

premise, as Sacks (1992) famously argues, is that there is “order at all points” in interaction (p.

484)—from a fine-grained level of interactional detail (e.g., position of an in-breath) to larger

organizations of social actions (e.g., the organization of storytelling). In other words, how

members of society accomplish social actions through talk—the underlying machinery or

structures of social interaction—can be systematically studied (Stivers & Sidnell, 2013). As

such, CA’s microanalytic approach to studying human conduct is particularly well-suited for

uncovering classroom participants’ tacit sense-making practices that underpin the discourse of

teaching and learning.

CA distinguishes itself from other forms of discourse analytic approaches by placing a

premium on participants’ perspective. Adopting an emic perspective means that the analyst

should refrain from imposing a priori categories or assumptions onto the data. This hallmark

feature renders CA inductive, empirical, and bottom-up through and through. For instance, in

identifying whether a learner contribution causes misunderstanding, the analytic procedure

requires that the analyst not only examine features of that specific contribution, but importantly,

also turn to subsequent turns to see how other classroom participants make sense of that

contribution, that is, using “next-turn proof procedure” (Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson, 1974).

Participants’ prolonged silence or clarification requests (e.g., Can you say that again?) would

provide evidence of a learner contribution being problematic. Each next turn, then, makes how

participants themselves interpret a prior turn available to the analyst. If participants’ treatment of

a specific turn is ambiguous, this interactional and analytical ambiguity is shared by both the

analyst and the participants. If it is acknowledged that ambiguity is an inevitable fact of social

interaction, then the analyst should also address such ambiguity in the analysis.

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Data analysis began with viewings of the recordings to identify the instructional goals

and activities for each class sessions. I then transcribed the recordings following the conventions

developed by Jefferson (2004). For embodied behavior such as gaze, body movements, hand

gestures, I followed a slightly simplified version of Mondada’s (2014) multimodal transcription

(see Appendix A for both transcription notations). From a CA perspective, details of talk, such as

intonation, positions of pauses and gaps, as well as embodied conduct such as gestures and body

positions, can shape how social actions are understood. These details in turn allow for a more

nuanced and comprehensive analysis of participants’ actions (Hepburn & Bolden, 2017; Park &

Hepburn, 2022). During the transcription process, I consulted recordings in different angles and

referenced the audio-recordings to ensure that a faithful representation of classroom interaction

could be produced.

After transcribing all recordings in their entirety, I conducted line-by-line analysis of the

transcripts. The process was guided by the central analytic question, why that now: Why a

participant produces that specific piece of talk in that specific way at that specific juncture

(Schegloff & Sacks, 1973, p. 299). Though I had a clear analytic interest in mind, I refrained

from ‘cherry-picking’ interesting instances only; rather, I relied on an iterative process of

documenting consistent, robust patterns of participant practices. This process involved first

making initial observations of phenomena related to how classroom participants enable, manage,

and restore understanding; building collections of target practices by going through all my

recordings and transcripts; and finally, specifying the practice in sufficient detail by closely

examining each case in my initial collections, consolidating the collections, and sorting them into

sub-categories. In arriving at target phenomenon, I took into consideration the robustness of the

findings (i.e., the number and spread of cases), whether a practice is employed by both

33

participating instructors to perform similar actions, and what new insights a potential

phenomenon can bring to the literature. Additionally, to ensure the validity and reliability of

research findings, I shared my recordings, transcripts, observations, and preliminary analysis at

doctoral seminars, data sessions, and conferences. Insights from my peers and senior scholars in

CA community offered valuable feedback on my analytical claims. Importantly, as Peräkylä

(2004) describes, in reporting findings, the transparency of “raw” and non-technical data enables

the reader to inspect, follow and affirm the analyst’s interpretation.

Thus, from data collection to data analysis, efforts to minimize the researcher’s

subjectivity, or more specifically, efforts to ensure that the analyst’s interpretation truly

represents the participants’ perspectives, include preserving the “naturalness” of data, using next-

turn-proof procedure for participants’ orientations, and conducting data sessions within the

conversation analytic community. One might wonder why triangulation, such as interviewing

teachers and students, was not undertaken in this study. Post hoc reflections and participant

reports simply do not capture the sequential unfolding of participants’ own conduct in real-time.

In other words, the how question central to this study cannot be answered by eliciting

participants’ intentions or experiences from talk-extrinsic data (Ford, 2012; Waring et al., 2012).

As Waring et al. (2012) point out, other data sources would neither strengthen nor weaken

findings from CA’s line-by-line analysis.

It must be acknowledged, however, my member’s knowledge as an ESL teacher must

have played a role in guiding my analysis. However, rather than seeing the researcher’s tacit

members’ knowledge as an impediment, I argue that so long as all analytic claims remain data

internal, the researcher’s membership can in fact become a resource. When analyzing

institutional interaction, Arminen (2000) argues that it is the analyst’s context-sensitive

34

knowledge that enables recognizability of participants’ actions. Seedhouse (2022), in a recent

reflective piece, concludes that ethnographic information and his expert knowledge as a former

classroom language teacher have inevitably lent themselves to what amounts to be triangulation

in his analyses of classroom interaction. The analyst’s work of explicating a particular participant

practice, then, can be seen as explicating their tacit member’s knowledge for the reader, as

Wieder (1988) elegantly explains:

The actual posture of conversation analysis toward the employment of commonsense or

members’ knowledge as a resource, then, is that it is an explicit, rather than tacit,

resource that progressively becomes part of the descriptive findings of conversation

analysis…The process of analysis is a continual making of the tacit explicit. That which

is made explicit for the analyst is likewise something once tacit, now explicit, for the

reader as well. (p. 453)

Finally, as Waring (2016) aptly describes, “CA specializes in making evident the how”

(p. 61, emphasis original). The following analytic chapters are the results of what I endeavored to

be a rigorous microanalysis of how two highly skilled and experienced teachers enable, manage,

and restore understanding in their own ESL classroom.

35

Chapter 4 – Syntax-in-Sight: Finger Counting as a Teacher Resource for Repair

Our hands are organs that provide us with a tactile means of knowledge acquisition.

Since fingers are readily available counting tools, young children are often observed counting on

their fingers as an embodied method of understanding the concept of numbers. It is no

coincidence that etymologically, the number five shares the same root with finger and fist

(Menninger, 1969). In this chapter, I show that the act of counting on fingers also serves an

important pedagogical purpose in the language classroom. Specifically, I describe how a teacher

practice, what I call finger counting, can be used as a resource for repair.

The practice of finger counting involves both verbal and gestural components. Gesturally,

it is a two-handed gesture in which the teacher first holds the left palm vertically, displaying all

five fingers. Counting then begins with the right index finger tapping or touching the fingertips

of the left hand, starting with the pinkie or the thumb. In some cases, counting starts with a

closed fist and the fingers extend as they are counted on. Verbally, each word or syntactic

element of a target structure is assigned to one digit. The essence of finger counting, in short, is

to represent a fixed sequence of syntactic components—the word order—by a fixed, linear

sequence of finger movements. In so doing, the one-to-one correspondence between syntactic

components and fingers, as well as the final finger configuration after counting is complete,

provide learners a verbal and embodied illustration of a syntactic structure.

In the following analysis based on a collection of 32 cases of finger counting, I will show

how the target practice is routinely and systematically deployed as a teacher resource in repair

sequences targeting grammatical errors. The analysis is organized into two sections. The first

section presents six cases of finger counting designed to initiate a repair. I will illustrate how

finger counting works as, and is recognized by participants to be, a next-turn repair initiation

36

(Schegloff, 2000) on grammatical errors. I will also show how, in two of the six cases, its

implementation can render the repair initiation unproductive. The second section features four

cases of finger counting as an other-initiated other-repair. I will discuss how corrections made to

a trouble source turn are foregrounded through finger counting, with one ineffective case

illustrating the interactional consequence when such foregrounding is missing. Overall, this

chapter aims to show that by mapping syntax in a visual representational space, finger counting

can (1) specify and locate the trouble source both visually and verbally to facilitate learner self-

repair and (2) spotlight corrections using a wide array of modalities to promote learner uptake.

Finger Counting as Other-Initiation of Self-Repair

Out of 32 total cases of finger counting, 15 of them (47%) involve using finger counting

to initiate a self-repair. Four out of 15 cases (27%) come from Bonnie’s class and the rest (73%)

are drawn from Cory’s class. In their signature paper on repair, Schegloff, Jefferson, and Sacks

(1977) point out that other initiations of repair vary widely in terms of their strength in locating

the trouble source (p. 369). For example, interrogatives such as who? or where? identify a

component in the previous turn constructional unit (TCU) as the trouble source (Schegloff et al.,

1977); a full, identical repeat with rising final intonation of a sentential TCU targets the action

performed by the previous turn as the repairable (Robinson & Kevoe-Feldman, 2010). Open-

class repair initiations such as what? or sorry?, on the other hand, are relatively opaque as such

initiations do not indicate whether the nature of the trouble is related to hearing or understanding

(Drew, 1997). As will be shown, finger counting constitutes a repair initiation that excels in its

strength in locating the trouble source as it mobilizes both verbal and embodied resources to

scaffold learners understanding of a grammatical error. Though diverse in their formats, all cases

of finger counting in my collection are designed to facilitate learners’ understanding of three key

37

aspects of error correction: the location of the error, the method of repair (e.g., insertion,

replacement, etc.), and in some cases, the nature of the error. In this subsection, I first show four

cases from a total of 12 cases that result in successful learner self-repair to explicate how

different formats of finger counting effectively spotlight the trouble source. I then use two

examples from a total of three unproductive cases to describe how deviation from such formats

could render the repair initiation ineffective.

Finger Counting as an Effective Repair Initiation

The formats of finger counting used to initiate repair can be characterized in terms of

their increasing strength and precision in pinpointing the trouble source, yielding the following

techniques: (1) silent-tap and its upgraded, emphatic variants (i.e., moving a finger back and

forth, repeated tapping), (2) finger reconfiguration, (3) skip-counting, (4) tapping with non-

lexical vocalization, and (5) tapping with metalinguistic feedback. Each of these techniques will

be explicated in the four extracts that follow.

Extract 1 presents a canonical case in my collection featuring how a silent-tap and finger

reconfiguration locate the error and indicate the method of repair. Right before the first extract,

Cory (COR) wrote a number of sentences describing students’ spring break trips on the white

board. He underlined the preposition to in the sentences and stressed that it should be used after

the verb go when describing locations (e.g., Min went to Washington, D.C.). As the extract

begins, Cory is asking the class if they want to move out of or stay in New York (lines 01-02).

Bae (BAE) self-selects to respond but uses the wrong preposition, saying that she would like to

move near New Jersey in the future (line 05). The target practice of finger counting in line 10 is

employed as his second attempt to prompt Bae to repair the preposition from near to to. Note

that in the transcript, ‘+’ indicates Cory’s embodied actions concurrent with talk, while ‘^’

38

indicates those of the students’. The arrow symbol ‘-->’ indicates an embodied conduct that

continues into subsequent lines.

Extract 4.1 (Cory 3_27 New Jersey) 01 COR: where would you like to move to. or, do you 02 to want to stay in New York forever. 03 S?: mm::: 04 (1.2) 05 BAE: in future, I: want to move ^uh:: (5.0)

^gaze away 06 ^near (.) the New Jersey?

^gaze to COR 07 COR: +yeah okay. so you want to::

+points at board, gaze remains at Bae--> 08 (0.8)

cor --> 09 BAE: I want +to: (0.2) +move, I want to move,

cor -->+gets up +sits down walks to board

10 BAE: +near New Jersey. cor +quick points at board, then retracts

11 COR: --> yeah so +#I: want to move +#(0.2) +pinkie ring middle index +holds at thumb --> fig #4.1.1 #4.1.2

12 BAE: New Jersey?+ cor -->+

13 COR: --> +#New Jersey. +places R thumb next to L thumb, wiggles fig #4.1.3

14 BAE: in New Jersey? 15 COR: (0.2)-head shake (1.0)-points to board 16 [( 0.2) ]-gaze to and points at SS on his R

39

17 BAE: [I [want]to move to, 18 MAK [ to ] 19 COR: nods 20 BAE: New Jersey¿ near New Jersey. yeah. 21 COR: >yeah yeah yeah< right. why.

In his first repair attempt in line 07, Cory uses a designedly incomplete utterance (DIU)

(Koshik, 2002b), so you want to, elongating to and stopping right after it. The gesture of pointing

to the board is possibly done to provide Bae a visual cue that to, which is written and underlined

on the board, is the correct preposition. However, since Cory stops right after I want to, Bae

interprets that the trouble source is the next item due, the infinitive move, and stresses it as she

redoes her sentence (line 09). She subsequently repeats the entire sentential TCU to further

highlight I want to move as the repair resolution (lines 09-10), and the preposition near remains

Bae’s choice of preposition of place. Although Cory points to the board precisely when Bae

produces near (line 10), Bae, once again, does not register the connection between the just-prior

pedagogical focus on the board (i.e., using to when describing locations) and her own utterance.

The focal practice of finger counting is deployed in line 11, as Cory faces the need to

provide a more explicit and scaffolded repair initiation. This time, as Cory repeats Bae’s trouble

source turn verbatim, he counts each word of the utterance on one finger, beginning with his left

pinkie, tapping on it as he produces I (Figure 1.1); his ring finger, middle finger, and index finger

are tapped as he utters want, to, and move, respectively. Verbally, his turn stops right after move,

but observe that gesturally, counting continues: There is a ‘silent-tap,’ where the left thumb,

which presumably expresses the next syntactic element, is tapped and held without any verbal

accompaniment for 0.2-second (Figure 1.2). While this turn, being syntactically incomplete,

resembles a DIU (Koshik, 2002b), note that it is not Cory’s stopping after move but his silent-tap

at the finger representing the trouble source that prompts Bae to complete the syntax-in-progress.

40

Such turn design specifies which syntactic ‘slot’ is being nominated for self-repair: Bae should

change the word after move. Bae’s response does reflect her renewed understanding of where the

trouble source resides, but she deletes the preposition near entirely and offers the location New

Jersey in line 12.

In response, Cory adjusts the configuration of fingers by placing his right thumb next to

his left thumb, wiggling it as he says New Jersey (line 13; Figure 1.3). Thus, by visually moving

New Jersey to the right thumb, the movement specifies where New Jersey should belong and

simultaneously leaves the left thumb representing an item that has yet to be provided. In so

doing, Cory post-frames the trouble source by specifying that it is located before New Jersey,

informing Bae that it is the syntactic element before New Jersey that he is eliciting—that an

insertion repair is required. We can see that this strategy indeed facilitates a better understanding

of the trouble, as Bae adds the preposition in back to her candidate repair in line 14 (in New

Jersey). The candidate repair is subsequently rejected by Cory with a head shake in line 15. As

he repeats the gesture of pointing to the board, where the preposition to is highlighted in sample

sentences, Cory opens the floor by gazing at the students on his right (line 16). Precisely at this

juncture, Bae provides the correct preposition to (line 17), and almost simultaneously, Mako

(MAK) also produces the repair resolution to (line 18). With Cory’s nod displaying approval for

the repair resolution (line 19), Bae continues her turn in line 20, and the class discussion

resumes.

In Extract 1, we observe how Cory progressively upgrades his assistance, moving from

only an implicit, embodied hint (e.g., pointing at the blackboard) to finger counting, where

verbal and embodied resources work in tandem to single out the trouble source from other

syntactic components in the trouble source turn. Specifically, we see two formats of initiation:

41

silent-tap and finger reconfiguration. Cory counts aloud each word of the trouble source turn up

until the repairable, then produces a silent-tap where he stops at and holds the finger representing

the repairable to mark the completion of his initiation. Another technique to precisely locate the

trouble source is finger reconfiguration, where Cory adds a finger to reposition an item (in this

case, one that has been supplied by Bae), post-frame the repairable, and free up a finger to

embody an item that has yet to be provided. Despite a few unsuccessful attempts, finger counting

eventually enables Bae to execute a successful insertion repair.

Extract 2 illustrates how the trouble source can also be located first by means of silent-

tap then further specified by skip-counting. The latter technique involves pre-framing and post-

framing the trouble source through counting what comes before and after the trouble source on

the fingers, leaving the digits representing the trouble-source untapped as the items to be

supplied by the learner. Prior to Extract 2, Rika (RIK) had told the class that she visited Iceland

over the weekend, and Cory showed the class a picture of northern lights in Iceland on the

screen. As we join the class, Chiaki (CHI) is asking Rika a question about her trip, but even with

assistance from peers, she has difficulty using the correct interrogative syntax. The trouble

sources, the missing auxiliary verb and subject, become the focus of Cory’s repair initiation in

line 20.

Extract 4.2 (Cory 3_4 How long did you stay) 01 CHI: how long- how long was ^you, how long-

^g to COR 02 how [long-= 03 NIS: [stay? 04 CHI: =how long ^was you stay ^here.

^g to RIK ^points at screen

05 RIK: ah [ five uh- ] 06 COR: [>+mm mm mm mm<] +what’s your-

+gestures stop +points at CHI to RIK +g at ss

07 what’s your question. 08 NIS: how long[ stay here.

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09 BAE: [ºhow long stay (.) ]in there.º] 10 ANU: [how long did you ]stay (.) ] 11 island- in i- in Iceland. 12 COR: yeah. ­+ask again, Ch[iaki.

+g to CHI 13 CHI: [‘kay, how long (.) 14 stay he- here? 15 (0.2) 16 COR: okay. +(0.2) [ +I un]derstand one hundred

+gaping mouth +thumbs up

17 CHI: [ºokay.º ] 18 COR: and twenty percent. [okay? .hh +let’s] get-

+L hand up 19 SS: [ heh heh heh ] 20 COR: --> let’s get the grammar.=so #+how long

+pinkie ring fig #4.2.1

21 [+#(.) +middle, finger hold --> until line 26 fig #4.2.2

22 ANU: [did.= 23 BAE: =stay, 24 NIS: did you- 25 ANU: did (.) you-+

cor -->+releases hold on middle fg 26 COR: #+stay.

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+thumb fig #4.2.3

27 BAE: did you- 28 COR: +how long, [ (0.2) ]stay.

+pinky ring thumb 29 JUL: [ºdid youº] 30 CHI: stay, 31 COR: --> how long [#+(0.2) ]

+taps middle and index repeatedly fig #4.2.4

32 ANU: [ did you ](.) stay.] 33 JUL: [ did you + ](.) stay.]

cor +points at JUL --> 34 COR: [ (0.5)+ ]

cor -->+ 35 CHI: [ slight nods ] 36 BAE: [did you- how long ][did you there? 37 CHI: [+how long did you

cor +points at CHI 38 CHI: stay ^ THIS place. ^ 39 ^points at screen.^ 40 COR: ((smiles))-yes.[heheheh 41 SS: [heheheh

Rika displays no trouble understanding Chiaki’s question as she starts answering without

any delay (line 05). Nevertheless, we see Cory halting Rika’s turn-in-progress with emphatic

mms and a ‘stop’ gesture. Initiating a repair with what’s your question (lines 06-07), Cory

attributes the trouble source to Chiaki with a pointing gesture and opens the floor to the rest of

the class with his gaze shift, but he does not specify what is problematic about the question.

44

Observe that Nisa (NIS), Bae, and Anurak (ANU) offer their versions of Chiaki’s question in

lines 08-10, thereby displaying an orientation that they have been prompted to assist Chiaki in

correcting her question. Anurak’s version is confirmed by Cory, who then instructs Chiaki to

repair her question (line 12). Chiaki, however, once again omits the auxiliary verb and the

subject (i.e., lines 13-14; producing stay following how long). Given her lack of attention to the

grammar, Chiaki might not realize that the trouble here is neither hearing nor understanding but

the form of her question.

Indeed, this is what Cory addresses in his next turn in lines 16 and 17, where he explicitly

claims that he understands her question before framing the problem as related to grammar (let’s

get the grammar; lines 19-20). Cory begins counting Chiaki’s question on his left fingers,

assigning how long to his pinkie and ring finger, respectively (lines 20; Figure 2.3). The verbal

component of counting stops at this point and Cory produces a silent-tap on his middle finger

(line 21; Figure 2.4), which denotes the next element in the interrogative, one of the target

trouble sources. Here, similar to Extract 1, the silent-tap is treated by participants as an invitation

to take the next turn and produce the element represented by the finger that is tapped. Indeed we

see Anurak respond with did (line 22) precisely when Cory taps on his middle finger, followed

by Bae’s suggestion stay (line 23). Notice that while Cory’s touch on his middle finger is held,

Nisa and Anurak orient to the gesture hold to mean that the floor remains open for further

responses, thus offering did you (lines 24-25) as candidate answers.

Next, as Cory continues counting, observe that he skips the index finger and jumps to his

thumb as he produces stay (line 26; Figure 2.5). Skip-counting is repeated in line 28: Cory maps

Chiaki’s how, long, and stay onto his pinkie, ring finger, then thumb, respectively, once again

skipping the middle and index finger. Through skip-counting, Cory not only increases the level

45

of granularity in locating the trouble source (i.e., between how long and stay), he also

‘quantifies’ the repair outcome (i.e., two fingers represent two words) and specifies the method

of repair (i.e., inserting two words). Indeed, in line 29, Juliana (JUL) offers two syntactic

elements, did you, in sotto voce immediately after Cory’s how long. In line 31, Cory repeats

finger counting the third time. Note that this time, after counting to how long, Cory repeatedly

touches the tip of his middle and index finger in silence (Figure 2.6)—an emphatic, upgraded

form of silent-tap—to highlight that they are the missing items that he is eliciting. Juliana’s and

Anurack’s responses did you are both perfectly synchronized with Cory’s repeated touch of the

two digits (lines 31-33; Figure 2.6). Cory points to Juliana after she produces the repair

resolution did you while maintaining his gaze at Chiaki (lines 33-34). The pointing gesture is

sustained until Chiaki, who nods to display an understanding that she has now been selected to

self-correct again, begins to reformulate her question (lines 37-38)—this time with the correct

interrogative syntax.

In Extract 2, we witness how Cory skillfully scaffolds an understanding of the trouble,

proceeding from a silent-tap to skip counting then to repeated silent-tap. With each variant of

finger counting format, there is a notable increase in the strength of initiation. In other words,

there is progression in the amount of information regarding the trouble source made available to

learners: silent tap indicates where the trouble is (i.e., after how long) and elicits the item

represented by the finger that is tapped; skip-counting bookends the trouble source, using the

fingers that are left uncounted to locate the trouble source (i.e., between how long and stay) and

the method of repair (i.e., insertion); repeated silent tapping further highlights the location and

scale of the trouble (i.e., two words).

We will now turn to cases in my collection in which finger counting, in addition to

46

locating the trouble source and specifying the repair method, can also enable a teacher to specify

the nature of the error. Extract 3, an example from Bonnie’s (BON) class, demonstrates how

non-lexical vocalizations can accompany finger tapping and how metalinguistic feedback (Lyster

& Ranta, 1997) can be incorporated into the turn design. Prior to the extract, an Israeli student,

Rebekah, had just finished a presentation on the Israeli education system. Intrigued by her

discussion on military service in Israel, Misun (MIS) asks Rebekah whether it is optional or

mandatory to go army (lines 01-02). The focal turn is Bonnie’s repair initiation in line 11, which

targets two words that are missing from the to-infinitive phrase: the preposition to and the

definite article the.

Extract 4.3 (Bonnie 2_6 Army) 1 MIS: um: tsk (0.2) is it mandatory or optional 2 to go army? 3 BON: preposition. to go: 4 MIS: to (0.2) um to (.) army? 5 BON: ah article. [one more time, 6 MIS: [um: 7 is it- oh can I change the question? 8 BON: yeah. 9 MIS: uh is there: (0.8) some people who don’t- 10 who don’t need to go: (0.5) army? 11 BON: --> preposition, article. so let’s say, +#go:

+pinkie fig #4.3.1

12 um #um #army. =go:

ring middle index pinkie fig #4.3.2 #4.3.3

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13 BON: +(.) bon +ring -->

14 SS: to,+ bon -->+releases hold on ring fg

15 MIS: +the +army. + bon +middle index bon +head dip+

16 BON: + good. + +thumbs up+

17 MIS: [oh:] 18 BON: [one] more time. 19 REB: eh- 20 BON: (let [her-]) 21 MIS: [is ]there: (.) any person who don’t 22 need to go to the army? 23 BON: is there any person who:, 24 WEN: doesn’t.

Bonnie’s first repair initiation in line 03 consists two TCUs: First, she produces a lexical

TCU, preposition as metalinguistic feedback, informing Misun that the error is related to the use

of preposition; next, she uses a DIU (Koshik, 2002b) by repeating the last part of Misun’s

question but stopping right before the trouble source, stretching the vowel of the last word go. As

Misun takes the next turn (line 04) and continues the syntax-in-progress, she correctly supplies

to, but the article the remains missing. To guide Misun to add the article back to her utterance,

Bonnie adopts the same strategy of metalinguistic feedback in line 05, ah article. This time,

Misun asks to change her question but leaves the problematic infinitive phrase uncorrected. Note

that this time around, she drops the preposition to again (lines 09-10).

Two features in how Bonnie designs the next repair-initiation are of note. Once again, she

first names the two elements that are missing in metalinguistic terms (preposition, article; line

11). She then zeroes in on the infinitive phrase using finger counting. In this case, she counts

from her pinkie to her index fingers as she produces go um um army (Figure 3.1-3.3). Notably,

similar to skip-counting, the two instances of non-lexical vocalizations um um, bookended by go

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and army, specify that the trouble source is located between go and army and the method of

repair is also insertion. But what these non-lexical vocalizations also communicate to Misun is

an even more granular description of the scale of the repair outcome: two one-syllable words,

each corresponding to the two categories of words Bonnie has specified in the beginning of the

turn preceding finger counting: that is, the first um being a preposition, the second um an article.

Having described the location of trouble source, the nature of error, and the method of

repair in the first round of counting (line 12), Bonnie starts the second round of counting without

stopping a beat. Bonnie returns to her pinkie and produces a lengthened go, which is followed by

a silent-tap at her ring finger, signaling that she is eliciting the element following go (lines 12-

13). The hold at her ring finger is sustained throughout the students’ choral response of the

preposition to in line 14. Without a beat of delay, Misun completes the phrase with the army,

stressing the previously missing element the while Bonnie counts the army on her middle and

index finger, respectively. Bonnie conveys positive evaluation through a head dip exactly at the

moment Misun produces army (line 15). She then proceeds to invite Misun to repeat her question

one more time (line 18), and Misun, albeit making another mistake related to subject-verb

agreement, finally inserts the missing words back into her utterance (lines 21-22). In this case,

Bonnie’s approach to repair initiation is to first lay out the syntactic structure of the repair turn in

her first round of counting, combining metalinguistic terms and non-lexical vocalizations to

pinpoint the location and the nature of the error. Subsequently, the use of the silent-tap in the

second round of counting invites students to take the next turn and produce a correction of the

item nominated by the tap.

The last case in this section also presents an upgraded, strengthened form of finger

counting, where the location of the trouble source is highlighted through various emphatic forms

49

of silent-tap and the nature of the trouble is specified by assigning a metalinguistic category to

the finger representing the trouble source. Directly preceding this excerpt, Bonnie addressed the

missing verb in Wenzhu’s (WEN) utterance teachers in ordinary school stricter with finger

counting. But because of Bonnie’s problematic turn design, Wenzhu ends up producing the

singular form school and not the verb (See Extract 4.5 for discussion on the problematic case).

As we join Bonnie’s class, she is inviting Wenzhu to change school into the plural form in line 1.

The correction in line 02 is successful, but notice that the verb remains missing. The focus here

is how Bonnie designs her repair initiation to address the missing verb (line 03).

Extract 4.4 (Bonnie 2_13 which teachers are kind part B) 01 BON: so- so again, 02 WEN: +teachers in ordinary +schools stricter-

bon +thumb index middle ring pinkie +head dip

03 BON: --> +verb. +ordinary schools, +#(.) +pinky + middle ring +RH moves pinkie back and forth fig #4.4.1

04 BIN: are ºstrictº, 05 WEN: are- are stricter than (.) teachers in 06 Summer Hill. 07 BON: + very good. + .h that’s Wenzhu’s opinion.

+two thumbs up+

As Wenzhu restates her utterance in line 02, Bonnie counts off each word on her fingers

starting from her thumb, with each finger tapping movement guiding—and simultaneously

approving—Wenzhu’s repair-in-progress (line 02). Exactly when Wenzhu produces schools,

Bonnie conveys a positive assessment with a head dip while counting the word on her ring

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finger. Note that since a verb should follow schools, Bonnie’s pinkie would then logically denote

a verb. However, as Bonnie taps her pinkie, Wenzhu produces stricter instead of a verb.

It bears mentioning that Wenzhu has been repeating the same mistake. To help Wenzhu

understand what the error is, Bonnie starts her turn by offering metalinguistic feedback as a

lexical TCU: verb (line 03). Note that verb is accompanied by her pointing at her pinkie. By

explicitly assigning verb to her pinkie, which was mistakenly taken to be the adjective stricter by

Wenzhu, Bonnie specifies both the nature and the location of trouble source. The method of

repair, consequently, is to replace stricter with a verb. Also relevant here is how Bonnie narrows

down the scope of the repair space by counting verbally from ordinary schools and gesturally

from her middle finger. As she stops after ordinary schools, we see what can be considered an

upgraded version of the silent tap: Without verbal accompaniment, Bonnie holds her pinkie with

her right hand and moves it back and forth emphatically (Figure 4.2), which is reminiscent of

how Cory repeatedly taps his fingers to add emphasis to the repair initiation in Extract 2. This

emphatic, strengthened version of finger counting results in a successful self-repair: In lines 05-

06, Wenzhu is finally able to include a verb in her utterance.

In the four cases above, we witness how the fine-tuned synchrony between the verbal

initiation and the movement of counting effectively performs three important functions related to

repair initiation: locating the trouble source, identifying the method of repair, and in some cases,

delimiting the nature of the trouble. Finger counting, as a repair initiation on grammatical errors,

operates in the following formats: Teachers can start with counting each syntactic element of the

trouble source turn on their fingers up until the trouble source. Next, they can produce a silent-

tap on the fingers that represent the trouble source to prompt students to offer a repair solution.

These fingers can also be repeatedly tapped or moved back and forth for emphasis, visually

51

highlighting which items in the trouble source turn are being elicited. Alternatively, the trouble

source can also be identified by finger reconfiguration—repositioning a syntactic item to create a

new finger configuration, isolating the trouble source as an unspecified item to be supplied by a

learner. It can also be bookended and spotlighted by skip-counting, where teachers supply

learners with the syntactic components before and after the trouble-source. The fingers that are

left out on purpose, then, specify and delimit not only the location and extent of the trouble

source (i.e., one finger vs. two fingers) but also the method of repair (i.e., insertion). Finally, the

nature of the trouble can be described by tapping with non-lexical vocalization (i.e., with one

syllable representing one word), incorporating metalinguistic feedback prior to counting, or

tapping with metalinguistic feedback. One can think of the order of these techniques as

increasing specificity and precision in conveying information about the grammatical error(s) that

learners are invited to repair.

Finger Counting as an Ineffective Repair Initiation

While the majority of finger counting cases in my collection lead to successful learner

self-repair, there are also several cases where finger counting does not seem to facilitate self-

repair as successfully as the instances shown in the previous section. It is therefore relevant to

examine these deviant cases and ask what circumstances would render the practice unproductive.

Two such cases will be presented below.

Extract 5, which occurs immediately before Extract 4, demonstrates the interactional

outcome when there is a mismatch between the metalinguistic alert and what the silent tap

nominates. The students in Bonnie’s class had been prompted to consider whether teachers from

‘Summer Hill’, an alternative school that provides democratic, ‘free’ schooling, or those from

ordinary schools are kinder. Just prior to the extract, Wenzhu expressed that Summer Hill

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teachers were kinder. Wenzhu’s explanation in lines 04-06 contains a few language errors that

later become the focus of this extract. Observe how the design of Bonnie’s initiation in lines 12-

13 elicits an item that is not the trouble source.

Extract 4.5 (Bonnie 2_13 which teachers are kind part A) 01 SOO: I [think both.] 02 BON: [you think- ]+why do you think Summer

+points at WEN 03 Hill Wenzhu. 04 WEN: (oh) I think ordinary schools teacher more- 05 more strict than- (0.2) stricter than the 06 ºSummer Hillº.= 07 BON: =­ah good correction.=+so say your sentence

+index finger circles 08 again.+=listen to Wenzhu.

+quick glance to ss on her left, +points at WEN

09 JAE: mhm. 10 WEN: uh teacher i:n +ordinary school stricter

bon +retracts pointing 11 than (0.5) teacher in Summer Hill. 12 BON: --> good..hh now, verb. +teachers in ordinary,

+ thumb index middle 13 #+(0.2)

+ring fig #4.5.1

14 WEN: school. 15 BON: one school or many schools. 16 REB: many sc[hools.] 17 WEN: [ man]y uh schools. 18 BON: so- so again,

While Bonnie’s directive to repeat the answer (lines 14-15) appears to highlight

Wenzhu’s successful self-repair for the class (i.e., from more strict to stricter), it may also be

seen as an opportunity for Wenzhu to self-repair grammatical errors in her utterance. When

Wenzhu redoes her answer (lines 10-11), she inadvertently makes an error in plural nouns. One

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might also notice that Wenzhu has omitted the verb in her original answer in lines 04-06, and the

verb remains missing in her second version in lines 10-11.

Bonnie’s response begins with a positive assessment (line 12, good). The next TCU

comprises a slightly stressed now delivered in a flat tone and the grammatical category verb.

Note that up to this point, Bonnie has been spotlighting Wenzhu’s answer as something

noteworthy, but here now marks the beginning of addressing a problematic aspect of the

utterance, conveying what Waring (2012b) calls other-directed disaffiliation. Bonnie uses finger

counting to initiate a repair in line 12. Two important observations regarding the repair format

vis-a-vis the trouble source(s) should be made. First, considering that there are multiple errors in

Wen’s utterance (a missing verb and pluralization for teacher and school), addressing the

missing verb appears to have a higher priority for Bonnie given that she alerts Wen to pay

attention to verb in the beginning of the turn. Second, while verb explicitly points out that the

trouble source concerns the verb, finger counting seems to target a different error: We see that

Bonnie counts teachers in ordinary on her thumb, index, then middle finger, respectively,

applying silent-tap on her ring finger, which in fact represents the next word in the noun phrase,

schools (line 13; Figure 5.1). As shown in Wenzhu’s response in line 14 (school), she attends to

only what the silent-tap elicits. Because of the mismatch between the metalinguistic feedback

and the elicited item, what ends up being elicited is only a correction of the noun, not the verb.

As this extract has shown, a misplaced silent-tap—in this case, on a finger at odds with the

metalinguistic alert—can fail to elicit the targeted correction.

The final example in this section showcases a prolonged repair caused by a lack of clarity

of regarding the nature of the error and the method of repair, both of which can be attributed to

deviation from the previously noted finger counting formats. Prior to Extract 6, Cory’s class had

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been working in pairs describing their lives prior to moving to the United States. Cory stopped

the pair discussion to highlight the “spend/spent time + v-ing” structure and wrote some sample

sentences on the board with dry-erase markers (e.g., spent time studying). Despite the

explanation, after the pair discussion resumed, Pok (POK) made the same mistake. Cory held up

a few dry-erase markers in front of Pok to remind him of the structure. As Extract 6 begins, Cory

is inviting students to report what they found out about their partner to the whole class. Pok

begins to share in line 2, but he still has difficulty using the correct sentence pattern with the verb

spend.

Extract 4.6 (Cory 3_27 spent time cooking) 01 COR: what can you tell us. 02 POK: uhm: (.) Mikhai:l Mikhail spend

^(0.2) a lot of time (.) ^in uhm: ^leans forward ^gaze at notebook ^quick glance at MIK

03 MIK: hah hah hah hah 04 COR: hhh heh +he spent a lot of time:,

+leans forward 05 POK: yeah he- he spent a lot of time:, (.) in 06 the cooking? about cooking? 07 CHI: ­cooking. 08 POK: cooking [and-] 09 COR: --> [ a][ha ]+so he spent (.)

+ pinkie ring 10 CHI: [wow.] 11 COR: a lot of time: +(0.2)

middle index thumb +RH puts away one marker +g downward

12 POK: to cooking. 13 COR: --> +(0.5) +#(0.5)

+shakes head +puts two markers next to thumb fig #4.6.1

14 POK: to cook. 15 (0.2) 16 ­ah spend uh- ((smiles))(.) spent cooking.

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17 right? 18 COR: +so just tell us again.+so Mikhail,+

+leans forward +taps pinkie +retracts gesture

19 POK: Mikhail spent a lot of time (0.2) 20 COR: --> +#(0.5)

+shows L thumb and two markers fig #4.6.2

21 --> +#(0.5)

+slightly rotates R hand and markers fig #4.6.3

22 cooking. 23 POK: cooking. 24 COR: yeah. so spent time:: (.) working, spend 25 time cooking, spent time:: (0.5) 26 BAE: exerci[sing 27 COR: [exercising. 28 (0.2) 29 so Pok one more time just tell us about 30 Mikhail. 31 POK: Mikhail spent time (.) wor- working? 32 COR: yeah? 33 POK: and cooking.

A close look at Pok’s turn in line 2 and 4 shows that in both turns, Pok searches for a

preposition after producing he spent a lot of time. He first settles on in the cooking, but soon

proposes another candidate answer, about cooking (lines 05-06). It merits attention that Pok is in

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fact using the correct gerund cooking; the trouble with Pok’s utterance is the extra preposition.

The simplest correction, then, would be to delete it.

After claiming understanding with aha, Cory initiates a repair with finger counting in line

09. What makes this particular instance of finger counting unusual is that when Cory assigns

words to his left fingers, he is neither assigning individual words (i.e., a lot of with three fingers)

nor syntactic elements (i.e., a lot of with one finger). Instead, he breaks off a lot of, assigning a

lot to the middle finger and of to the index finger. By the time he finishes counting time on his

left thumb, he runs out of fingers to elicit the next element, the repair solution (i.e., the gerund

cooking; line 11). Despite his gaze shift and somewhat awkward manipulation of markers held in

his right hand, Pok recognizes it as an invitation to complete the utterance, producing to cooking

as the repair solution (line 12). While Pok appears to be cognizant of where the trouble source is

(i.e., that it immediately follows time), he does not know how to correct it: His solution is to

replace about (line 6) with yet another preposition to (line 12).

Cory immediately rejects Pok’s answer with a head shake and modifies the initiation by

placing two markers next to his left thumb (line 13, Figure 5.1) as a continuation of the syntax-

in-progress. By adding the two markers which represent two new additional elements, Cory

could be signaling two morphemes or syllables in the gerund (i.e., “cook” and “-ing”), but for

Pok, they could also suggest that two words should come after time. Indeed, we see that Pok

follows Cory’s prompt and provides two items to cook in his next repair (line 14). The lack of

consistency regarding what exact item corresponds to each finger appears to puzzle Pok in terms

of what the repair solution is.

A brief gap ensues (line 16) and Pok seems to suddenly realize that a gerund should

follow spent (i.e., spent cooking) (line 17). Cory initiates a repair yet again (line 18), but in Pok’s

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next turn, he still hesitates and pauses after a lot of time (line 19). To assist Pok, Cory appears to

delimit the scope of repair space by displaying only his left thumb and two markers (line 20;

Figure 6.2), but the gesture is not accompanied by any verbal form of initiation, and thus, Pok is

left alone (in the dark) to figure out (or recall) what the thumb and the two markers express.

When no response is forthcoming, Cory slightly rotates his right hand and the markers (line 21;

Figure 5.3) to possibly visually emphasize the repair space (i.e., based on previous configuration,

time + v-ing); however, this slight rotation does not offer any additional useful information

regarding what and how to repair, and eventually, it is Cory who ends up producing the repair

resolution, cooking (line 22). A series of examples, spent time working, spend time cooking is

provided (lines 24-25) before Pok’s final successful self-repair in lines 31 and 33. One might

surmise that had Cory added only one finger or marker next to this thumb (which denotes time),

Pok might have a much better grasp of how the correction should be executed.

As demonstrated in the two problem cases, what is at issue in unsuccessful cases is often

a mismatch between metalinguistic feedback and silent-tap and a lack of clarity concerning the

one-to-one correspondence between finger/marker and the linguistic item that is being elicited. A

finger could be used to represent a word, a syntactic element, or even a syllable or morpheme;

therefore, when the unit of representation is inconsistent, a learner would be confused about the

nature of the trouble. Sometimes, the problem can be compounded by a decontextualized finger

counting that obscures rather than clarifies the location and the nature of the trouble source. As

shown, even when the repair space is narrowed down, the absence of verbal counting when

fingers are displayed could also confuse the learner as to what the fingers express.

In sum, finger counting is a practice that involves using both verbal and bodily resources

to initiate self-repair on grammatical errors. As illustrated in the first four cases, the finger

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counting turn is designed to perform three important interactional tasks: locating the trouble

source, indicating the repair method, and at times, specifying the nature of the error. The basic

construction of finger counting repair initiation involves repeating the trouble source turn while

counting each syntactic component or word on fingers on display up until the trouble source.

Then, the trouble source can be singled out by (1) silent-tap, in which the finger representing the

trouble source is spotlighted by being held in silence. Variations of the silent-tap such as

wiggling fingers and repeated tapping are other visual means to further draw attention to where

the trouble source is located. Another way to locate the trouble source is (2) finger

reconfiguration, which repositions syntactic elements on different fingers. The trouble source can

also be pre- and post-framed by (3) skip-counting, thus leaving the fingers expressing the trouble

source as elements to be supplied by the learner. I have shown how the stronger alternatives,

namely, (4) tapping with non-lexical vocalization, and (5) tapping with metalinguistic feedback

can specify the nature of the trouble.

It merits particular attention that in terms of sequential environment, finger counting is

often deployed after other kinds of repair initiations fail. And if a finger counting turn does not

succeed in eliciting a correction, it is followed by a modified, stronger form of finger counting

turn that enables a teacher to upgrade the assistance a student needs to correct the error. The

various formats of finger counting that implement repair initiations can therefore be arrayed on a

continuum in terms of the degree to which the error is delimited and described, reflecting

Schegloff, Jefferson, and Sack’s (1977) observation that should more than one repair initiation

be needed, they can be “upgraded” and are used “in the order of increasing strength” (p. 369).

Finally, as I have shown using deviant cases, departure from these techniques is consequential: It

could target the wrong trouble source (Extract 5), and worse, it could confuse rather than clarify

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the nature of the error (Extract 6). As such, each component in the finger counting turn—be it

verbal or embodied, should be strategically and methodically placed.

Finger Counting as Other-Initiated Other-Repair

Finger counting can also be deployed as an other-initiated other-repair, what Jefferson

(1987) calls an exposed correction, or what is generally regarded as a recast in second language

acquisition (Long, 1996, 2007). Of 32 cases of finger counting, 17 of them are other-corrections

(53%); all cases in this sub-collection are from Cory’s classes, which could be accounted for by

the fact that 65% of my data were collected from his class. As I will explicate below, another

possibility is that this practice could be more commonly used with beginner level students (see

Chapter 3 for more details).

In the previous section, finger counting performs a sequence-initiating action, making

conditionally relevant a self-repair. The cases of finger counting in this section, on the other

hand, are offered directly as an other-initiated other-repair, where the teacher utilizes finger

counting, along with TCU segmentation and prosodic highlighting, to accentuate corrections

made to a trouble source turn. In what follows, I will show three cases of how finger counting is

used to do other-initiated other-repair, beginning with the case featuring the least change to one

showing the most change vis-à-vis the trouble source turn. Similar to the previous section, I will

also present one case to demonstrate the interactional consequences when such techniques are

not followed. I argue that an other-repair turn accompanied by finger counting can foreground

corrections in different modalities, and in turn, make the corrections more followable to secure

learners’ uptake and to scaffold their understanding of the focus structure.

In the first example, the repair operation involves inserting a word into the trouble source

turn. Extract 1 illustrates how the target practice augments the saliency of the correction and

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renders the other-repair turn more comprehensible. Cory is reviewing the use of future forms will

and be going to in Extract 7. Prior to the beginning of the extract, he has asked the class to plan

an imaginary movie night and brainstormed items that they need to prepare or bring. In line 1, he

is asking Chiaki to volunteer to do one of the tasks written on the board to prompt her to use the

target future form will, but Chiaki shows little awareness that will is required (lines 04-05). After

Cory’s first repair initiation fails to elicit a successful self-repair from Chiaki, the target practice

is deployed in line 16 to draw her attention to will.

Extract 4.7 Cory 4_15 I will make hot dogs 1 COR: Chiaki, what would you volunteer for. 2 CHI: uh: ^my volunteer. ^

^points at board^ 3 COR: +mm.

+nods 4 CHI: ^uh ºeh?º okay. uh::: (0.2) ºokayº. I make

^g to board 5 a hot dog.^

^g to COR 6 COR: +al­right. o[kay. ]

+wide eyes, slow nods 7 CHI: [ ººok ]ay.ºº 8 COR: +so right listen.

+leans forward --> until line 13 +quick glance to ss then back to CHI

9 CHI: I- I make a volunteer- uh sorry. I make 10 a hot dogs. ^some hot dogs.

^g to COR 11 COR: (.)-nods 12 CHI: I make- [I make-] 13 COR: [+alright] >+okay good good good

-->+ +R index finger up 14 good good.< so listen +when we’re

+points at board 15 volunteering, when we’re volunteering, we 16 --> say: + I: (.) will:,

+pinkie ring, slightly emphatic tap 17 CHI: I [ will,] 18 COR: [+#I’ll:,]

+points at both pinkie and ring

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fig #4.7.1

19 CHI: I’ll, 20 COR: +make #hot dogs.

+middle index fig #4.7.2

21 CHI: make hot dogs. 22 COR: --> yeah so +I will, I’ll,

+pinkie ring both pinkie &ring

23 CHI: I’ll, 24 COR: make hot dogs.+

middle index +hold at index--> 25 CHI: ºmake hot dogsº.=I will volunteer.+

cor -->+retracts hold

26 COR: ((animated voice))so +me, I’ll- I’ll make +raises hand

27 hot dogs. 28 CHI: ((smiles))okay. 29 COR: so Chiaki tell us again. what- what can you 30 volunteer for. 31 CHI: okay. ^ I will- ^I’ll make (.) I’ll

^thumb index ^brings thumb index together

32 make hot dogs. 33 COR: excellent.

After Chiaki produces I make a hot dog (lines 04-05), Cory uses a directive (right so

listen) in line 8 to invite Chiaki to recomplete her answer while drawing the class’s attention to

what Chiaki is about to produce. Chiaki, however, only corrects the noun phrase from a hot dogs

to some hot dogs (lines 09-10). Cory nods to confirm Chiaki’s correction, perhaps passing up the

opportunity to take a full turn and offering Chiaki another chance to self-correct (line 11). But

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when Chiaki repairs her utterance again in line 12 (I make- I make-), she is still not using the

target future form will. It is at this point where Cory takes back the floor and instructs the class

on the use of will. He brings Chiaki’s in-progress repair turn to a halt (lines 13-14) by

interrupting her with a series of acknowledgement tokens (alright okay) and multiple sayings

(good good good good good) while bringing his index finger up (i.e., the “hold on” or “just a

minute” gesture). He then begins his next TCU with so listen, framing the rest of the turn as a

learnable before highlighting the communicative aim of the activity (when we’re volunteering;

lines 14-15) and introducing the corresponding language form (we say; lines 15-16).

The example Cory provides next is an other-initiated other-repair of Chiaki’s utterance,

which foregrounds the correction will in a number of ways. Firstly, Cory highlights will both

visually and prosodically. He tags the first two words I will (line 16) to his pinkie and ring finger,

respectively, with a slightly emphatic tap on will. The elongated I and a micro-pause that follows

spotlight what is coming up next, and the correction will itself is delivered with extra stress and

lengthening. Secondly, the entire repair turn is decomposed into smaller segments so that the

correction can be isolated: A pause and an intonation break are inserted before and after will to

set it apart from the rest of the turn. As soon as Cory’s repair-in-progress arrives at an intonation

break (line 16), Chiaki repeats I will (line 17). To further stress the correct grammar form, Cory

repeats it in the contracted form I’ll as he brings his pinkie and ring finger together, showing the

contraction visually (line 18; Figure 7.1), which is again echoed by Chiaki immediately (line 19).

The last segment of Cory’s turn, make hot dogs, is counted on his middle (make) and index

finger (hot dogs) (line 20), but is noticeably given much less emphasis prosodically and

gesturally. This, too, is immediately repeated by Chiaki (line 21). Thus, Chiaki’s error, Cory’s

correction, and Chiaki’s uptake of the correction correspond to the X, Y, Y pattern that Jefferson

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(1987, p. 88) observes in exposed correction sequences, where X is the trouble source, Y an

other-correction and the final Y a repeat of the correction that immediately follows. In addition,

similar to Svennevig’s (2018) findings that a multi-unit turn can be decomposed into smaller

units to build intersubjectivity one unit at a time, with each unit inviting acknowledgement from

the recipient, Cory divides the repair turn into segments and presents them in “installments,”

which, along with finger counting, isolates the correction from the rest of the turn and brings it to

the foreground.

Also note that Cory’s finger configuration extends beyond his TCU and remains on

display until the end of Chiaki’s clarification question (lines 24-25). We can see that Chiaki is

finally able to insert will back into her original utterance (lines 32-33), using the exact same

counting gesture and finger movement when producing I will and I’ll, the parts that Cory has

foregrounded in his other-repair. Timed this way, the final finger configuration, which embodies

the target syntactic structure, performs two important functions. In addition to signaling that

uptake of the correction is relevant, it exploits the temporality of embodiment (Deppermann &

Streeck, 2018): The fingers on display can provide learners visual access to the structure that

extends beyond the verbal repair turn and remains available as they display uptake. The final

hold of the fingers thus corroborates findings that gesture hold can facilitate recipients’

recognition of a turn’s action (Lilja & Piirainen-Marsh, 2019), that they can contribute to turn-

taking by projecting the next relevant action (Groeber & Pochon-Berger, 2014), and that in

other-initiated repairs, such holds are not disengaged until a problem is resolved (Floyd,

Manrique, Rossi, & Torreira, 2014).

While the first example features a simple insertion, in our next case, the repair operation

involves replacing two lexical items with one, with the new item foregrounded by the focal

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practice. Right before Extract 8, which took place a few minutes after Extract 7, Cory had

written down what each student would volunteer to do for movie night on the board. Then, he

erased what he had written and asked students what they remember to elicit the use of be going

to. However, a few students answered without using be going to, and one even suggested will is

the correct answer, which is immediately rejected by Cory in line 01. The fact that students

clearly need more scaffolding compels Cory to directly supply the correct form in line 03, so

Chiaki is going to, but he stops mid-TCU and reshapes the turn into an initiation, what’s Chiaki

going to do (line 04). Our focus is how Cory formats an other-initiated other-repair (line 10) after

Nisa (NIS) and Juliana (JUL) produce less-than-accurate answers.

Extract 4.8 (Cory 4_15 going to bring hot dogs) 01 COR: nah we don’t say will. 02 (1.8) 03 so:: Chi:aki i:s going to: ­hm:¯. 04 what’s Chiaki going: to: do:. 05 (3.0) 06 NIS: Chi[aki is [going to do (.) bring ^eh:::

^g to CHI 07 JUL: [Chi- [going- 08 make hot [dog.] 09 NIS: [hot ]dog. 10 COR: --> ah hot dog.=okay good. so +Chi:aki (.)

+ pinkie 11 i:[s going to:]: (0.2) #make [(.)

ring middle index thumb, slightly emphatic tap

12 NIS: [ ºis going toº ] [make fig #4.8.1

13 COR: [ #+hot ]dogs. + +points next to thumb+

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14 NIS: [emphatic point at COR] fig #4.8.2

15 MIN: ºgoing to.[ah::º ] 16 COR:` --> [^so +Chiaki] is going to make

cor +pinkie ring middle index thumb ss ^g at notebook, begin to write

17 COR: +hot dogs. +points next to thumb, holds until line 22

18 #(1.0)-SS continues writing until end of excerpt fig #4.8.3

19 COR: ºyeah.º 20 NIS: º^make.º ^nods 21 (1.0)+

cor -->+retracts hold 22 NIS: ^Mikhail is going to ^bring? bring?

^g to and points at MIK ^g to COR 23 COR: +bring,

+nods 24 NIS: bring beer. 25 COR: ­nice. yeah. yeah. bring- bring lots of 26 beer yeah.

Both Nisa and Juliana attempt to offer an answer (lines 06 and 07), orienting to Cory’s

initiation as an invitation to demonstrate the correct target structure, though Juliana eventually

yields the floor to Nisa, who manages to produce a full sentential TCU. Notice that in her

answer, Nisa uses two infinitives: the placeholder verb do and bring (line 06). Added to the mix

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is Juliana’s response to Nisa’ word search, where she offers Nisa an alternative word choice,

make hot dog (line 08).

After acknowledging both Nisa’s and Juliana’s answers with a partial repeat (a hot dog)

and providing a short positive assessment that seems to ratify Juliana’s correct contribution (okay

good; line 10), Cory produces an other-initiated other-repair that targets Nisa’s answer, assigning

the first five words (e.g., Chiaki is going to make) to his left fingers, with the sixth word (e.g.,

hot dog) expressed through a point next to his thumb (lines 10-11; Figure 8.1 and 8.2). The

correction make, in addition to receiving extra stress, is counted on Cory’s thumb with a slightly

more emphatic tap (Figure 8.1) so that it stands out from other syntactic components. It is also

preceded by a substantially elongated to, a 0.2-second pause and followed by a micropause,

which combine to isolate the correction from the rest of the turn. Notably, unlike cases where

finger counting is done to initiate a self-repair, there is no observable embodied conduct during

the pause that precedes the correction. Because of the absence of silent-tap, rather than treating

the turn-so-far as a repair initiation, we see that Nisa treats it as an other-repair: She does not

take a turn until Cory produces the correction make and repeats it immediately after (line 12).

She also points at Cory (line 14), a “there-you-go” gesture that can be seen as displaying

recognition of the correction.

Also observe that in this case, Nisa is not the only learner who displays uptake of the

correction. Other students also respond to Cory’s correction, though their responses are more

varied. Min repeats going to and produces a change of state token (line 16), treating going to as

the locus of Cory’s other repair while the rest of the class embodies uptake of the entire turn by

writing it in their notebooks (line 15 through the rest of the excerpt). While these various forms

of student uptake are displayed, Cory’s finger configuration remains on hold (lines 18-21; Figure

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8.3) and is not retracted until Nisa initiates a new action (line 22). The duration of the gestural

hold, then, might be sensitive to learners’ uptake, as the fingers on display provide them a final

count of the number of elements in the entire syntactic structure featuring the correction, a piece

of information that could be beneficial to beginner level learners. Finally, in line 22, Nisa’s

volunteers another example to demonstrate a correct use of the verb form (Mikhail is going to

bring)—an encouraging sign that she has now understood the target structure. It can be argued,

then, that Cory’s other-repair above is designed to display “dual addressivity” (St. John &

Cromdal, 2016). On the one hand, it addresses Nisa’s utterance by substituting two verbs with

one. On the other hand, considering the larger sequential context, given that a number of students

have demonstrated trouble using and differentiating two target future forms, Cory’s other-repair

also demonstrates and reinforces how be going to should be correctly used.

When there are substantial changes to the trouble source turn, it is challenging for lower-

level learners to grasp the new structure. An example is Extract 9, where the entire structure of

an utterance produced by a learner is reformulated. As will be shown, the teacher produces three

iterations of an other-initiated other-repair, but only the one accompanied by finger counting

manages to secure learner uptake of the entire structure. The class is working in groups to

practice the simple past tense, and as instructed by Cory, they should incorporate the word first

to ask about their group members’ first experiences. Cory is sitting in the center of the classroom

monitoring students’ discussion, his gaze shifting from group to group. As we enter the scene,

Min is asking Nisa when her first child was born, but she phrases her question as when was the

first time meet your children (lines 01-02). Coincidentally, Cory directs his gaze at Min shortly

after she begins (line 01). Nisa’s difficulty in understanding Min’s question results in a halt in

progressivity (lines 03-04).

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Extract 4.9 (Cory 2_25 When was your first child born) 01 MIN: when- (.) +when was the first (.)

cor +g to MIN 02 MIN: time meet uh your children? 03 (.) 04 ^(0.5) ^

^g to COR^ 05 NIS: when was- 06 MIN: +when: (.) met (0.2) when met your first

cor +nods while leaning to MIN’s group 07 MIN: (0.2) syl children? 08 (1.0) 09 COR: ah >so we say< when were: your children 10 born. 11 (.) 12 MIN: ^#when- +when- was you- ^

^leans frd and cups L ear, gazing at notebook and holding pen ^ fig #4.9.1

cor +walks to MIN’s group, then squats

13 COR: so are we thinking about one- one baby? or 14 [ man]y- 15 MIN: [first.] 16 COR: ah [ so ]when was your first (.) chi:ld 17 NIS: [first.] 18 COR: born. 19 MIN: child.=^ah:[:: ^

^leans back then forward^ 20 COR: --> [so +when was your ^fi:rst

+pinkie ring middle emphatic tap on index min ^left hand up

21 COR: (.) chi:ld, + emphatic tap on thumb +holds on thumb

22 MIN: ^#when +was your first chi:ld born. min ^thumb index middle ring pinkie R hand ^g to NIS forward cor -->+hands relax fig #4.9.2

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23 COR: thumbs up 24 NIS: he was born- he was born eh twenty seven 25 years ago.

Just as Min proceeds to repair her own question (line 06), Cory simultaneously

repositions his body and leans closer to Min’s group while nodding, embodying that he is now

listening closely to Min, who revises her question by dropping the auxiliary was and changing

the verb meet into the past form met (lines 06). Cory’s response, though delayed, comprises a

change of state token (Heritage, 1984) ah and an other-initiated other-repair prefaced by so we

say (line 09). The repair reformulates Min’s question into when were your children born (lines

09-10). Though the important elements in the revised interrogative receive prosodic prominence

(were, children, and born), note that the other-repair is not accompanied by any co-speech

gestures. The substantial changes to Min’s trouble source turn, however, are difficult for Min to

follow. She leans forward and cups her hand behind her ear to index a problem of hearing

(Mortensen, 2016) while trying to write down the new question in her notebook (line 12; Figure

9.1). In addition to the embodied initiation of repair, notice that Min presents a candidate hearing

of the repair solution (when was you), evidencing that she cannot fully follow the new syntactic

structure.

To ensure that Min can hear him, Cory walks to Min’s group and squats (line 12).

Interestingly, instead of repeating the correction, Cory asks whether she is asking about one child

or many children (lines 13-14). This affords Min an opportunity to clarify that what she in fact

means the first child (line 15). Cory then revises his other-repair into when was your first child

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born (lines 16, 18), with emphasis again placed on the last three syntactic elements (first, child,

and born) and a pause after first which delays the production of child. In response, however,

Min only registers the word child, which is followed by elongated change of state token (line

19), perhaps indicating that she did not know that the singular form child should be used. But

child only constitutes part of the correction; Cory’s correction in fact involves a reformulation of

the entire interrogative, where the noun phrase first child is crucial to the meaning of her

question.

To prompt Min to produce the question in its entirety and to highlight the key noun

phrase first child, Cory deploys the focal practice when repeating the repair, counting when was

your first child on his left fingers, starting from his pinkie (lines 20-21). In addition to drawing

out and stressing first and child, notice that Cory focuses Min’s attention on the two words by

tapping his index finger and thumb emphatically, rendering the corrections salient and visible to

Min. Finger counting is thus leveraged to create visual emphasis, which, in conjunction with

prosodic emphasis, successfully foregrounds and secures uptake of the correction: Min gears up

to take the next turn by putting her left hand up precisely when Cory produces first (line 20), and

she produces the correct interrogative as demonstrated by Cory verbatim (line 22), also counting

each word on her fingers (Figure 9.2), orienting to the entire question as the correctable. Since

Min’s gaze is shifted to Nisa, Cory relaxes both of his hands to loosen the gesture hold soon after

Min begins her question. Cory offers Min a positive assessment and closes the correction

sequence with a thumbs up (line 23). Nisa is finally able to answers Min’s question (line 24), and

the discussion resumes.

The final extract in this section shows an ineffective case, where finger counting is used

to illustrate a rather long and complex reformulation of the trouble source turn that results in

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minimal learner uptake. This is an unusual case for two reasons. First, sequentially, the other-

initiated other-repair does not immediately follow the trouble source turn but is significantly

delayed. Second, the embodied representation of the repair outcome does not sufficiently

foreground the correction, as evidenced later in one student’s trouble following the repair turn.

Like Pok in Extract 5, Mako had been instructed to use the “spent/spend time + v-ing” structure.

In lines 01-02, Mako is reporting to the class that Lucila studied dentistry before moving to the

United States, but she is not using a gerund after spent and is unsure about whether she should

refer to Lucila’s future profession (dentist) or her field of study (dentistry). Mako’s faulty syntax

is sidestepped for a moment as Cory prioritizes responding to Lucila’s potential telling of her

personal experience (lines 6-17) and is not addressed until line 23.

Extract 4.10 (Cory 3_27 studying dentistry) 01 MAK: uh (0.2) Lucila (0.8) spent- (0.5) dental- 02 uh study den- study: dental- 03 LUC: dentist. 04 MAK: dentist- uh dentistry? 05 LUC: yes. 06 COR: (0.5)-eyes open wide, slight head tilt 07 LUC: yes. 08 COR: in Peru? 09 LUC: ^yeah in Peru.

^nods 10 COR: a­mazing. 11 LUC: (0.5)-nods & smiles, then g to MAK 12 MAK: hah hah 13 COR: and- and now? 14 LUC: now it’s not but my English ºis no:tº (the 15 program) syl, in here (then) continue uh 16 here. 17 COR: >yeah yeah yeah.< 18 (1.0) 19 .hh so:: (0.5) do you- do you- so in Peru, 20 did you study at a university dentistry. 21 LUC: yes. 22 COR: yeah. ºyeah yeah.º +so for Lucila, (.)

+g to ss +points at LUC

23 --> +so +Lucila spent (.) her:: (0.2) time::, +g to LUC & MAK +pinkie ring middle index

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slightly emphatic touch

24 LUC: º^time.º ^ ^slight nods^

25 COR: at +univer:sity, thumb +R index points next to L thumb

26 LUC: ºokay.º 27 COR: --> so she +#spent her time +#at univer:sity,

+R index fg makes a +points next to beat for each word thumb #4.10.1 #4.10.2

28 MAK: leans forward, nods 29 COR: (0.5)-puts down one marker #+studying:

+holds two markers, moves RH laterally away from L thumb fig #4.10.3

30 LUC nods 31 COR: + #to be a dentist. +

+RH moves even further +both hands drop away from thumb fig #4.10.4

32 LUC: nods 33 MAK: nods 34 (0.2) 35 COR: yeah amazing.

((15 lines omitted, where COR talks about homework))

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36 BAE: Lucila spent her time at university for 37 dentistry? 38 (.) 39 ^dentistry or:

^quick glance at LUC 40 COR: (0.2)-gets up from chair 41 LUC: dentist. 42 COR: yeah. 43 (6.0)-walks to board, writes 44 yeah so she spent her time studying, (0.2) 45 uh to be a dentist. she spent her time 46 studying to be a: (0.8) a doctor. she spent 47 her time study- so I spent my time uh 48 studying uh language. my brother spent his 49 time studying uh engineering cos he makes 50 cars.

Cory’s questions (lines 08 and 13) offer Lucila an opportunity to clarify her background:

that she studied dentistry at a university back in Peru (line 21). After a few yeah tokens (line 22),

Cory shifts his gaze to the students and points at Lucila while uttering so for Lucila, projecting

some sort of formulation of what Lucila has just shared. But he shifts his gaze back to Lucila and

Mako, electing them as the main recipients of the rest of his turn when he produces what is

hearably Mako’s trouble source turn in lines 1-2 (so Lucila spent; line 23). It appears that Cory’s

pedagogic agenda is to reformulate Mako’s trouble source turn based on what Lucila has shared.

Cory inserts her time at university after spent (line 23, 25), and the phrase her time is

successfully foregrounded using techniques described in previous extracts: Both words are

surrounded by pauses and are emphatically elongated and stressed. The word time is produced

when Cory taps his left index finger with a slightly stronger tap. But this segment only secures a

weak uptake from Lucila, who says time in sotto voce (line 24). The next segment at university is

assigned to his left thumb and his right index finger pointing at the space next to his left thumb.

Note that at this point, he has yet addressed Mako’s troubles in lines 1-2, namely, using

v-ing after spent and choosing the correct word form to describe a profession (i.e., dental vs.

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dentist vs. dentistry), but all of his left fingers have already been counted on. As Cory repeats his

other-repair in line 27 to possibly highlight what he has added to Mako’s turn, observe the co-

speech gesture in this repeat: Instead of counting, with his left fingers still on display, he makes a

small beat with his right index finger for each word in spent her time (Figure 10.1) and uses the

same pointing gesture for at university (Figure 10.2). Cory then extends the sentence (line 29)

and finally produces a correction of one of Mako’s troubles: studying. Again, in place of

counting, the correction co-occurs with a lateral hand movement away from the thumb (Figure

10.3). The same linear hand movement can also be observed when Cory continues with another

correction, an infinitive phrase, to be a dentist (line 31; Figure 10.4). There is also no gestural

hold: Both of his hands drop as soon as his TCU arrives at turn completion (line 31).

As shown in previous extracts, the benefit of finger counting is that discrete items are

assigned to discrete fingers so that corrections made to a trouble source turn can be rendered

salient visually. Such lateral hand movements, however, are visually much less precise and do

not effectively spotlight individual words the way finger counting does. If we juxtapose Mako’s

utterance (lines 1-2) with the two iterations of Cory’s correction (first in lines 23-25, second in

lines 27-31), we can notice that what gets foregrounded are the two phrases added to the turn

(her time and at university), not the corrections of Mako’s errors (studying and to be a dentist).

These notable deviations from other finger counting turns can impact learners’ uptake of the

other-repair: Except for Lucila’s quiet time in line 24, Lucila and Mako only nod or produce

acknowledgement tokens after each segment of the other-repair (lines 26, 28, 30). The

completion of Cory’s correction is not followed by any gesture hold, and note that both learners

only claim understanding with nods (lines 32-33). No repetition of any of the corrections is

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observed. This provides further evidence that the hold of the final finger configuration works to

inform recipients that uptake of the other-repair is relevant.

Another telltale sign is how Bae revives the correction after Cory has moved on to other

matters (lines 36-37). In line 38-39, she formats her repair as a try-marked candidate hearing of

the target structure that Cory has just provided. Bae is able to produce the portions of the repair

turn that were foregrounded and accompanied by finger counting: Lucila spent her time at

university. The part that she wants confirmation is whether it is followed by for dentistry, which

is rather different from what he had actually produced (studying to be a dentist). When no

response from Cory is forthcoming (line 40), Bae narrows down the trouble source to

specifically her hearing of dentistry (line 41). Looking closely at Bae’s candidate hearing, it

could be inferred that Bae did not register the last two syntactic components of Cory’s repair turn

(i.e., studying and to be a dentist), possibly because they were not foregrounded by any means

and were not rendered salient with finger counting.

In sum, finger counting can serve as an other-initiated other-repair, where the teacher

reformulates a learner’s utterance and directly supplies a correction. As shown in the analysis,

the act of counting syntactic elements on fingers is a crucial part of the teacher’s effort in

maximizing the intelligibility of the other-repair turn and securing uptake of corrections. The

corrections become visible actions—they are foregrounded by laminating two modalities:

visually through emphatic finger taps and verbally through exaggerated enunciation, drawn-out

delivery, and added stress. In addition, presenting the repair turn in segments could also bring the

correction into focus, as the correction constitutes a segment preceded or followed by pauses or

intonation breaks. A hold of the final finger configuration suggests that uptake is relevant and

provides a visual scaffold that is maintained until learner uptake has been shown. Taken together,

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such turn design features contribute to learners’ understanding of not only the correction itself

but also the structure of the entire repair turn in an incremental fashion. As illustrated in Extract

10, the absence of these features might account for why an other-repair fails to secure learner

uptake. The finger counting turn thus offers learners a temporal, embodied and visual organizer

of a focus syntactic structure, upon which the noticeability and intelligibility of the correction

can be augmented—what a simple verbal recast would not do.

Discussion and Conclusion

Treating learner grammatical errors is one of the core pedagogic tasks in the second

language classroom. In this chapter, I have examined how finger counting serves as a teacher

resource for repair on such errors. I have shown that it is an intricate and methodic teacher

practice that mobilizes both verbal and embodied resources, in which teachers assign individual

words or syntactic elements to their fingers simultaneously as they produce a targeted sentence

partially or in its entirety. Finger counting, as the analysis has shown, can be deployed to

perform two different actions: to initiate a self-repair and to offer an other-repair of grammatical

forms.

First, often employed as a follow-up repair initiation to pursue a self-repair, finger

counting can facilitate learners’ understanding of the problem of their utterance by locating the

trouble source, indicating the repair method, and at times, specifying the nature of the error. The

trouble source can be located, delimited, and described in various formats, all exploiting the

bodily embodiment of syntax, including (1) silent-tap and its upgraded, emphatic versions, (2)

finger reconfiguration, (3) skip-counting (4) tapping with non-lexical vocalizations and (5)

tapping with metalinguistic feedback. These formats exhibit various degrees of strength in

enabling the learner to analyze the trouble source, with silent-tap being on the weaker end and

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tapping with metalinguistic feedback being on the stronger end. Secondly, as an other-initiated

other repair, finger counting enables the teacher to foreground corrections made to a trouble

source turn. By incorporating finger counting, the teacher can leverage resources afforded by

different modalities to spotlight corrections. Emphatic taps serve as an embodied means to draw

attention to the corrections visually. Combined with verbal resources such as prosodic

highlighting and isolating the corrections through segmentation, finger counting marks the

corrections as the focus of the repair turn for learners, and in turn, facilitates learner uptake.

Importantly, the focal practice differs from a regular recast in that it makes the corrections and

the targeted syntactic structure visible and followable for learners. As evidenced in the prolonged

hold of the finger configuration that extends beyond the teacher’s repair turn, this can afford

learners a visual anchor as they process and display uptake of the repair turn, which is

particularly beneficial for those at a lower proficiency level.

In addition, I have also examined unsuccessful cases to show how even slight deviations

from these practices could lead to a very different outcome. Given the intricacies of the practice,

hairsplitting precision when coordinating verbal and gestural resources is of paramount

importance in guiding learners’ understanding of their errors—a mismatch between

metalinguistic alert and silent-tap (Extract 5), the lack of one-to-one correspondence between

fingers and items elicited (Extract 6), the absence of foregrounding corrections (Extract 10)—all

significantly shape learners’ response to the repair initiation and the repair outcome.

Theoretically, from a conversation-analytic perspective, the findings add to the extant

literature on repair organization, and specifically, on how next-turn repair initiations can be

designed to facilitate recipients’ understanding of the location and nature of the trouble source.

This paper describes an interactional practice that maximizes assistance by delimiting the trouble

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source to what exactly needs to be repaired, but it still puts the onus of repair on the recipient. In

addition, it furthers a growing line of research that examines repair as a multimodal phenomenon

and contributes to a bourgeoning body of work on gesture and repair in pedagogic settings

(Kääntä, 2012; Mortensen, 2016; Seo, 2011; Seo & Koshik, 2010) by documenting how

fingers—which have been somewhat overlooked in existing research—can serve as an important

tool in teachers’ broader repertoire of bodily resources.

From a second language acquisition perspective, the findings advance our understanding

of corrective feedback, a central research topic in the field (see, e.g., Lyster, Saito, & Sato,

2013). Finger counting, particularly when it is offered as an other-initiated other-repair, may be

categorized as a recast (Lyster & Ranta, 1997). This chapter contributes to filling an important

gap in research on recasts by specifying circumstances and factors would moderate their

effectiveness (Goo & Mackay, 2013), providing fine-grained descriptions of turn design features

that would render a recast effective in securing learner uptake in some cases and ineffective in

others. Furthermore, it may also be argued that finger counting is as cognitive as it is physical

and tactile. As shown in this chapter, finger counting is deployed as an attention-guiding device,

which could be seen as a way for teachers to promote noticing of language forms (Schmidt,

1990). There is preliminary evidence that learners also produce counting gestures during uptake

(see Extracts 7 & 9). The findings therefore point to a promising correlation between

multimodality, noticing, and comprehensible input, an inquiry that merits further research.

Pedagogically, the practice of finger counting demonstrates teachers’ creative, artful, and

resourceful work of facilitating ‘self-discovery,’ where the teacher points out a problem without

immediately giving away the solution (Waring, 2015). Especially with learners with lower

proficiency, the delicate balance between challenging the learner and offering assistance could

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be difficult to strike. To this end, finger counting provides key information about the trouble

source and the repair operation—through both verbal and visual means—to enable learners to

analyze the errors, thus enhancing the pedagogical efficacy of error correction without

compromising learner agency. Examining the role of fingers in creating ‘syntax-in-sight’ also

sheds light on how they can be recruited for bodily-vocal demonstrations that serve important

pedagogical purposes. The ability to skillfully deploy bodily resources, then, has important

pedagogical implications and should therefore be considered an essential part of a teacher’s

interactional competence.

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Chapter 5 – Responding to Student Questions:

Doing More than Answering and Approximate Answering

The ability to respond to student questions effectively is a core teaching competency.

Routine as it may seem, answering student questions is in fact a challenging interactional task

that demands pedagogical acumen: whether a question is an idiosyncratic inquiry or adumbrates

an understanding problem shared by other students; whether an issue can be addressed in a

succinct manner or requires a lengthy explanation. In the case of second or foreign language

classrooms, this challenge is compounded as students tend to have fewer linguistic resources to

clearly articulate their inquiry in the target language. As such, examining how teachers handle

student questions offers invaluable insights into how teachers assess and manage students’

understanding in situ.

This chapter examines two broad types of teacher responses to student questions. By

question, I refer to an initiating action that solicits, or is treated by participants as soliciting,

information or confirmation, as broadly defined by Ehrlich and Freed (2010). By looking at what

the teacher perceives to be the problem, how teacher responses are packaged, and the fittedness

between the question and the response, my goal is to examine whether such responses succeed or

fail in terms of adequately identifying and addressing students’ understanding issues.

As a first observation, a cursory look at my data set shows that there is considerable

variation in terms of how teachers respond to student questions. Even if the question only

requires a confirmation or disconfirmation, the teacher has the choice of producing a minimal or

expanded response. To establish the focus of this paper, I will use the following extract to show

what I excluded from my collection. The extract is preceded by a discussion on prepositions that

can follow the verb arrive, with sample sentences written on the board. In the turn marked by a

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single arrow, Nisa is asking a question about whether at or in should precede home (line 01) if

she were to use arrive as the verb. Cory, the teacher’s response is marked by a double arrow (line

06).

Extract 5.1 (Cory 2_13 Arrives at home) 01 NIS: --> what about arrives in- at home? in home. 02 COR: (.)-turns to board, grabs chalk 03 NIS: arrives at home? 04 COR: [g to board, draws a line-(.)] 05 NIS: [ in home. ] 06 COR: -->> writes ‘home’ next to ‘arrive’-(3.0) 07 +arrives home.+

+ g to NIS + 08 NIS: ^ arrives home. ^

^points then leans back^ 09 COR: arrives home. >yeah yeah yeah<. 10 NIS: nods

This question-answer sequence unfolds in what might be called a straightforward,

relatively unexpanded manner in terms of response design. Nisa formulates her question as an

alternative question, clearly seeking a confirmation on whether arrives at home or arrives in

home is correct (line 01). In response, Cory turns his gaze to the board and grabs a piece of

chalk; meanwhile, as Cory gears up to write, Nisa repeats her question, perhaps to ensure that

Cory can hear both options, ending the first option arrives at home with rising intonation (line

03) and the second in home with falling intonation (line 04). Cory first provides the answer to

Nisa’s question in the form of inscriptions (i.e., writing home next to arrives on the board, line

06) before he shifts his gaze to Nisa and utters arrives home—that in fact, no preposition is

necessary. With a pointing gesture and her body leaning back, Nisa embodies a “change-of-

state” as she receipts the answer, emphasizing the word home (line 08). Cory’s repeat of the

answer and Nisa’s nods finally bring the sequence to a close (lines 09-10).

In this case, Cory displays no observable trouble understanding and formulating a

response to Nisa’s question. His response includes only the information as Nisa requested—how

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to use home after arrive (i.e., arrives home; lines 06-07). With no elaboration, it can thus be

considered a minimal answer that stays strictly within the parameters of the question. However,

in my data set, a considerable number of question-answer sequences depart from this pattern:

Student questions can be vague or unclear; teacher responses can be expanded beyond the terms

and scopes of the questions; and students can receipt a teacher answer as unfitting or

unsatisfactory.

In this chapter, I have restricted my focus to such non-minimal, non-straightforward

instances. Specifically, to be included in my collection, cases of question-answer sequences had

to meet a number of criteria. The questions must be related to language learning (e.g.,

vocabulary, grammar) and are raised in teacher-whole class discussions. The answers should be

non-minimal with elements beyond the parameters of the question, which sometimes entails

going beyond the basic two-turn form of an adjacency pair (Schegloff, 2007). Out of a larger

collection of 48 question-answer sequences, 29 cases (60% of all questions) fit these criteria and

became the basis of the analysis for this chapter. My interest, then, is to examine why teachers

package their responses in this manner, what actions are accomplished, and importantly, their

implications for learner understanding.

Below, I begin by showing how teachers can design their response in such a way that it

not only addresses the question but also fosters a deeper understanding of the issue at hand,

transforming a student question into an “instructional asset” (St. John & Cromdal, 2016, p. 257).

I refer to this phenomenon as doing more than answering (cf. Bolden, 2009; Hutchby, 2006;

Steensig & Heinemann, 2013; Stivers & Heritage, 2001; Waring et al., 2018). Second, I describe

cases in which teacher responses are less than fitted to the question to different extents, as a

result of operating on either a “good enough” understanding (Levinson, 2013, p. 104) or a wrong

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assumption of the nature of the question. I gloss this group of responses as doing approximate

answering. Notably, question clarification is rare in my collection—with only two cases in the

entire collection where the teacher seeks clarification of the question before proceeding to

respond. I will consider one of these two cases in the final section of the analysis to offer a

contrast to the first two approaches. I will argue that in order for students’ learning needs to be

sufficiently addressed, a joint understanding of the nature of a question should be prioritized over

sequential progressivity.

Doing More Than Answering

Doing more than answering is the most common form of teacher responses in my

collection (14 out of 29 cases; 48%). In all question-answer sequences in this category, the

teacher volunteers more information than the question asks for. In other words, in addition to a

base component that answers the question as presented, the teacher also includes an auxiliary

element in their answer that enriches the pedagogical value of the response. This auxiliary

element could appear as an answer-preface that is addressed to the question or as a topic

expansion that supplements a recognizably complete answer. In so doing, the teacher

demonstrates a clear orientation to cultivating a principled understanding (Edward & Mercer,

1987) of a language item. Three such examples will be discussed in this section.

The first case exemplifies that an auxiliary turn component can appear before an answer

is given to highlight the pedagogical merit of a student question. Bonnie’s (BON) students are

preparing questions for an interview with a female Muslim student from a different class. As the

extract begins, Kenji (KEN) raises a question, prefacing it with can I say to ask Bonnie if the

way he phrases his question is acceptable (lines 02-06, see single arrowed turn). Notice that he

begins to laugh during a potentially sensitive or offensive part of his long question, where he

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asks about the consequence of not covering one’s face (Glenn, 2003; Lerner, 2013). A direct and

relevant response to Kenji’s question, as Kenji has requested, would address the phrasing and

pragmatic appropriateness of his question. But instead, Bonnie takes a detour: She commends

Kenji’s question and addresses its value before officially answering it (see double-arrowed turn).

Extract 5.2 (Bonnie 4_3 A delicate question) 01 BON: good. okay, uh Kenji. 02 KEN: --> mhm. uh can I say like (.) first of all I’d 03 like to respect your country, and I’d like 04 to ­know heh heh [$if women don’t cover 05 SS: [heh heh heh 06 KEN: their face, what will it happen?$ 07 BON: -->> +oh: okay. so, that’s very interesting

+ g to ss 08 because Kenji wants- he doesn’t want to 09 offe:nd her. 10 SOO: mm. 11 BON: but he wants to ask a delicate +question¿

+g to KEN 12 [+right?

+g to ss 13 KEN: [nods 14 BON: +so that’s very important+ to be tactful.

+ points at KEN + 15 (.) 16 -->> right? to be (0.2) +so you could say uhm

+glances between KEN and SS a. +pts at KEN with open palm

--> until line 30

17 (0.2) you could say I- I don’t want to be 18 disrespectful. 19 KEN: ^oh:::

^nods, grabs pen, g to notebook --> 20 BON: but I’d like to know, 21 KEN: mhm, 22 BON: I don’t want to be: 23 KEN: I don’t- I don’t want to be 24 disrespect(.)ful, 25 BON: + mhm, +

+head dip+ 26 KEN: but I would like to know, if wu- women 27 don’t cover their face, what will happen? 28 BON: to them. 29 KEN: to:: them. 30 BON: mhm.+ ­good. good question, Bingbing, do you

-->+withdraws pointing

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31 have a question?

Bonnie’s “detour” consists of several parts. First, she starts her turn by claiming

understanding with a slightly elongated change-of-state token (oh:; line 07) (Heritage, 1984).

She then produces the token okay (line 07), which, in the turn-initial position of a response turn,

could project that the upcoming multi-unit turn will begin with a component unrelated to the

conditionally relevant answer (DeSouza et al, 2021). Second, Bonnie shifts her gaze to other

students and begins to address Kenji in third person (lines 07-09). In so doing, she selects the rest

of the group, not Kenji, the questioner, to be the primary recipients of her response. Third,

Bonnie praises Kenji’s question with a positive assessment (that’s very interesting; line 07)

before articulating, on Kenji’s behalf, what motivated him to carefully word his question (Kenji

doesn’t want to offend her, but he wants to ask a delicate question?; lines 08-09 & 11). Given

that reporting one’s intent could be a risky interactional move, note that Bonnie shifts her gaze

back to Kenji towards the end of her turn in line 11, seeking Kenji’s confirmation of her

description with the question tag right. In the final move, she explicitly states the pedagogical

value of his question (line 14; it’s important to be tactful).

As Bonnie continues with what seems to be a second reason why Kenji’s question is

important (line 16; to be), she aborts it and begins to answer Kenji’s question, as indicated by her

open palm pointing at Kenji and addressing him directly with a recipient proterm you (so you

could say; line 16) (Lerner, 1993). Kenji receipts the answer first with a lengthened change-of-

state token oh:: (line 19), followed by an acknowledgement token mhm (line 21).

It bears mentioning that the students were preparing for an interview task where everyone

would be raising different questions. For the purpose of the interview task, Kenji’s question of

how he should phrase his question could be of interest to him only; however, what Bonnie

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accomplishes in packaging her response this way is to make Kenji’s question relevant to other

students by highlighting an issue that should be of broader concern for all student interviewers—

that it is important to be tactful when asking delicate questions and how an example of such

questions can be worded. By shifting her gaze to the rest of the class, positively evaluating

Kenji’s question, and explicitly articulating its pedagogical value, Bonnie thus establishes her

incipient answer to Kenji’s question as a learnable for the whole class (Majlesi & Broth, 2012).

In addition to appearing as an answer-preface, the auxiliary component can also be

produced as a topic extension after the answer to the question is offered. In our next case, this

component is an extension to the answer to a question about a vocabulary item. The segment

comes from a listening activity. The students have been given a worksheet with the lyrics of a

song and have listened to the song a few times. As the extract begins, Cory asks if the students

have questions about the words (line 01); in other words, the students are invited to name new

vocabulary words in the lyrics that they want Cory to explain. After the students study the lyrics

(line 02), Nisa (NIS) produces cos cos, repeating the short form twice to mark it as an unfamiliar

item (line 03).

Extract 5.3 Cory 2_13 Cos 01 COR: any questions about the words. 02 (7.0)-((ss and COR gaze to worksheet)) 03 NIS: --> cos cos,+

+g from worksheet to COR 04 COR: ah yeah so:: (.) +here in the middle it

+glances around +shows and points at worksheet

05 says co:s. 06 NIS: co:[s. 07 SS: [co:s. 08 COR: +what’s the- what’s the wor:d,

+glances around 09 (1.0) 10 CHI: because, 11 COR: -->> +it’s because.

+g to NIS 12 NIS: becau:se.

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13 COR: +so it’s actually because.+ + glances around +

14 CHI: because. 15 COR: -->> how many syllables because. 16 cos [(0.5)-glances around 17 nis [counts fingers, g to worksheet 18 (.) 19 COR: + be cause. +two syllables. but sometimes we

+counts on fgs+ 20 +shoop we shorten it. +and also: uhm:

+brings hands together +gaze to worksheet 21 ((singing))-+hold me like you’ll never let

+counts words on fingers +g to worksheet

22 me go. cos I’m lea:ving on a jet plane, 23 don’t know- +so they- they wanted to have

+gaze to ss 24 fe:wer syllables. [so they] don’t say 25 SS: [mm::: ] 26 COR: say cos. 27 (.) 28 yeah. 29 (.) 30 +and actually,+here in America +you often

+points at ear +points downward +pts at ear 31 hear cos. 32 NIS: ^cos. cos.^

^slight nod^ 33 COR: in- in spoken English you hear cos, and it 34 means because. 35 S?: because. 36 CHI: yeah yeah. 37 (0.5) 38 COR: ­great yeah. any other questions about 39 words.

After an insert expansion (lines 08-10) where other students are invited to identify cos in

the worksheet, Cory confirms Chiaki’s (CHI) suggestion in line 11 that cos is the same as

because. One could argue that at this point of the interaction, Nisa’s question has been

adequately dealt with. What we can observe, however, is that Cory extends his response by

initiating a topically related sequence how many syllables because (line 15). In the absence of a

student response, Cory provides the answer (be cause. two syllables; line 19). This is followed by

an explanation that promotes a better understanding of why cos is used. Cory points out that

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because can be shortened to cos (sometimes we shoop shorten it; line 19). He then provides

another reason for using the short form, singing the lyrics and counting words on his fingers,

showing that the melody limits the number of syllables. He extends his response with yet another

piece of useful information about cos, this time broadening the scope to how the word is used in

speaking (and actually here in American you often hear cos in spoken English; lines 29-30),

before coming full circle to reiterating the answer and closing the sequence (and it means

because; lines 32-33). Notice that, in extending his explanation this way, Cory goes beyond

answering Nisa’s question by explaining why and how cos is used. This way, a seemingly simple

question can be leveraged to foster students’ principled understanding of a very commonly used

word, cos.

In the final case in this section, an auxiliary component is occasioned by the teacher’s

mistake and designed as a post-expansion exploring whether an alternative answer is possible.

Right before the segment begins, the students compared answers of a fill-in-the-blanks exercise

in pairs. Cory asked the students if they had questions before going over answers with the entire

group. Rika (RIK) asks about the item “The train _______ in Tokyo at midnight” (line 03). Upon

hearing Pok’s suggestion arrive, Rika asks Cory if it is the answer. As will be shown, after

approving arrives (line 08), Cory mistakenly suggests that there could be an alternative answer

(line 11). After correcting himself and reaffirming that arrives is the only option, Cory expands

his response and transforms his mistake into a teachable moment.

Extract 5.4 (Cory 2_13 The train arrives in Tokyo) 01 RIK: (0.2)-raises hand 02 COR: +yeah. what’s your question.+

+points at RIK +g to textbook 03 RIK: --> the train:, 04 (1.0) 05 POK: arrive. 06 RIK: arrive? 07 (0.2)

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08 COR: yeah. 09 (0.5) 10 -->> uh: it could be the train arri::ves in 11 Kyoto: at midnight,+ ­o:r, it ­could be:,

+g to ss 12 +(1.0) >oh no no hang on +n(h)o n(h)o< heh

+g to textbook +waves 13 heh (0.8)-slaps his hand bad English 14 speaker. heh [heh heh 15 SS: [heh heh heh 16 (0.2) 17 COR: -->> .hh uhm only arri::ves. 18 RIK: [^arrives.^]

^ nods ^

19 JUL: only arrive. 20 RIK: o[kay. 21 CHI: [arrive. 22 COR: -->> +what was I thinking. 23 +finger at temple, scans room --> until line 27 24 POK: because the train. 25 COR: um? 26 POK: train. 27 COR: +so the train:: (0.5) I was thinking

+g to textbook 28 +lea:ves,

+g to ss 29 LUC: [^leaves yeah.

^nods

30 CHI: [ leaves. 31 SS: [ nod 32 COR: but it’s not leaves.=why? 33 S?: leave. 34 S?: leave. 35 (.) 36 BAE: leaves? 37 (1.0) 38 POK: because- 39 COR: +the train arri:ves [ (0.2) ]

+g to textbook 40 POK: [because the train.] 41 COR: +i::n Kyoto,

+g to ss 42 S?: um::. 43 COR: but the train- the train leaves +i:n

+scrunched 44 K[ yo]to?+

up face + 45 LUC: [no.] 46 COR: no.

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47 S?: oh:: 48 MAK: nods 49 COR: yeah. we could say the train leaves ((tongue 50 click))-tch (.) Kyoto. 51 BAE: at. 52 COR: (0.2)-shakes head from. 53 CHI: ­from. 54 COR: yeah the train lea::ves from:: Kyoto.= 55 CHI: =­from Kyoto. 56 (0.2) 57 but arrives in. 58 SS: nod

After Pok and Rika suggest arrive (lines 05-06), Cory first acknowledges the suggestion

(yeah; line 08), then goes on to frame it as one possible answer (it could be the train arrives in

Kyoto; line 10) before proposing that there might be another alternative, delivering the

conjunction or and the modal could be with marked prosody and extra stress (or, it could be; line

11). Notice that just as he is about to provide the second possible answer, he retracts it with a

change-of-state token, followed by the expression hang on sandwiched between a series of no

punctuated with laugh tokens (oh no no hang on no no; line 12). After this dramatized

realization, he jokingly “punishes” himself by slapping his own hand and calls himself a bad

English speaker (line 14). After his and the students’ laughter subsides (lines 15-16), he clarifies

that the answer is only arrives. The answer is subsequently registered by a number of students

with repeats and nods (lines 19-22).

At this point, from a sequential perspective, given that Rika, as well as the rest of the

class, have been given a definitive answer (i.e., only arrive), the question-answer sequence could

be brought to a possible close. Note, however, that Cory launches a new sequence that

topicalizes his initial trouble deciding what the correct answer should be (line 23; what was I

thinking). With this question, Cory is inviting students to consider which alternative word choice

he thought was possible. Here, instead of closing the sequence, he is encouraging the students to

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examine other options available and why they cannot be answers to the item Rika asks about.

With none other than Pok’s attempt (lines 24, 26), Cory reveals that he was considering leaves

(lines 27-28); tellingly, the students respond to this wrong answer exactly the way they

responded to the correct answer arrives: They repeat leaves and nods (lines 29-31), seemingly

agreeing that leaves is also acceptable. When Cory points out but it’s not leaves, stressing not

and latching the question word why to it (line 33), some students change the form to leave (lines

33-34). None seems to be able to point out why leaves is an incorrect choice.

With no explanation forthcoming, Cory reads aloud the item in question with arrives

(lines 39, 41), then contrasts it with another version of the target sentence featuring leaves,

ending the TCU with a rising intonation. In particular, he displays a critical stance by scrunching

up his face when uttering leaves (but the train- the train leaves in Kyoto?; lines 43-44). By

placing the most prominent sentential stress on in, Cory highlights the incompatibility of leaves

and in. Lucila, who previously agreed that leaves could also be an alternative answer, now

recognizes Cory’s action of rejecting leaves as an answer and produces an anticipatory no (line

45). This paves the way for Cory to discuss collocations, an important extension from this fill-in-

the-blank item (i.e., arrives at vs. leaves from; lines 49-57). By engaging the students in

exploring why arrives and not leaves is the answer, Cory seizes an opportunity to broaden

students’ knowledge about collocation. Thus, like previous examples, this expansion enriches

what would otherwise be just a simple answer to a fill-in-the blank question; in other words, in

addition to providing the what, as requested by the student question, he also focuses on the why.

In sum, the teacher can go beyond “answering” when crafting a response to a student

question. In addition to supplying information a student requested, they can also include an

auxiliary component that is either prefaces the question (Extract 5.2) or expands the answer

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(Extracts 5.3 and 5.4). As the analysis has shown, the provision of this auxiliary component

transcends the scope of the answer in a way that is conducive to learning: It can transform a

student’s inquiry about how to get the wording right into a mini-lesson on the importance of

being tactful when asking sensitive questions (Extract 5.2); it can cultivate students’

understanding of the use of a vocabulary word and the reasons for its use in context as opposed

to only knowing the form or meaning (Extract 5.3); it can also stimulate critical thinking and

attention to contextual clues by exploring why an option, as opposed to other options that are

available, is the correct answer (Extract 5.4). In all three cases, by volunteering more

information than the question asks for, the teacher can incorporate their teaching agenda that

aligns with, and is nonetheless occasioned by, the student question, in ways similar to how

patients can depart from the scope of the doctor’s question and expand their answers to introduce

their own concerns (Stivers & Heritage, 2001). As such, this response design demonstrates

teachers’ orientation to what Edward and Mercer (1987) describe as principled understanding—

understanding and mastering not only the what, but also the why.

Doing Approximate Answering

I will now turn to cases in my collection (13 out of 29 cases, 49%) where the teacher’s

response to a student question with what I gloss an approximate answer. Unlike cases in the

previous category where the teacher clearly answers the question, what characterizes this group

of cases is that the fittedness of question and response is much less straightforward; these teacher

responses can be arrayed on a continuum in terms of degrees of “unfittedness.” In what follows, I

will detail how teachers “calculate” (or miscalculate) a student’s problem and design their

responses, sometimes doing so despite confusing or problematic question formulations. In

particular, the rarity of an explicit clarification of the problem reflects how teachers proceed

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based on “good-enough understanding” (Levinson, 2013, p. 204) of the question based on their

presumed access to their students’ problem. Three types of answers emerged from this group of

cases, namely, (1) answering the “possible” question, (2) answering a related question, and (3)

answering the wrong question. The analysis moves from more to less fitting responses, and three

exemplars from each type of answers will be presented.

Answering the “Possible” Question

By answering the “possible” question, I refer to how teachers design their response to a

telegraphic or equivocal question based on their diagnosis of what the student is asking without

first initiating a repair. In Extract 5.5 below, we see how Cory appears to be able to discern the

learning problem that prompted the student question, even though the question itself is poorly

formulated. This segment is taken from an activity where students were asked to change all

subjects in a reading passage from plural to singular. Cory demonstrated the conversion with an

example, these people to this person before students worked in pairs. The extract begins after

pair work and Cory is initiating several understanding-checks (lines 01-05). Chiaki takes the

opportunity to raise a question in the form of a candidate understanding: these people are the

same uh this people (line 06-07).

Extract 5.5 (Cory 4_17 These people) 01 COR: okay. any questions? okay? 02 (0.5) 03 Mikhail any questions? 04 MIK: ((smiles)) 05 COR: Chiaki any questions? 06 CHI: --> uh: there- these people is same: uh:: (.) 07 this people. 08 (0.8) 09 --> these people equal a ­person.=sorry. 10 COR: -->> that’s right yeah.=cos um: we’ve got these 11 people, (0.2) but + this + person.

+one fg up+ 12 CHI: this person. 13 COR: this person. ºyeah.º 14 (.)

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15 CHI: ºthank you.º 16 COR: normally in English, we say:: +this- this

+holds up a pen

17 pen, +these pens:::,+ but with people, it’s +holds up 2 pens+

18 +(.) a- a different word. people, +many many +shakes head and upper body +fingers up, beat gesture

19 people, but + one +person. [ºyeah.º +one fg up+

20 CHI: [nods 21 (2.0) 22 NIS: ((turns to COR after talking to MIN, her 23 group work partner))-(syl syl singular) 24 COR: +yeah that’s right.

+g to NIS Following a 0.8-second gap (line 08), which suggests that Cory has trouble responding to

her question, Chiaki revises her candidate understanding into these people equal a person (line

09), appending an apology sorry to show that her previous formulation might have caused

confusion. Though what Chiaki means by equal remains ambiguous, she does identify the

singular and plural form of people as the subject of her inquiry.

Despite the ambiguity, Cory proceeds with an answer without initiating a repair, showing

that he is able to offer a best guess of what Chiaki means by same or equal in her question

formulation (lines 6 & 9). In fact, Cory immediately confirms Chiaki’s understanding with that’s

right, yeah (line 10). He latches a TCU prefaced by cos onto the confirmation (line 10) to

introduce the reason why these people and this person are equal, with an embedded repair

replacing Chiaki’s a person (line 09) to this person (line 11). When stating the reason, Cory

highlights the contrast between the plural and singular form through stress (we’ve got these

people, but this person; lines 10-11). From Cory’s response design, then, he is constructing

Chiaki’s question to possibly mean: “do these people and this person have the same referent,

even though the singular and plural form are spelled differently?” Here, Cory draws on his

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expertise to arrive at a specific understanding of an ambiguous term in the student’s question, an

expertise that enables him to address the concern behind Chiaki’s question. Chiaki receipts

Cory’s explanation by repeating this person in falling intonation (line 10), and later after Cory’s

repetition, she closes the sequence with thank you in sotto voce (line 15), but does so only after a

micropause (line 14). Given these comparatively weak claims of understanding, it is possible that

Chiaki’s question has not been sufficiently addressed.

Cory indeed treats such minimal uptake from Chiaki as grounds for further explanation.

In line 16, he expands his explanation to Chiaki’s question by discussing the formation of

singular/plural forms in general. By talking about the regular pattern (this pen vs. these pens;

lines 29-30), then pointing out that these people vs. this person is an exception (lines 31-32), he

further addresses what he considers to be the concern that occasions Chiaki’s inquiry: Like how

pens and pen have the same referents, the irregular forms these people and this person so too

have the same referent. Chiaki again receipts this minimally with a head nod (line 20). While

Cory provides a detailed explanation of regular and irregular nouns, whether his analysis of

Chiaki’s possible question aligns with Chiaki’s source of confusion remains opaque.

Extract 5.6 demonstrates a similar pattern, that despite a vague student question, Cory

nevertheless provides a response that articulates the student’s concern. This segment takes place

immediately after Extract 5.4, where Rika asked about the fill-in-the-blank item the train arrives

in Kyoto at midnight. Nisa (NIS) raises a follow up question on the use of arrives (line 06). In a

rather telegraphic way, she presents what appears to be a candidate understanding, arrives is

time, which again makes relevant a confirmation or disconfirmation. Cory responds with an open

class repair um in rising intonation (line 07) (Drew, 1997). Nisa subsequently repairs her turn by

inserting a micropause between arrive is and time and coupling arrive and time with a hand

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gesture formed by her thumb and index finger, where the two gestures visibly depict two

positions along a horizontal line (line 08; Figure 5.1 and 5.2). Though delayed and preceded by

some speech perturbation, Cory’s next turn, uh yes (line 10) nevertheless confirms Nisa’s

candidate understanding. He quickly abandons what appears to be a repeat of Nisa’s candidate

structure and launches a detailed explanation (lines 13-14).

Extract 5.6 (Cory 2_13 Arrives is time) 01 COR: yeah, but arrives in. 02 LUC: [nods 03 BAE: [nods 04 MIK: [nods 05 (1.8) 06 NIS: --> .h arrives is time (this is). 07 COR: um? 08 NIS: #^arrives is (.) #^time.

^thumb & index ^moves the space to form a space her right fig #5.6.1 #5.6.2

09 ^(0.5)

^palm wiggles 10 COR: uh: yes. 11 NIS: yes. 12 COR: -->> yeah arri- >ah well-< 13 gets up, walks to board-(4.0) 14 erases one section-(5.0) 15 draws a square-(1.0) 16 +something, arrives, +(4.0) +somewhere,

+pts at square +draws + pts at rectangles rectangles

17 a place, +(3.0)# +draws a clock fig #5.6.3, the blackboard

18 NIS: ºtime.º nods 19 COR: time. so the tra:in arrives >what’s the 20 word?< 21 (1.0)

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22 MIN: in. 23 COR: in. (0.5)-writes ‘in’ next to arrives the 24 train arrives in Kyoto at midnight. spreads 25 arm & whistles-(1.2) 26 CHI: uh plane. 27 COR: (0.2)-points at ‘square’ the plane, points 28 at ‘arrives’ 29 POK: arrives. 30 COR: points at ‘in’ 31 POK: in. 32 COR: Kyoto at twelve o’clock. 33 draws lines-(4.0) 34 writes ‘leaves’-(1.0) +preposition?

+points at space next to ‘leaves’

35 CHI: from. 36 COR: from. (1.5)-writes ‘from’ the plane leaves 37 from +JF^K (.) +at midnight.

+points +points at at rectangles clock nis ^nods-->

38 (.) 39 COR: at lunchtime.^

nis -->^ 40 CHI: daytime? 41 (0.5) 42 COR: in the daytime. 43 CHI: in the daytime. 44 (3.0) 45 at midnight, very specific. at lunchtime, 46 �lunchtime twelve o’clock. daytime, 47 arms spread-(0.5) quite long. >so we say< 48 in the day time.

Despite a rather elliptical question formulation, when structuring his explanation, we can

see that Cory begins by drawing a complete sentence structure on the board, beyond just the two

fragments that Nisa has named in her question: something arrives somewhere, a place, time

(lines 16-17; Figure 5.3). This structure is subsequently illustrated with several examples,

beginning with a fill-in-the-blanks item the class has just discussed (the train arrives; lines 19-

20). Cory stops right after so the train arrives to elicit the prepositional in (lines 19-23). When he

repeats the entire example again, he extends the sentence to include a prepositional phrase of

time (the train arrives in Kyoto at midnight; lines 23-24). To provide the next example, Cory

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elicits the subject by mimicking an airplane (lines 24-25). After Chiaki’s correct guess (the

plane; line 24), he points at the “square” on the board to indicate that the plane belongs to the

subject slot in the overarching structure he has laid out (line 27). To elicit subsequent syntactic

elements, he points at their respective slot on the board one by one, inviting the students to read

aloud what is on the board (arrives in; lines 27-31). This response design shows that Cory orients

to Nisa’s inquiry as a question about syntax—whether an expression of time can follow arrive,

and if yes, what the structure would look like.

This orientation to syntax being the main concern underlying Nisa’s question is also

shown in the third example that begins in line 36. Notice that he begins to use a new verb, leaves,

and again eliciting the preposition (i.e., from) that follows leaves from the students (lines 34-36).

He completes the sentence with JFK (i.e., place), at midnight (i.e., time), then offering another

phrase at lunchtime (line 39) while pointing at the corresponding elements in the structure he has

laid out on the board (line 37). In so doing, Cory shows that leaves, like arrives, can also be

followed by a prepositional phrase of place and a prepositional phrase of time.

One can therefore argue that his response, by clearly focusing on illuminating the full

syntactic structure involving verbs like arrive and leave, makes clear that time, one element in

Nisa’s telegraphic question, is one of the optional complements for arrive, another element in

Nisa’s question. What Cory does, then, is providing a broader explanation that potentially

subsumes a concern that motivates Nisa’s question. That is, Cory has answered a possible

question. Indeed, Nisa’s nods throughout Cory’s explanation (lines 18 and 37-39) are carefully

timed with Cory’s discussion of prepositional phrase of time; however, the minimal nature of her

understanding display, along with how quickly the discussion diverges into prepositions that

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collocate with daytime (lines 40-48), leaves open the question whether Cory’s answer is indeed a

fitting response.

The teacher’s judgement or inference of a student’s possible learning issue is also

displayed in how they articulate the source of a student’s confusion on her behalf, as shown in

the last case in this section. In Extract 5.6 below, the class is going over answers of an exercise

that involves studying a picture, deciding whether a list of “there is/are” statements are true or

false, and correcting the false statements. Juliana suggests, in sotto voce, that the correct answer

is there are (line 03). Right after Cory accepts Bae’s answer there is a pair of boots as correct

(line 04), Juliana (JUL) shifts her gaze from the textbook to Cory (line 05) and produces a

noticing: it’s singular (line 07).

Extract 5.7 Cory a pair of boots 01 COR: +so number four?

+lifts head gaze around 02 +Bae?=

+points at BAE 03 JUL: =ºthere are.º 04 BAE: there is a pair of boots. 05 COR: >yeah.< ^there: i:s a:: pair +of boots.

jul ^shifts g from textbook to COR cor +g to JUL

06 COR: there is [ a: pair ]of boots. 07 JUL: --> [it’s singular.] 08 COR: -->> ­uhm: +tch okay. so Juliana’s question.

+points at Jul +g to ss

09 (0.2) 10 + boots.+

+ thumb + glances around the room 11 (0.2) 12 +#pl[ural.]

+ holds at thumb + g to JUL

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fig #5.7.1

13 JUL: [plur ]al. 14 (0.5) 15 COR: + a pair: of.

+ ring middle index 16 + a pair of?

+ circles above three fgs 17 + a (.) pair of? +#is this plural?

+ring middle index +points at ring --> +furrowed brows fig #5.7.2

18 NIS: (^uh yeah.)

^nods 19 COR: [shakes head, holds at ring finger] 20 NIS: [ eh- eh- no. ] 21 COR: + a pair of boots.=+boots, plural.

+ring middle index thumb +thumb 22 COR: + a pair, singular. +tch tch tch (0.8)+

+ring middle +taps pinky and ring+ repeatedly +glance around the room

23 JUL: ^okay.^ ^ nods^

24 COR: nods, g to JUL so it should be:: d 25 (0.5)-taps pinky 26 (0.2)-‘come’ gesture, #places thumb next to

pinky, holds gesture until line 61 --> fig #5.7.3

27 JUL: uhm:(1.5)+

cor -->+shifts g to other ss

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28 COR: +so what’s the whole sentence. + a [pair +points to all fingers on display +ring middle

29 JUL: [ºpairº 30 COR: [+ of boots + (.) +

+index thumb + wiggles pinky+ 31 JUL: [ºof boots.º 32 NIS: is. 33 COR: is. there i:s a pair of boots. 34 JUL: okay. 35 COR: yeah. there is a pair of boots.

Juliana’s noticing in line 07 conveys a sense of surprise at the discrepancy, and, by

extension, her confusion with the answer. What Cory does next displays his sensitivity to

Juliana’s noticing as sign of trouble. His response begins with uhm delivered in high pitch and a

rhythmic prosody (line 08), hearably conveying a sense of intrigue. He then shifts his gaze to

other students while pointing at Juliana as he produces tch okay (line 08). This enables him to

direct students’ attention to Juliana before announcing so Juliana’s question (line 8). In so

saying, Cory explicitly frames Juliana’s noticing as implicating a possible question.

What we see next is how Cory articulates Juliana’s possible question and devises an

explanation accordingly. Cory first draws attention to the noun boots (line 10), then after a brief

pause (line 11), pairs it with a corresponding metalinguistic label, plural (line 12) while tapping

his thumb (Figure 7.1). With a pause preceding and following each of these two lexical TCUs,

Cory’s slowed rhythm is hearbly marking boots, plural as the crux of Juliana’s trouble,

articulating her question as: Given that boots is a plural noun, why is the answer a singular verb?

(line 05). Cory then sets up a contrast between boots and a pair of by repeating the phrase three

times (lines 15-17): the first time stressing the word pair, the second time in rising intonation, the

third time stressing a and in rising intonation, each time counting a, pair, and of on his ring,

middle, and index finger, respectively. This effectively spotlights the phrase and sets the stage

for his next question—a reversed polarity question (Koshik, 2002a): is this plural? (line 17),

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uttered as Cory furrows his bows and points at his ring finger (Figure 7.2), which symbolizes the

indefinite article a in this local context. Cory’s question, then, conveys a negative assertion that

addresses Juliana’s possible question: The indefinite article a is not plural, and therefore,

singular. Following an incorrect answer from Nisa, Cory clarifies that while boots is plural, a

pair of is singular (lines 21-22). The explanation culminates in Cory highlighting the agreement

between the verb and the indefinite article, which is done through wiggling his pinky and ring

finger repeatedly while producing a few non-lexical vocalizations (tch tch tch; line 22).

Juliana treats this as the completion of the explanation, offering the acknowledgement

token okay while nodding (line 23). Notice Cory does not treat it as sufficient: He shifts his gaze

back to Juliana, still tapping his pinky, initiates a designedly incomplete utterance to invite her to

supply is (Koshik, 2002b) (so it should be; line 24). When no response is forthcoming, Cory adds

a thumb next to the pinky, using two fingers to create two slots and prompting her to provide

there is (line 26; Figure 7.3). But despite the explanation and the more scaffolded elicitation,

Juliana is still not offering a response (line 27). Cory then directs the next elicitation to the class

through gaze shift and redoes his initiation again (lines 28-29). Finally, the correct answer is

provided by Nisa (line 32)— and not Juliana—who once again receipts the answer with okay

only (line 34).

Thus, by answering a possible question, the teacher displays a specific “reading” of a

student question, a kind of professional vision (Goodwin, 1994) that enables teachers to provide

a diagnostic solution to a student problem even when the question has atypical syntax or

wordings (Extracts 5.5, 5.6) or when a learner displays confusion without explicitly formulating

a question (Extract 5.7). It must be noted, however, that the answer to the question is received

with rather weak uptake; a major caveat, then, is that while the student does receipt the answer,

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given the pressure to align with the teacher, we cannot be sure if that is indeed what the student

intended to ask.

Answering a Related Question

Unlike the previous section where the student question is obscure, the question in the

cases below, despite featuring non-target-like forms, provides sufficient information for the

teacher to understand the nature of the query. However, when dealing with such questions, the

teacher could deviate from what the student establishes to be the problem as posed in the

question and instead address something related in the response. In this section, we thus move

closer to the more unfitting end of the spectrum and examine how teachers answer a related

question. As will be shown, these responses satisfy the student question to a certain degree,

though there is a noticeable departure from its agenda.

Prior to the extract below, Cory provided a reformulation of a student’s report about

Lucila to demonstrate the spent + v-ing structure: Lucila spent her time at university studying to

be a dentist. In line 06, Bae appears to be seeking confirmation of the utterance: Lucila spent her

time at university for dentistry? Based on the design of the question, it is ambiguous whether Bae

is seeking a confirmation or if she wants a clarification of whether Lucila indeed studied

dentistry (as opposed to other subjects). When her turn fails to secure a response from Cory, Bae

narrows down her trouble source to the word dentistry, ending the turn with an elongated or to

indicate uncertainty (Drake, 2015) while glancing between Cory and Lucila (line 09).

Extract 5.8 (Cory 3_27 Dentistry) 01 COR: write me a short paragraph. 02 (0.5) 03 about how you spent your time before, and 04 how you spend your time now. yeah. 05 SS: nod 06 BAE: --> Lucila spent her time at university for 07 dentistry? 08 (0.2)

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09 ^dentistry or: ^glances between COR and LUC

10 COR: (0.2)-gets up from chair 11 LUC: ºdentist.º 12 COR: yeah. walks to board writes 13 (6.0)-writes ‘to be a dentist’ 14 -->> yeah so she spent her time studying, (0.2) 15 uh to be a: dentist. she spent her time 16 studying to be +a: (0.8) a doctor.+

+writes ‘doctor’ + 17 BAE: writes, gaze between board and notebook

--->> until the end of extract

18 COR: (1.5) 19 she spent her time study- so I spent my 20 time uh studying: uh language. eh my 21 brother spent his time studying uh 22 engineering. cos he makes planes. 23 (6.0)-writes ‘study’, ‘language’, & 24 ‘engineering’ 25 uh:m +but what’s the subject for this.

+points at ‘dentist’ on board 26 (3.0)+

-->+ 27 LUC: science and biology. 28 COR: science and biology or: the big subject o:f 29 being a dentist is dentistry. 30 CHI: ººdentisty.ºº 31 COR: (3.0)-writes ‘dentistry’ 32 dentistry. >so it’s like< dentistry, 33 [chemistry,] psychology, uhm:(0.8) biology, 34 BAE: [slight nod] 35 COR: so it’s the subject. 36 (0.5) 37 ººmm yeah.ºº .hh what’s the subject. 38 LUC: similar. 39 COR: well we don’t say dentistry. 40 LUC: but the- it’s the tomy- anatomy? 41 (.) 42 medicine. 43 COR: yeah. for a doctor, studying medicine.

With her repair dentistry or: (line 09), Bae clarifies that she is unsure whether dentistry is

the correct word for that specific syntactic slot. As Cory gets up from his chair and walks to the

board, projecting that he is going to produce a lengthy response, Lucila offers dentist (line 10) as

an alternative word choice in place of dentistry, treating Bae’s question as one that is asking

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what word could fit the syntactic structure she uses.

However, when designing his response, Cory chooses to first revisit and clarify the

structure of spent + v-ing, the just-prior pedagogical focus. After writing to be a dentist on the

board (line 13), Cory repeats the target utterance he offered earlier in the talk: yeah so she spent

her time studying uh to be a dentist (lines 14-15). He then demonstrates the structure using three

more examples describing different people studying different subjects (lines 15-21). There is a

clear focus on demonstrating how this sentence structure can be replicated and how it can better

express what Bae intends to say; and while Bae’s question is indeed occasioned by and related to

this sentence structure, repeating how the structure works is clearly not responsive to what Bae

indicates to be her problem: whether dentistry can fit that specific syntactic slot, and if not, what

words can.

After writing key words from his examples on the board (lines 22-23), Cory shifts the

focus to the vocabulary of fields of study. Prefacing his question with but, he projects a pivot in

topic and initiates a question for the group, what’s the subject for this while pointing at the word

dentist (line 24). After Lucila suggests a rather broad area (science and biology; line 26), Cory

introduces the answer: the big subject of being a dentist is dentistry (lines 27-28), highlighting

the -try and -logy suffix when referring to different fields of studies (it’s like dentistry, chemistry,

psychology, uhm biology; lines 31-33). However, this explanation, while addressing a

grammatical pattern subsuming the word dentistry, again does not address whether dentistry can

be used in her sentence. And while both parts of Cory’s answer can be said to be related to Bae’s

question, given Bae’s question formulation, a more fitting response would be to explain how

dentistry can be used in the sentence slot that she specifies. In particular, at least as evidenced in

the first part of his two-part answer, Cory treats a prior pedagogical focus as Bae’s problem,

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reinstating his original explanation rather than responding to Bae’s trouble with dentistry. Other

than writing down Cory’s explanation (line 17) and nodding slightly (line 35), no other claims or

display of understanding from Bae can be observed.

In the next example, the teacher offers a type-conforming confirmation after the student’s

question, but it is the subsequent explanation that suggests something related and not the exact

question itself is being addressed. In an activity involving changing direct questions into indirect

ones, Bonnie elicited a list of questions the students wanted to ask about the American artist

Andy Warhol and provided a list of phrases that can begin indirect questions (e.g., I’d like to

know, I wonder, etc.), emphasizing that the phrases have the same meaning. As an example,

Bonnie demonstrated how to change a direct question “what do Americans think about Andy

Warhol’s artwork” to an indirect question “I wonder what Americans think about Andy Warhol’s

artwork” on the board. Right before individual work begins, Jing (JIN), whose task is to

transform her question “what is the meaning of a can of soup” into an indirect question, raises a

question in line 12.

Extract 5.9 (Bonnie 2_20 Without do) 01 BON: okay so now, change your question where 02 your name is, beginning with I would like 03 to know:, I really want to know:, I wonder, 04 can you tell me, and rewrite your question, 05 beginning one of these. 06 [(0.5)-nods 07 SS: [nod, g down, start writing 08 BON: +do you unders-

+g to REB 09 JIN: ah Bonnie, +I have a question.

bon +g to JIN 10 BON: yes.[uh let’s listen to Jing’s question. 11 JIN: [syl- 12 --> ^all these uh ah beginning sentence, used

^points at board --> until line 21 13 (.) uh: like I wonder. 14 BIN: -->> yes. they ha- all have similar meanings. 15 JIN: uh for example I really want to know what

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16 American +peoples (0.2)+ uh think about bon + slight nods +

17 JIN: [Andy War- 18 BON: [+exactly.+

+big nod + 19 JIN: --> oh: no- without do or without- 20 BON: -->> exactly. they all function in the same way. 21 JIN: retracts points, nods, g to notebook and writes

Here in lines 12-13, Jing presents a candidate understanding of the focal grammar point.

By all these uh ah beginning sentence (line 12), Jing is likely referring to the list of phrases that

work as sentence beginnings in indirect questions, as evidenced in her co-speech gesture of

pointing at the board. Though the next TCU used uh like I wonder is non-target like (line 12), in

the context of the grammar task the students are about to undertake, the word use probably refers

to whether other beginning phrases can be used the same way as I wonder, as Bonnie has

illustrated in her example.

In response to Jing’s candidate understanding, Bonnie offers an emphatic confirmation

(yes; line 14), but observe that immediately thereafter, Bonnie elaborates her answer with they all

have similar meanings, something that she previously emphasized when introducing the phrases.

Topically, this elaboration invokes an understanding integral to the individual grammar task—

that Jing can in fact choose any sentence beginning as they all have the same meaning; however,

this elaboration is not entirely congruent with Jing’s specific concern on the use, as opposed to

the meaning, of these sentence beginnings.

Rather than accepting Bonnie’s confirmation, Jing reworks her inquiry by replacing the

sentence beginning in Bonnie’s example with another phrase: I really want to know what

American peoples uh think about Andy War- (lines 15-16). By checking whether using another

sentence beginning, I really want to know, can yield an acceptable indirect question, Jing makes

clear that her inquiry is about whether the syntactic operation for other sentence beginnings work

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similarly to I wonder. Bonnie confirms with a strong agreement token exactly accompanied by a

big nod (line 18). After a slightly elongated change-of-state token (Heritage, 1984), Jing clarifies

her inquiry once more to target the omission of auxiliary verb (without do or without-; line 19).

But before Jing completes the second prepositional phrase, Bonnie begins to respond, again

offering a confirmation with an emphatic exactly (line 20). What gets highlighted in her ensuing

elaboration, they all function in the same way (line 20), is that these phrases share the same

syntactic function, and by extension, the same utility in transforming direct questions; however, a

more fitted response that caters to Jing’s emerging trouble—at least based on her candidate

understanding in line 19—would specify whether the same syntactic transformation is

unanimously required for all questions, particularly considering that the one Jing is working on is

in fact an exception (i.e., her question “what is the meaning of a can of soup” in fact does not

require the same operation). At the end of the extract, Jing nods and proceeds to start the writing

task (line 21). It appears that she understands enough to “move on,” but it remains unclear if she

eventually produces a correct indirect question.

A similar pattern can be observed in the final example, that while a type-conforming

confirmation ostensibly fulfills the sequential requirement of the question, the ensuing

explanation does not offer information most pertinent to the inquiry. Prior to the extract, the class

has been identifying tenses in sentences, and Cory has pointed out that what are you watching

next week refers to the future. As we join the class, he is standing at the board explaining that the

present continuous can also be used to talk about the present (lines 01-03). After this

explanation, Nisa raises a question in line 04, one that is prefaced with but.

Extract 5.10 (Cory 4_8 The future) 01 COR: yeah so we can also u:se +this to talk

+pts at ‘what are you watching now’ on board

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02 about +now as well. +what are you watching. +pts at ‘now’ +starts walking back to on timeline his chair

03 what are you watching now. 04 NIS: --> but what are you watching is future- future 05 tense?=same (will/be) going to okay eh 06 future. 07 COR: [yeah.] 08 NIS: [ but ]sometimes we are using the ^future.

^brings R hand forward

09 COR: yeah. so [in- 10 NIS: [is- ^(syl syl) is +possible (0.5)

^points at board cor +turns around, g to board --> until line 14

11 NIS: make, 12 COR: (1.2) ºeh:º 13 NIS: yes [now but- ] 14 COR: [+yes. yeah.]

--> +g to NIS 15 NIS: but- (0.5)-scratches head, smiles 16 COR: -->> yeah. so English is really interesting. the 17 pa:st,(0.5)-stomps his foot we know- we know 18 about the past. 19 SS: ^mm.

^nods 20 COR: but the future, we don’t know about the 21 past. so: in English, we’ve got +lots of

+counts fingers 22 way:s to talk+ about the past. >uh about<

-->+ 23 the future. because for the future, we 24 don’t rea:lly know. 25 (.) 26 +for English speakers.

+points at himself 27 NIS: nods 28 COR: so we u::se many many ^different ways: to

nis ^takes picture of the board -->>

29 talk about the future. nods 30 SS: mm::: 31 (0.2) 32 COR: yeah. >and we can-< we can do those (0.5) 33 uh (.) next week if you are interested.

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Nisa’s question begins with a TCU asking for a confirmation of whether the present

continuous can be used to describe the future (but what are you watching now is future- future

tense?; lines 04-05). The next TCU, latched onto to this question, displays her knowledge of two

future forms (same will/be going to okay eh future; line 06). Nisa could therefore be asking

whether the present continuous tense can be used to express the future in ways similar to will and

be going to do.

In response, Cory immediately offers a yeah to confirm Nisa’s candidate understanding

(line 07), which overlaps with Nisa’s continuation in line 08. Here, Nisa produces a but-prefaced

turn construction unit (TCU), which hearably introduces a concern: but sometimes we are using

the future, with the last word future coupled with her hand pointing to the blackboard. Cory

again responds with a confirming yeah (line 09), but his continuation so in is cut off as Nisa

extends her turn with an interrogative that is difficult to hear (lines 10-11) and subsequently not

comprehended by Cory (line 12). With yes now but- (line 13), Nisa is marking the use of the

present continuous to refer to now as unproblematic, thereby implying that her issue is with

another use that Cory has previously noted, namely, the future. However, Nisa pauses at this

point, scratches her head and smiles (line 15), embodying trouble articulating her question.

To address Nisa’s concern, Cory could explicate how the present continuous tense is

different from other future forms Nisa has noted (i.e., will and be going to) in indicating the

future. However, what Cory provides in his ensuing explanation is an account of why there are

different future forms. After yeah, Cory offers an assessment, English is really interesting (line

16) before contrasting the past with the future, attributing the uncertainty regarding the future as

a reason for the many future forms available (lines 16-24). He adds an increment after a brief gap

(line 25), pointing at himself and explaining that such conception of time is at least true for

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English speakers (line 26). He concludes by reiterating that English speakers use many many

different ways to talk about the future (lines 28-29). As such, Cory chooses to address Nisa’s

puzzle about the present continuous by explaining something related—why there are different

future forms in the first place—rather than how the present continuous can be used to refer to the

future, which lies at the heart of Nisa’s question. Notice that Nisa’s uptake of Cory’s explanation

is rather noncommittal: She only nods to acknowledge Cory’s explanation (line 27) and is soon

occupied by taking a picture of the board even before Cory completes his turn (line 28).

In all three cases above, the teacher constructs a response that consists of a confirmation

and an elaboration: By providing the confirmation as requested, the teacher response ostensibly

satisfies the sequential requirement of the student question; however, in the ensuing explanation

that elaborates the confirmation, the teacher discusses something related to the topic of the

question but does not address the question itself. One can note that when answering student

questions triggered by a prior pedagogical point, there is a tendency for the teacher to reiterate an

earlier explanation in the elaboration. The teacher can also choose to relax the specificity of the

question to point out broader grammatical rules and patterns represented by the specific item in

question—that is, going for generality rather than specificity. Ultimately, then, the teacher

answer is only fitting to the student question as posed to a certain extent. Except for Jing (Extract

5.9), who progressively specifies her inquiry until it is clarified, other questioners (Extract 5.8

and 5.10) show minimal or weak uptake of the teacher explanation and simply accept it as is.

Answering the Wrong Question

In the final section in this chapter, we will turn to a group of cases that fall squarely on

the other end of the spectrum, where the teacher answers the wrong question, offering an entirely

unfitting response as a result of misdiagnosing the question or misattributing the student’s

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trouble, where such a misfit is explicitly indicated by the students. It is worth mentioning that in

all cases in this category, students formulate their questions about a grammar point by presenting

an example instead of using a metalinguistic term. Thus, the teacher’s erroneous assumption

stems, in part, from misinterpreting the grammar item that an example represents.

Consider Extract 5.11, where Bonnie’s group is going over answers of a error correction

task involving statements with used to and would. Bonnie has emphasized that used to can be

followed by both action verbs and stative verbs, whereas would can only be followed by action

verbs. Right before the extract begins, the class concluded that the statement her school would

have these old-fashioned desks which had the chair attached to the desk was incorrect. After

emphasizing that “would” cannot be followed by the stative verb “have” and as a result the focal

statement is incorrect (line 01), Bonnie notices Misun’s (MIS) head tilt and fixed gaze (line 01).

Misun produces a candidate grammar rule, ending it with a question tag to solicit Bonnie’s

confirmation (we don’t use has after used to right?; lines 04-05). The focus here is on Bonnie’s

response to Misun’s question and how that is received by Misun.

Extract 5.11 (Bonnie 2_13 Used to have or used to has) 01 BON: that’s +incorrect.

+g to MIS, who has been staring at screen, head tilted

02 (2.0) 03 Misun you have a question? 04 MIS: --> uhm:: (1.2) we don’t use uhm: has after 05 used to right? 06 BON: -->> no. we don’t use- (.) +would, when we use

+turns to board, writes 07 would, (2.0) +it has to be with an action

+finishes writing, g to MIS 08 verb. 09 MIS: nods 10 BON: (4.0)-writes ‘action verb’, then g to MIS 11 +but used to, (1.5) ^+can be used with

+writes ‘used to’ +g to ss SS+MIS: ^writes in notebook

12 BON: +both. with an +action verb +a:nd a +two fingers up +extends thumb +extends index

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13 stative verb. .h I could say, I remember, 14 whe:n I said goodbye to my parents. every 15 Friday. I stayed at my grandmother’s house. 16 I used to feel sa:d, ^for the first two

soo ^nods 17 BON: minutes. ^and then I was okay.

soo ^nods --> 18 SOO: nods 19 BON: (1.0)+

-->+glances around the room 20 +I used to fee::l. feel is a +stative verb.+

+g to MIS + nods + 21 SOO: [ nods, g down ] 22 BIN: [ nods, g down ] 23 MIS: [puts pen down, g to BON] 24 --> uhm: but uh: (1.0) ^my question was (0.5) do

^smiles 25 MIS: we- do we use uh:: (0.2) thir:d +person+

bon +gaping + month

26 MIS +after used to? + bon +brings index fg up, grabs chalk+

27 BON: no.= 28 MIS: =[no.] 29 BON: [ +u]sed to is uh >is like< would.

Without a beat of delay, Bonnie responds to Misun’s candidate understanding with no

(line 06). Notice, however, Bonnie does not address the key word has in her ensuing explanation,

having possibly assumed that Misun’s has is simply a grammatical error with the intended target

form being have. This is evidenced in how Bonnie reproduces her earlier explanation: she first

sets would in focus (line 06), then reiterates that would can only be followed by action verbs (line

07) and contrasts it with used to, which can be followed by both action and stative verbs (lines

11-12). To further illustrate the rule, Bonnie provides a personal example to contextualize the use

of stative verbs after used to (lines 13-20). By structuring her explanation this way, then, Bonnie

assumes that Misun is seeking confirmation on whether stative verbs—as represented by has—

can be used after would.

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Throughout Bonnie’s explanation, Misun nods (line 09) and diligently writes down

inscriptions on the board in her notebook (line 11). There is no indication that Bonnie is in fact

answering the wrong question. While it is possible that Misun could be waiting for Bonnie to

address her question, her silence also reflects learners’ general difficulty in disagreeing with the

teacher’s problem orientation even when it becomes clear that there is a lack of fit. It is not until

Bonnie’s discourse unit format explanation (Koole, 2010) is recognizably complete (line 20) that

Misun initiates a delayed third position repair (line 24) (Schegloff, 1992). Observe that the repair

initiation takes the shape of a dispreferred turn: the speech perturbation (uhm), the 1.0-second

pause, and her smile as she begins to clarify her question—all index the delicate nature of the

repair. With but uh my question was (line 24), Misun explicitly indicates that Bonnie has

misinterpreted her question. And to clarify her inquiry, Misun repairs her question from a

negatively formatted statement (we don’t use; line 04) to an interrogative (do we use; line 25),

replacing has with the metalinguistic term third person (line 25). Remarkably, the moment

Misun mentions third, Bonnie embodies a change of state with her gaping month and a raised

index finger. The metalinguistic term third person renews Bonnie’s understanding of Misun’s

inquiry. Bonnie subsequently answers no (line 27) and proceeds with an explanation (not

shown).

Similarly, in the next segment, when responding to a grammar question formulated with

an example, Bonnie mistakenly treats Rebekah’s (REB) question as one about word choices

rather than grammar despite Rebekah’s explicit framing of a grammar question (line 03). Prior

to Extract 5.11, Rebekah attempted to ask a question by raising her hand, but Bonnie withheld

the floor until she finished discussing an assignment. Note that Rebekah’s question is formulated

as a sample sentence with two options: you need to make effort to live in the community or live in

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the community (lines 03-05), where the second option entails the deletion of the infinitive to. By

designing her question as an alternative question and contrasting to live and live with stress,

Rebekah is asking Bonnie to identify which version is grammatically correct.

Extract 5.12 (Bonnie 4_3 Causative) 01 BON: sorry what was your question Rebekah. 02 REB: --> ^it’s a grammar question. eh:: you need to

^g to essay 03 make effort (0.2) to live in the community¿ 04 or ^live in the community.

^g to BON 05 BON: you need to make a, 06 (.) 07 REB: effort, 08 BON: >you make- you need to make< an ¯effort, 09 REB: nods 10 BON: to l- to live- 11 REB: because we learn make,

(0.2) 12 BON: .hh turns to board, walks towards it 13 REB: +and that’s the verb without to.+

bon +walks to board, grabs chalk + 14 BON: (3.5)-starts writing 15 REB: yeah? 16 BON: -->> +you need ^(.) to make (0.8) an effort

+writes ‘you need to make an effort to reb ^gaze to cellphone and swipes

17 (0.8)+ to:: (.) interact¿+(.) with the +writes ‘to interact’ +quick glance to REB, writes ‘with the community’-->

18 BON: community? 19 REB (0.5)-g to phone 20 BON: Rebekah. 21 (2.5)-Bon continues writing --> 22 REB: .h it’s to live but (.) my question is the- 23 + to, to interact. +

bon +writes ‘live’ under ‘interact’+ 24 (2.0) 25 BON: nods, quick glance to REB ºto-º [to li- 26 REB: [why +to. to-

+writes ‘in’ next to ‘live’

27 BON: [yes.+ +underlines ‘to’

28 REB: [we- we learned [ about- ] 29 BON: [ make an-] +OH: (0.2)

-->+turns around

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g to REB, nods 30 +causative yeah?= +

+points at REB, nods, smiles+ 31 REB: =yes. [so it- ] 32 BON: [make an] effort (.) + to + live. nods

+points+ 33 REB: (1.5)-g downward 34 but make (0.5) is without to. 35 BON: +but this is not the causative.

+points at board 36 REB: ah:.

After addressing the missing indefinite article (you need to make a; line 05) and

Rebekah’s pronunciation of effort (line 06), Bonnie repeats the example but stops right after

effort in line 08. Here, with continuing intonation, Bonnie could be eliciting the rest of the

sentence from Rebekah, but Rebekah treats it as a display of hearing and nods to confirm (line

09). When Bonnie produces the next-item to live in Rebekah’s example (line 10), Rebekah,

perhaps noting that Bonnie has not yet grasped the gist of her question, offers an account that her

question is prompted by make, a grammar point the group has covered before (line 11), but

notice that this account is followed by a 0.2-second gap, after which Bonnie turns to the board

and begins writing. When Rebekah further specifies the nature of make with that’s the verb

without to (line 13), this clarification is unfortunately placed at a point when Bonnie is

momentarily disengaged with the interaction as she turns her body and gaze to the board and

grabs a piece of chalk. With Bonnie’s attention on the board, both Rebekah’s clarification in line

13 and her pursuit of response in line 15 are disattended.

As Bonnie writes and reads aloud Rebekah’s example, observe that she changes several

word choices in Rebekah’s example: from to live to to interact (line 17), then from in the

community to with the community (lines 17-18). Here, not knowing what grammar item

Rebekah’s example represents, Bonnie resorts to error correction, thus treating rephrasing

Rebekah’s utterance as a possible solution to her problem. This is immediately resisted by

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Rebekah in her unmitigated correction it’s to live and clarification but my question is the to, to

interact (lines 22-23). Bonnie acknowledges Rebekah’s original word choices and writes them

next to her suggestions (line 23). Since Bonnie’s version on the board includes the infinitive to,

thus showing that to is needed, Rebekah rephrases her question to focus on why to is needed

(line 26), to which Bonnie confirms with an emphatic yes (line 25); however, an account of why

is noticeably absent.

A pivotal moment comes when Rebekah emphasizes once again that it is something that

they have learned (line 28; we learned about). In overlap with Rebekah’s turn, Bonnie utters an

emphatic, elongated change-of-state token (line 29). It is also coupled with another embodiment

of ‘change-of-state’: head nods and a sudden, sharp shift of her gaze from the board to Rebekah.

She displays her renewed understanding of the question by naming it causative yeah while

pointing at Rebekah (lines 29-30), to which Rebekah responds with an emphatic yes (line 31). A

shared orientation of what the problem is is finally established, and the answer to Rebekah’s

original question is then provided in line 32: make an effort to live. Rebekah challenges the

answer with but make is without to (line 34), and in response, Bonnie explains why her sentence

is not an example of a causative (line 35) and continues with an explanation that leads to

Rebekah’s explicit claim of understanding (not shown).

Misdiagnosing a learner’s question can also happen when a learner presents the teacher

with a language sample without making her specific concern explicit. In the final excerpt, Cory

is giving students an opportunity to ask questions about their short writing assignment. In line

03, Juliana reads a sentence from her writing and asks if it is correct. In this case, with the

question frame is it correct to say, Cory assumes that Juliana is asking him to correct her errors

when in fact her trouble is finding the right word to express her idea. Observe that when

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designing her question, Juliana places extra stress on the word gone (lines 03-04); in so doing,

Juliana seems to subtly suggest that this is where her trouble lies.

Extract 5.13 (Cory 3_4 Gone for the street) 01 COR: yeah that’s correct. 02 CHI: nods 03 JUL: --> ^is it correct to say:: (0.5) I remember my

^g to handout 04 friend (.) and I, gone for the street.^

^g to COR

05 (0.2) 06 COR: -->> uh the idea (.) is very clear, but >if we< 07 change the grammar to be:: +I: remember 08 my: +>what was it,+<=

+furrowed brows+ 09 JUL: =friend, 10 COR: friends [and I,= 11 JUL: [and I,= 12 COR: perfect, 13 JUL: mhm, (0.2) gone for the street. 14 (.) 15 COR: mm. so I remember my friends and I: (0.2) 16 play:ing= 17 JUL: =ºplayingº.= 18 COR: =on the streets, or: I remember my 19 friends and I: (.) going:: (.) onto the 20 streets, 21 (1.0) 22 JUL: ^going.

^g to handout 23 COR: um. tch +cos what we’ve [ got ]Juliana,

+gets up, walks to board 24 JUL: --> [^but-]

^g to handout 25 COR: +i::s a bit like +spe:nd, (1.0) has an ing

+picks up marker +points at board 26 word, 27 JUL: oh, 28 COR: and then:, 29 JUL: ºgoingº. 30 (0.2) 31 COR: remember, writes-(6.0) 32 JUL: ºverb and plus (.) [I N G.º ] 33 COR: [ yeah so] I remember 34 going onto the streets,=[ >I re ]member< 35 JUL: [ºokay.º] 36 COR: playing on the streets. 37 (.) 38 +yeah.

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cor +walks back to chair 39 JUL: --> ^but I- I::- (2.0) I: (0.2) want to say,

^g to handout 40 COR: yes, 41 JUL: ^roy,

^fingers gesture running 42 (.) 43 ^roy,

^fingers gesture running 44 COR: +oh running? +

+fingers gesture running+ 45 JUL: ^running.^

^ nods ^ 46 COR: yeah, so +what- what would you say,

+glances back and points at board 47 JUL: ehm:: (0.5) I remember my friends and I- I 48 running. 49 COR: I remember my friends [and I (.) running, 50 JUL: [and I, 51 running, oh [running.] 52 COR: [ onto] the street. 53 (0.5) 54 JUL: onto the street. writes in handout 55 COR: yeah. yeah. nice sentence. ºreally niceº.

Cory’s correction begins in line 15, where he repeats the sentence in question but

elongates I and inserts a 0.2-second pause before replacing gone on the streets with playing on

the streets. Cory continues with another alternative, going onto the streets (lines 18-20), similarly

elongating I and pausing before introducing going. Here, Cory’s corrections target the gerund

form, a grammatical error in Juliana’s sentence.

Juliana’s dissatisfaction with Cory’s answer can be detected from her less than

enthusiastic uptake. She repeats the gerund playing in sotto voce (line 17) after Cory’s first

correction, and we can notice a one second gap (line 21) between Cory’s second suggestion

going and Juliana’s uptake (line 22). Her gaze back to her handout might also be seen as a cue of

disalignment. Indeed, this is immediately taken up by Cory as a sign of trouble. He provides an

explanation of why a gerund should follow remember, thereby attributing Juliana’s problem to

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her understanding of how verb forms (lines 23-38). When Juliana attempts to clarify her

question, her but in line 24 is cut off and unfortunately absorbed by the overlap.

Again, like students in the previous extracts, Juliana waits until Cory completes his

explanation of remember + verb + -ing to indicate there is a lack of fit between her question and

Cory’s answer. Prefaced with but and fraught with a number of cut-offs and long pauses in the

beginning, Juliana’s turn in line 39 is formatted as a dispreferred action; with an emphasis on the

verb want to say, she clarifies that her trouble is in fact not knowing how to communicate her

meaning (i.e., using run in that sentence, which she mispronounced as ‘roy’; lines 41-43). This

clarification leads to a revised response from Cory, who makes a connection between Juliana’s

word choice with his explanation on gerund (lines 44-46). Finally, Juliana repairs her own

sentence (lines 47-48) and writes it in her handout (line 54). In this case, the formulation of

Juliana’s question does not make clear that her trouble concerns word choices. She only signals,

ever so subtly, that her problem lies with the word gone. One can certainly argue that Cory

fulfills a teacher’s due diligence by addressing a grammar issue displayed in the sentence, and

that had Juliana specified that she needed feedback on her word choice, Cory might have

provided a more fitting response. However, for lower-level students, articulating exactly what

their problem is is by no means an easy task.

In sum, the commonality to the cases in this section is that the teacher makes erroneous

assumptions about the nature of a student’s trouble and ends up answering the wrong question.

Notably, in these cases, the students formulate their questions by way of presenting a language

sample, leaving crucial information necessary for designing a fitted response unsaid. In response

to this type of questions, the teacher may return to a prior grammar rule, assuming that a

student’s trouble is concerned with the prior pedagogical point. Alternatively, the teacher can

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resort to correcting errors in the sample, orienting to linguistic assistance as something relevant

to the student’s needs. As the students’ delayed third positioned repairs show, students appear to

treat the action of correcting their teacher as a sensitive matter, and it is not until they reframe

their questions with metalinguistic terms that their query is finally understood. The challenging

task that the teacher faces, especially when working with lower-level students, then, is to

establish what grammar point is represented by the sample (Extracts 5.11, 5.12), or to verify

what type of feedback a learner is seeking (Extract 5.13).

Establishing the Problem before Answering

I conclude the analysis by considering one of the two cases (7%) in the entire collection

where the teacher initiates an insert expansion that clarifies a student question. This last example

presents an interesting contrast to how the teacher approaches answering and how students

respond to the answer in the previous sections. Prior to Extract 5.14, Cory’s group just finished a

short speaking activity where they asked each other a specific question, how long is your journey

to come here. Towards the end of the task, Bae, Chiaki, and Nisa started to discuss how to phrase

another question that also begins with how. Chiaki summons Cory’s attention in line 01, and Bae

presents a candidate question in line 02: how long is your shopping time. The focus of my

attention is the care that Cory takes to establish what Bae seeks to understand, even though the

question itself does not appear problematic.

Extract 5.14 (Cory 3_4 How long is your shopping time) 1 CHI: >^Cory Cory Cory Cory^<

^ points at BAE ^ 2 BAE: --> how long is your shopping time? 3 COR: um? 4 BAE: how long is your shopping time? 5 COR: -->> how long is your ­shopping time. uh: so: 6 +for example:,

+picks up keyboard 7 (3.0)-looks up image on computer 8 BAE: how long take- g to CHI how long is your

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9 shopping time, 10 CHI: how long +is your journey?

cor +images of shopping malls displayed on screen

11 COR: yeah how long is your journey, +so is it- +points at screen

12 is it like this?+ -->+

13 SS&BAE: (.)-turn around, g to screen 14 COR: you go here, 15 BAE: ^yeah.

^nods 16 COR: and you:: ^+do your shopping, +

bae ^nods cor +gestures pushing a cart+

17 BAE: yeah. 18 COR: -->> +uh::m: (1.0) +tch we say how long: (0.2)

+turns around, +g to BAE g to board

19 do you:: s:p:end shopping.+ SS,BAE,CHI +writes in notebook until end of extract-->>

20 CHI: ((exasperated voice))-­spe::nd, 21 (0.2) 22 COR: yeah. heh heh 23 CHI: how long spend, 24 COR: yeah [how long do you spend ] 25 BAE: [how long do you spend.] 26 ANU: [how long do you spend.] 27 COR: shopping. 28 NIS: yes yes.

In contrast to extracts in previous sections, Cory does not immediately confirm or

disconfirm Bae’s question. His response in line 05 begins with a full repeat of Bae’s question,

with the word shopping delivered with a high pitch, which could be seen as an indication of

difficulty in offering a straightforward answer (Bolden, 2009). Indeed, what ensues is some

speech perturbations that indicate trouble in formulating a response (uh:; line 05). Cory puts

answering on hold and begins to look up images (lines 07), and as the class waits, Chiaki and

Bae both treat Cory’s delay as an impending rejection of their candidate questions and offer

alternative suggestions (lines 08-10).

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As images are projected on the screen (line 10), Cory resumes answering and directs

Bae’s attention to the images of shopping malls displayed on screen, asking if she is referring to

shopping in person: is it like this, you go here (lines 11-12, 14). His clarification continues with

and you do your shopping (line 16), which is accompanied by the iconic gesture of “pushing a

shopping cart.” Bae confirms that this is what she intends to convey (lines 15 & 17). What is

interesting about Cory’s approach is that rather than taking an everyday word such as shopping

at face value, Cory verifies what Bae means specifically (i.e., shopping in person at a mall).

After establishing the nature of Bae’s question, Cory revises Bae’s candidate question

accordingly, changing how long is your shopping time into how long do you spend shopping

(lines 18-19), highlighting the word spend in particular. This correction is immediately treated as

a learnable, as Chiaki, Bae, and other students instantly begin writing in their notebook (line 19).

The revised interrogative is also receipted with an exaggerated, drawn out spend from Chiaki

(line 20). Her over-the-top response is hearably indicating that spend is precisely the word that

she, and by extension Bae and Nisa, have been looking for; in other words, Cory has finally

provided the solution to a problem that they had not been able to resolve on their own. Notice

that when Chiaki initiates a repeat of the entire question with a designedly incomplete utterance

(line 23), two students, Bae and Anu, are able to reproduce the question along with Cory (lines

24-26). In contrast to previous sections, we can note that the nature of Bae’s problem is

interactionally established rather than assumed, and students’ uptake of the answer is much more

substantive.

Discussion and Conclusion

This chapter is concerned with two broad ways teachers respond to student questions and

whether these responses are conducive to facilitating learner understanding. In the first section, I

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have shown how teachers can do more than merely answering by going beyond offering

information requested by the student question and supplying an auxiliary component that

enriches the pedagogical value of the response. This component can take the form of an answer-

preface or a topically relevant expansion; in all cases, the teacher response is recipient-designed

to benefit both the questioner and the entire cohort, and a student-led learnable is realized in the

process of answering a student question (Majlesi & Broth, 2012). Most importantly, these cases

demonstrate “principled understanding” in action, showing how teachers can package their

responses to focus on both the what and the why.

In the second section, I have illustrated how teachers do what I termed doing

approximate answering. The analysis yields a much more complex picture: If doing more than

answering represents one end of the spectrum where the teacher response is perfectly tailored to

the trouble as formulated in the student question, the three types of answering practices under

this category, namely, answering the “possible” question, answering a related question, and

answering the wrong question, display varying degrees of unfittedness. Firstly, teachers can

answer a “possible” question when responding to questions that are syntactically or semantically

ill-formed or a learning problem is implied rather than explicitly stated. They do so by designing

a response that addresses the broader concern that subsumes the question. As such, this

answering practice demonstrates a kind of teacher expertise—a kind of professional vision in

reading and anticipating students’ (recurring) trouble (Goodwin, 1994; Sherin, 2007). Secondly,

teachers can also answer a related question: In offering a yes/no to a confirmation seeking

question, these cases are type-conforming in the structural and sequential sense, but the ensuing

explanation deviates from the concern of the question by either reinstating a previous

explanation or addressing a broader language point represented by the item in question. Finally,

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teachers can also end up answering the wrong question as a result of erroneous assumptions

about the nature of a student’s trouble, particularly when questions are formulated with an

example rather than metalinguistic terms. As I have shown, what appears to be a “safe” but

ultimately dissatisfying approach to answering in this case is to offer corrective feedback or to

repeat a prior explanation. In contrast to these three practices, the final section of the analysis

demonstrates a different approach to answering that yields a different interactional outcome: The

nature of a student’s problem is interactionally established rather than assumed by the teacher;

the teacher’s explanation is enthusiastically receipted.

This leaves us with a pertinent question central to the classroom: How do these answering

practices shape learners’ understanding? While doing more than answering illustrates how

questions can be transformed into opportunities to facilitate principled understanding (Edward &

Mercer, 1987), the issue of contingency and responsiveness—whether the teacher answer is

addressing the specific demand as shown in the student problem formulation (Koole & Elbers,

2014; Waring, 2016)—becomes problematic in doing approximate answering. In the majority of

the cases, students simply accept the answer as is, where the issue of understanding never

surfaces in the interaction. In this respect, one possible account by Koole (2012), which is also

evident in my data, is that explanations are often structured in such a way that learners are only

afforded structural positions to produce tokens of acknowledgement or claims of understanding.

Teachers often treat such tokens as sufficient and move on, thus assuming that the question has

been successfully answered. Even when there is a clear lack-of-fit, students delay and pass up

opportunities for a third-position repair until a long, multi-unit teacher explanation is

recognizably complete. This, along with the minimal nature of the questioning student’s

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recipiency display, makes it difficult to locate evidence that their understanding issue is correctly

identified and sufficiently addressed.

The findings of this chapter contribute to the literature on responses to questions by

detailing two answering practices that are both non-minimal and non-straightforward but fall on

very different points along the continuum between fittedness and unfittedness. While prior

research has documented how responses can feature unsolicited information and implement

actions in addition to answering (e.g., Hutchby, 2006; Stivers & Heritage, 2001), the practice of

doing more than answering elucidates how a question from an individual student can be

leveraged to facilitate principled understanding of the entire cohort, which, despite its

significance, has not yet been described with sufficient depth in the specific context of the

language classroom. And while past work has shown that participants can resist, challenge, or

even evade questions (e.g., Bolden, 2009; Clayman, 2001; Stivers & Hayashi, 2010; Waring et

al., 2018), much less work, to my knowledge, has explored what constitutes different forms and

degrees of unfittedness in responses. To this end, the practice of doing approximate answering

(e.g., answering a possible quesiton, a related question, or the wrong question) not only specifies

the extent to which a variety of answering practices miss the mark, it also provides a heuristic

framework to understand the nature of such unfittedness both within and beyond the language

classroom. Understanding the characteristics of approximate answering will therefore advance

our knowledge of how “doing being less-than-responsive” in answering is accomplished.

Finally, by documenting how question-answer sequences transpire in the reality of the

language classroom, I hope to have illustrated competences and expertise that should be brought

to bear when asking and responding to questions. For language teachers, it is important to

address, when applicable, both the what and the why, to establish what the problem is before

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proceeding to a response, and to afford students interactional space to display understanding or

to ask follow up questions. Importantly, there appears to be a trade-off between intersubjectivity

and progressivity: It is worth establishing what the problem is at the outset rather than risk

offering an unfitting response and starting answering all over again. For students, one practical

implication is to formulate questions using, when possible, metalinguistic terms rather than a

language sample, but it is important to acknowledge that asking questions with specificity and

precision can be a tall order for students with lower-proficiency level. Understanding the

systematic disadvantages that students face will therefore shed light on how they can be

empowered to pursue understanding.

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Chapter 6 – Stepwise Entry into Linguistic Feedback

In addition to planned pedagogical objectives, teachers are advised to capitalize on

problems that emerge in student talk to create “teachable moments.” As a criterion commonly

featured in both pre- and in-service teacher evaluation, teachers are expected to demonstrate the

ability to contingently respond to a learner contribution in such a way that linguistic issues can

be usefully and effectively leveraged. In Second Language Acquisition (SLA), this phenomenon

is termed “focus on form” (FonF), which, as noted by Ellis (2016) in his state-of-the-art review,

is best understood as a set of “pedagogical techniques” (p. 411) that direct learners’ attention to

form-meaning mapping as they engage in a communicative-oriented activity.

While a considerable body of theoretical and empirical work in psycholinguistics has

established the importance of incidental FonF and identified factors that moderate its

effectiveness (Doughty & Williams, 1998; Gholami & Gholami, 2020; Kim & Nassiji, 2018;

Loewen, 2004, 2005; Long & Robinson, 1998; Nassaji, 2010, 2013; Pouresmaeil & Gholami,

2019), our knowledge about how FonF unfolds in the classroom in real time remains limited. We

do not yet know what occasions a shift from the interactional task at hand to language form, how

this shift is interactionally organized and managed, and what interactional contingencies a

teacher needs to deal with when a FonF episode arises. If the mastery of this pedagogical

technique is so essential to teachers’ efficacy, then fine-grained descriptions of the teachers’

procedures, along with how students respond to such procedures, would yield valuable insights

into its implementation.

This chapter aims to contribute to such an endeavor by examining a particular teacher

practice: stepwise entry into linguistic feedback, which is routinely observed after students

display troubles in speaking. I use the term “stepwise” to capture the focal teachers’ intricate and

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smooth progression from managing their and other classroom participants’ understanding of a

student contribution to performing explicit language-focused work related to that contribution.

These actions, as will be argued, are inextricably linked and skillfully sequenced: In overtly

marking the achievement of intersubjectivity, the teacher’s explicit understanding display of a

student contribution prepares the ground for more tailored pedagogical feedback on form that

aligns with the meaning of the student contribution.

The following analysis is organized into two sections based on two variations of the

target practice. In the first section, I present cases where student contributions result in classroom

participants’ trouble in understanding. Consequently, the teachers’ responsive move in this

sequential environment begins with displaying or claiming non-understanding. In the second

section, I examine cases where student contributions, despite showing non-target like features,

do not cause such non-understanding. In that scenario, the stepwise entry begins with

formulating student talk. Each section will feature three illustrative examples culled from a larger

collection of 15 cases. I end the analysis section by presenting an example of a teacher’s other-

correction without taking the stepwise route. The resulting lack of fit between the correction and

the student’s meaning provides further evidence of the merit of a stepwise entry into linguistic

feedback.

Begin with Non-Understanding

One environment where such stepwise entry into linguistic feedback occurs is when a

student’s troubles in speaking cause classroom participants’ troubles in understanding, resulting

in a breakdown in intersubjectivity. The recurrent trajectory of teacher response can be described

as the stepwise move from managing and negotiating understanding to addressing the lack of

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linguistic resources that occasioned the understanding trouble in the first place. Six out of 15

cases (40%) exhibit a sequence of teacher moves that can be outlined as follows:

o Step 1: Claim (e.g., I don’t understand) or display non-understanding (e.g., a faulty

candidate understanding)

o Step 2: Announce a change of state followed by displaying understanding of student

talk

o Step 3: Offer linguistic feedback addressing student trouble with speaking (e.g.,

proffering vocabulary, reformulating student turn, etc.)

Extract 1 exemplifies this stepwise pattern. Prior to the extract, Rebekah (REB) gave a

presentation on the Israeli education system, where she used the Hebrew word “tiyul” to refer to

a period after the military service when young people travel around the world. The extract begins

with Jae (JAE) asking Rebekah to clarify the definition of that period (lines 01-02). Rebekah’s

explanation (lines 03, 05), however, is met with a lack of uptake from Jae (line 06). Our focus

will be on how Bonnie manages Rebekah’s speaking trouble (the first and second arrowed turn)

and how it becomes the basis of her immediate next pedagogical project (the third arrowed turn).

Extract 1 (Bonnie 2_6 Tiyul) 22 JAE: ^uh can you explain one more time ^about (.)

^lower hands ^points at BB 23 JAE: *uh: between army and university?^

reb *turns to BB jae -->^

24 REB: *tiyul it’s like eh- *when you travel, *points at BB, g to JAE*

25 JAE: mm. 26 REB: you:: you do a tiyul. 27 (.) 28 it’s the word to:: to:: (.) to:: (0.2) to: 29 to ser- *to s- *º#to #s-º *

*g to BON *points to mouth, then away* fig #6.1.1 #6.1.2

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30 BON: -->1 to see? 31 REB: *to see your travel.

*g to JAE 32 BON: to s- *no.

reb *g to BON 33 REB: uh *#to (0.2) *

*emphatic point to mouth, then away* fig #1.3

34 BON: -->2 uh- a:h +it’s the wor- +it’s (.) travel in

+points to mouth+ Engli=in Hebrew?=

35 REB: =*in Hebrew. *nods

36 (0.2) 37 BON: [ tiyul- ] 38 REB: [ to say.]= 39 BON: -->3 =+tiyul means (.) +travel [in Hebrew.]

+beat gesture +g to JAE +g to & points at REB

40 REB: [ travel. ] 41 [*yes.]

*nods 42 BON: [ +re]peat,

+points at REB --> 43 REB: *tiyul+ means travel in Hebrew.

*g to JAE bon -->+

44 JAE: [ oh::: ] 45 SOO: [ Δoh:::Δ]

Δ nodsΔ

Rebekah’s trouble with speaking is evident in her labored search for a verb as she tries to

explain “tiyul” again (it’s the word to:; line 07). She shifts her gaze to Bonnie as soon as she

arrives at the first consonant of the searched-for word (e.g., s- ; line 08) and offers a gestural clue

to recruit Bonnie’s assistance: she points to her mouth then away (Figures 1.1 and 1.2), thereby

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suggesting that the verb she is searching for is related to speaking. However, Bonnie’s try-

marked candidate solution, to see (line 09; the first arrowed turn), clearly reflects a faulty

understanding of Rebekah’s gestural clue. However, Rebekah immediately—and uncritically—

accepts the solution, turns to Jae, and completes her explanation: to see your travel (line 10).

Bonnie’s non-understanding is displayed in how she rejects both her ill-fitting candidate

search solution and Rebekah’s awkward subsequent formulation with no (line 11). Then, to

clarify, Rebekah produces a slightly emphatic version of the same gesture (i.e., pointing to mouth

then pointing away, Figure 1.3) for the same lexical affiliate, a verb (Hauser, 2019). This appears

to successfully restore intersubjectivity, as demonstrated in Bonnie’s explicit display of

understanding in her next turn (line 13; the second arrowed turn): After exclaiming a change-of-

state token (a:h) (Heritage, 1984), Bonnie produces a matching pointing-to-mouth gesture while

partially repeating Rebekah’s explanation (it’s the word-), then offers a candidate understanding

of the word “tiyul” (it’s travel in Engli- in Hebrew?). Notably, given that Rebekah’s unfinished

turn in line 08 clearly projects a verb, Bonnie’s turn here in line 13 in fact does not advance

Rebekah’s word search project; instead, her turn explicitly displays her “now-understanding”

(Koivisto, 2015; Seuren, Huiskies, Koole, 2016) of Rebekah’s not-yet completely articulated

explanation. Rebekah confirms by nodding and repeating in Hebrew (line 14) and is eventually

able to provide the repair solution to say herself (line 17).

Observe how, at this juncture, Bonnie chooses to continue her response rather than

resuming the suspended question-and-answer sequence: she proceeds with a reformulation of

Rebekah’s explanation in the third arrowed turn (tiyul means travel in Hebrew; line 18). The

intricate verbal, embodied, and prosodic packaging of this reformulation makes it hearable as

focusing on language: Firstly, Bonnie spotlights the original trouble source tiyul by using it as

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the subject and stresses the verb means. These two words are accompanied by a beat gesture and

her gaze shifts to Jae, which gesturally highlights the alternative syntactic structure she provides

and addresses Jae as the recipient, respectively. Secondly, mid-way through the turn-

constructional unit (TCU), Bonnie shifts her gaze back to and points at Rebekah, thus explicitly

designating Rebekah, the speaker of the trouble source, as the recipient of this reformulation.

When Rebekah treats it as another display of understanding (yes; line 20), Bonnie deploys an

imperative, repeat (line 21), and maintains her pointing gesture until after Rebekah begins

repeating the reformulation (line 22) to overtly mark the reformulation as linguistic input

designed for her. Finally, Rebekah returns to Jae as she repeats this version provided by Bonnie

to finally bring the question-and-answer sequence to a close (lines 22-24).

As illustrated in Extract 1, Bonnie progressively moves towards a language focus that

addresses how Rebekah’s explanation can be phrased more clearly. This focus on language (i.e.,

Step 3), however, is preceded by—and in fact could not have been achieved without—pursuing a

clear understanding of what Rebekah intends to say (i.e., Steps 1 and 2). In particular, the

explicit display of understanding prefaced by a change-of-state token, in reestablishing

intersubjectivity and formulating the meaning that Rebekah struggles to articulate, provides

Rebekah an opportunity to confirm whether her explanation has been correctly understood. This

in turn enables Bonnie to tailor her linguistic feedback to specific gaps that emerged in

Rebekah’s talk (i.e., syntactic resource for definitions, X means Y).

While the same stepwise entry pattern can be observed in the next segment, this case

demonstrates a claim rather than a display of non-understanding and culminates in feedback on a

vocabulary suggestion rather than syntax. We join Cory’s group after an activity where the

students asked each other about their weekend. Min (MIN) is now reporting to the class what

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Lucila (LUC) did (lines 01-04). Similar to Rebekah in Extract 1, Min also exhibits great

difficulty telling the group, as we will learn later, that Lucila wore a costume to a St. Patrick’s

Day parade. In addition to the mispronounced ‘parade’, many words in Min’s turn are hardly

intelligible. As evidenced in how Cory turns to Lucila and initiates a repair (so what- what

happened?; line 06), he could not follow Min’s report.

Extract 2 (Cory 3_27 St.Patrick’s) 1 MIN: ah Lucila wore wore a (missy?) she (0.8)-((both 2 hands tap table))um::: (0.2) par- parade. 3 parade on- on march green (0.2) um: (syl syl). 4 it’s parade (syl syl). 5 (0.2) 6 COR: +so what- what [happened?]

+g to LUC 7 LUC: [ Irish? ]Irish. 8 COR: +oh for a party? +

+g to MIN arms up and down+

9 LUC: +yes no parady. [Saint Patrick.] cor +g to LUC

10 CHI: [ parady. ] 11 MAK: [ ^parady p- ]

^g to LUC 12 LUC: [saint Patrick-] Patrick yes. 13 MAK: a very good (par syl), 14 COR: -->1 heh heh [((smiles))+anyway I [don’t understand. 15 RIK: [green. [green. Heh

cor +quick glance around the room 16 LUC: but ^the clothes is the:: the (.) Saint Pat-

^touches her clothes --> 17 Saint Patrick is green. all green.^

-->^ 18 COR: -->2 +­OH: so like [a- a green- ]

+g to MIN 19 MIK: [Irish syl syl] right? 20 COR: so she had a green jacket, green [glasses,] 21 LUC: [yes yes.] 22 MIN: [ nods ] 23 COR: -->3 aha so the- a costume. 24 MIN: [@costume.]

[@holds pen 25 LUC: +[yeah the ] custom- culture yes.

cor +g to LUC 26 COR: yeah a costume. 27 CHI: oh nice. 28 RIK: wow. huh huh huh

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Though Lucila and other students (who heard her report in the prior speaking activity)

provide multiple lexical clues (lines 07-17), Cory remains unable to recognize neither the special

occasion (i.e., St. Patrick’s Day) nor the activity (e.g., parade) being referred to. Cory glances

around the room and produces a claim of non-understanding while smiling (anyway I don’t

understand; line 14). Lucila then resorts to describing the green clothing that is customary to St.

Patrick’s Day, emphasizing the color and touches her clothes (all green; lines 17).

This description successfully secures Cory’s understanding, which is indexed by his high-

pitch, high-volume change-of-state token (­OH:; line 18). The token is followed by a so-

prefaced formulation, where Cory displays his understanding of what Lucila did: so like a green-

so she had a green jacket, green glasses (lines 18, 20). Interestingly, though Lucila is the one

whose experience is being reported and the one who has just provided a successful explanation,

Cory’s explicit display of understanding is evidently designed for Min, the student who exhibited

great trouble in speaking, as shown in both his gaze to Min and his reference to Lucila using the

third person pronoun she. Both Lucila and Min confirm his understanding in lines 21 and 22,

respectively.

At this point, given that intersubjectivity has been reached, Cory could exit the repair

sequence and resume the business at hand. Notice how he pivots to linguistic feedback in his

next turn: After acknowledging Lucila and Min’s confirmation with aha, he provides a lexical

word for Min (so the- a costume; line 23), stressing the first syllable of costume. With a turn-

initial so, Cory’s turn can thus be seen as a second formulation of his understanding—a succinct

version of his first oh-prefaced explicit display of understanding (lines 18, 20). In other words,

the first formulation not only overtly displays Cory’s understanding, it also provides a favorable

environment to provide a diagnostic solution to Min’s speaking problem in the form of a second

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formulation. The target word costume is subsequently treated as such by Min, who repeats it and

holds her pen (line 24), as if getting ready to write.

The three procedural steps of the target practice, as outlined in the beginning of this

section, can vary in their length. The final extract in this section demonstrates a case with a more

extended focus on linguistic feedback. Just prior to Extract 3, Kenji (KEN) had given a

presentation on the educational system in Japan. In the question-and-answer session that follows,

Bingbing (BIN) asks Kenji about in law standalizing (lines 01, 03), a question that neither Kenji

nor Bonnie understands (lines 07-11).

Extract 3 (Bonnie 2_6 Enroll requirement) 01 BIN: I want- I wanna ask you something [about] 02 KEN: [ mhm,] 03 BIN: in law [ stan]dalizing. 04 KEN: [ºmmº.] 05 (0.5) 06 BIN: [ standalizing.] 07 KEN: [@uh- could you] say again?

@smiles, one step forward 08 BIN: in law, 09 KEN: in law, 10 BIN: standalizing. 11 BON: -->1 I don’t understand. 12 BIN: ^the inquirement.

^quickly glance at BON, then back to KEN 13 (0.5) 14 ^the inquirement. ^in law @acquire@ment. ^in-

^g to BON ^g to KEN ^g to BON ken @nods @

15 BON: -->2 ­oh the- the requirement= 16 BIN: =requirement.= 17 BON: =to enro::ll. 18 BIN: yes. 19 KEN: [ @ ahh:: @]

@head rocks back@ 20 BON: -->3 [ repeat. ] enrollment. 21 BIN: enrollment. 22 KEN: [ah-] 23 BON: [ en]rollment requirement. 24 BIN: enrollment requirement. 25 BON: what are the enrollment requirements. 26 BIN: what are the enrollment requirement. 27 BON: everybody. 28 SS: what are the enrollment aquirement.

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29 BON: requirement. 30 SS: requirement. 31 BON: +to enroll [is to] register for school, @^so.^@

+g to KEN bin ^nods^

32 KEN: [@mhm.@] @nods@ @nods@

33 KEN: ah, I thin:k I can say commonly for- like (0.2) to enlow to university-

In response to Kenji’s lack of recognition (line 09) and Bonnie’s claim of non-

understanding (line 11), Bingbing offers an alternative phrase, the inquirement (line 12). But the

ensuing 0.5-second gap (line 13) is a tell-tale sign that her turn is still not understood. We then

see Bingbing splitting her gaze between Bonnie and Kenji in her next repair attempts (line 14):

she first repeats the inquirement while gazing at Bonnie, then adjusts her pronunciation to in law

acquirement with her gaze back to Kenji. As soon as she gazes back to Bonnie and utters the

preposition in, Bonnie produces a high pitch ­oh (line 15), indicating a change-of-state

(Heritage, 1984). The token is followed by Bonnie’s understanding of what Bingbing has been

trying to clarify: the requirement to enroll (lines 15, 17). Upon hearing requirement, Bingbing

repeats it without missing a beat (line 16), thus treating it as a solution to her pronunciation

problem; as Bonnie completes the phrase with to enro::ll (line 17), notice how enroll is clearly

enunciated, “overdone” to the point where the word can be heard once again as a repair of

pronunciation. Thereafter, Bingbing confirms with an emphatic yes (line 18). Following this

explicit display of understanding sequence, Kenji appears to finally grasp what Bingbing has

been trying to ask (a change-of-state token ah, head rocking back; line 19).

While this is where the suspended question-and-answer sequence could resume, again we

can observe how Bonnie shifts the focus of the interaction towards pronunciation and syntax.

She initiates a repetition sequence focusing on the pronunciation of the word enrollment (line 20;

second arrowed turn), placing extra stress on and elongating the vowel of the second syllable.

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The second repetition sequence, enrollment requirement (line 20), targets Bingbing’s word order

error (i.e., in law acquirement). The third repetition sequence reformulates Bingbing’s initial

question into what are the enrollment requirements (line 25). By progressively expanding the

scope of her corrective feedback, Bonnie addresses multiple linguistic and pronunciation issues

that rendered Bingbing’s question difficult to comprehend in the first place. Bingbing’s question,

in turn, becomes a learnable for the entire class (lines 27-30). Finally, by proffering Kenji a brief

definition of enroll (line 31) before returning him the floor, Bonnie could be ensuring that Kenji

will be able to proceed to an answer.

In sum, as illustrated in the three extracts above, student contributions can be fraught with

various kinds of production issues, leading to a breakdown in intersubjectivity. These issues can

range from difficulty in formulating a turn, as shown in students’ labored word searches

(Extracts 1 and 2), to pronunciation and morphosyntactic errors (Extract 3). I have demonstrated

how teachers may address these production issues in a stepwise fashion, following a sequence

structure comprising of three steps. First, by claiming or displaying non-understanding, teachers

can invite repair attempts from students; then, when a repair attempt succeeds, we can observe

the second step: a teacher turn featuring a prosodically marked change-of-state token (Heritage,

1984) and an overt display understanding. This teacher turn not only indexes the achievement of

intersubjectivity, it also formulates the teacher’s understanding of what the speaker of the trouble

source fails to articulate. In so doing, the elusive meaning that a student has intended to express

is made concrete and public, allowing for an easy transition to the last step, linguistic feedback. I

have shown that through an enunciated and emphatic delivery, embodied emphasis such as beat

gesture, and in Bonnie’s cases, directives such as repeat, the last step can be hearable as

linguistic feedback and indeed treated as such by the students.

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Begin with Formulating Student Talk

A stepwise entry into linguistic feedback can also be employed when learner

contributions present linguistic errors but do not result in non-understanding. In contrast to the

previous section, despite producing non-target like utterances, we will see that students are still

able to get their message across, as evidenced in the maintenance of progressivity and the

absence of repair initiation. The teacher’s language focus can therefore be described as ‘fine-

tuning’ students’ language use, as if saying: “I know what you mean, but here is a correct or

better way to say it.” This focus on precision and accuracy, similar to the previous sets of cases,

is rendered progressively explicit through a series of responsive actions. Nine out of 15 cases

(60%) belong to this sequential environment, with a structure of stepwise entry that can be

described as follows:

o Step 1: Formulate2 what students have trouble articulating

(e.g., reformulating or completing prior talk)

o Step 2: Provide explicit feedback on gaps in linguistic knowledge (e.g.,

beginning with you can say or so we say, board work, etc.)

This particular pattern can be observed in Extract 4. Prior to the extract, Panit (PAN) and

Anurak (ANU), both from Thailand, completed a telling about the death of the Thai King. Bae

(BAE), whose question had just been corrected by Cory, repeats Cory’s correction in line 01 and

shifts her gaze to Panit afterwards. Notice Panit’s uncertainty and how he subtly solicits

2 In line with Heritage and Watson’s (1979) foundational work on formulation, in this paper, I define ‘formulating’ as how a recipient characterizes prior talk, which is then subject to confirmation or disconfirmation. Formulating thus describes how the teacher vocalizes their interpretation of prior student talk to ensure intersubjectivity. Moreover, I consider reformulation a sub-category of formulation. Glenn (2016) provides useful insights into this distinction: Reformulating is akin to paraphrasing, which “foregrounds a linguistic, textual attention” (p. 171) to a turn; formulating, on the other hand, focuses on the recipient’s understanding of what preceding talk does, which can be achieved by, for example, reformulating or completing prior talk.

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assistance while formulating his answer: His gaze is on Cory and not Bae as he try-marks the

first TCU of his answer, uhm like older (line 03). The second TCU, or maybe out of age, is

produced as Panit momentarily shifts his gaze to another Thai student Anurak (ANU) before he

returns his gaze to Cory at the end of the TCU. The two steps of the Cory’s stepwise entry can be

seen in line 05 and line 09, respectively.

Extract 4 (Cory 2_22 die of old age) 01 BAE: ^ah: how he- uh- how did he die?^

^g to COR ^g to PAN 02 COR (0.2)-nods, g to and points at PAN 03 PAN: ^uhm like older? or ^maybe out of age?^

^g to COR ^g to ANU ^g to COR 04 [ºyeah.º] 05 COR: -->1 [ oh+:]:okay. so he was- he was very old.

+g to BAE 06 BAE: [nods 07 ANU: [yeah. 08 PAN: [yeah. 09 COR: -->2 >yeah yeah.< +so: we say he die:d +he died

+stands up, steps back toward board +quick glance to PAN then to class +beat gestures

10 of o:ld a:ge.+ -->+

11 BAE: ^ºold ageº ^nods

12 CHI: [­o:ld age. ] 13 PAN: [ººold age.ºº] 14 COR: +old age. can I clean this?

+g to board

Unlike examples presented in the previous section, there is no evidence that Cory has any

trouble understanding Panit. In particular, Cory immediately receipts Panit’s answer with a

composite of tokens in line 05 (Schegloff, 2007): a slightly drawn-out change of state token oh

and an acknowledgement token okay. He next provides Bae, who becomes the recipient of

Cory’s gaze shortly after his production of oh, a so-prefaced formulation that transforms Panit’s

non-target like phrase maybe older to a full clause, so he was very old (line 05). On the one hand,

Cory might orient to Panit’s turn as an incipient trouble source and provide a more

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comprehensible version of the Thai King’s death to ensure that Bae can follow. On the other

hand, the stress on old (line 05) contrasts with Panit’s error older (line 03), suggesting effort in

highlighting the correct word form. But since Cory maintains his gaze on Bae and not Panit, it

can be argued that the first-order action of Cory’s reformulation is to ensure that Bae understands

how the Thai King died. Therefore, though a correction is provided, such linguistic feedback is

implicit. Notice the timing of Bae’s “acknowledgement nods” (Whitehead, 2011): They are

positioned after Cory’s formulation, thus evidencing that she treats Cory’s formulation—and not

Panit’s turn—as the answer to her question. Panit and Anurak, on the other hand, orient to

Cory’s turn as a display of understanding of how the king died (yeah; lines 07-08).

While Cory’s first step supplies the group what Panit did not articulate clearly, his second

step explicitly addresses a gap in Panit’s linguistic knowledge in a didactic manner. Observe how

Cory provides yet another so-prefaced formulation with a number of turn design features that are

hearably pedagogical (so: we say he die:d- he died of o:ld a:ge; lines 09-10). His embodied

movements of stepping back towards the board project an impending pedagogical project. As he

approaches the board, his glance is directed to Panit, then to the rest of the class, visibly gearing

up for board work. Once again his turn is prefaced with so, which connects the turn with Panit’s

prior talk; the next element we say suggests that a more “proper” phrasing will be introduced.

Here in this second formulation, Cory transforms Panit’s out of age (line 03) into he died of o:ld

a:ge (lines 09-10), where he prosodically emphasizes old age and thus frames it as the correct

way of expressing a reason for death. The beat gestures that accompany the clausal TCU serve to

further highlight the new syntactic order Cory provides. The didactic nature of the reformulation

is taken up by not only Panit but also Bae, Chiaki, all of whom immediately repeat old age (lines

11-13). Thus, as this extract has shown, although intersubjectivity is not fractured, the teacher

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can still first produce a formulation to ensure a common understanding with implicit feedback

before rendering such feedback an explicit learning object for the group.

The next segment, which comes from the same conversation about the Thai King,

illustrates how Cory utilizes the same two-step process in a response that culminates in a

vocabulary focus. We join Cory’s group as two Thai students, Anurak (ANU) and Panit (PAN)

explain how the entire nation mourned the death of the king: They dressed in black for a year

(lines 01-03) and suspended all entertainment events (lines 09-10). With the exception of Cory

and Chiaki (CHI), the rest of the class, however, are not displaying any uptake (lines 04-05, 11).

Throughout the telling, Cory appears surprised by the length of the mourning period, as shown in

his partial-repeat in rising intonation (for a year?; line 04, 11). Then in line 15, Panit begins to

clarify that entertainment was actually suspended for a short period of time only and not a year

as he previously suggested.

Extract 5 (Cory 2_22 Entertainment) 1 ANU: ah (0.5) we- we were uh:: we wea:r (0.2) 2 we wore- we wore the black- the black 3 clothes for one year. 4 COR: one year? 5 CHI: one year? [ really. ] 6 ANU: [yeah +for-] for ah around one

cor +glance around his R 7 year. yeah. for:: (0.5) uh: #for- for- 8 #g downward 9 PAN: and we:: um (0.2) we don’t have uh like 10 (.) entertainment event+, just like,

cor +leans forward 11 COR: +for one year? +

+index finger up+ 12 PAN: yeah around one year.= 13 ANU: =around one year. 14 PAN: +we have to cancel all event,[ yeah. ]

cor +glances around the room ((13 lines omitted, where Cory notices Nisa’s frown and repeats the Thai students’ telling)) 15 PAN: =but I’m [not sure about the] event. 16 NIS: [ a:ll everyone. ] 17 COR: +everyone right?

+gets up, walks to board

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18 PAN: yeah everyone.=but I’m not sure about the- 19 the like the entertain: event? just like 20 pass (.) two weeks? and then everything 21 just fine. 22 COR: -->1 oh: +o[kay so for-] for + one year, +

+g to ss +index finger up+ 23 PAN: [*but- but-]

*pulls and shakes shirt 24 COR: they were wearing black clothes, 25 ANU: [yeah.] 26 COR: [and ]for +two +weeks, + there was no::

+two fingers up+ +g to PAN

27 enter­tainment.+ +turns around, writes -->

28 PAN: [yeah.] 29 CHI: [ wow]:: 30 NIS: oh:: 31 S?: ­mm::: 32 COR (2.8)-writes ‘entertainment’ 33 COR: -->2 +there was no entertainment.[=+like so for

+turns around, walks back to seat +g to PAN SS [begin writing in notebook

34 the tee vee programs, 35 PAN: *any concerts, *

*counts on fingers* 36 COR: +so the concerts, like music- music concerts,

+glances around 37 COR: shakes head ^no mu-

pan ^shakes head, arms form a cross 38 PAN: [$no music.$ 39 NIS: but one year is- everybody’s black? 40 COR: yeah. 41 CHI: wow. 42 COR: yeah.

Though production errors and hesitations can be noted in Panit’s clarification, it is

immediately receipted by Cory with a change-of-state token and an acknowledgement token

okay (oh okay; line 22). Similar to the previous example, Cory’s first responsive action is to

reformulate the timeline of events so the class could follow. Consider Cory’s turn design (lines

22-27): With his gaze to the students, he fronts the prepositional phrases of time (for one year,

line 22; for two weeks, line 26) to emphasize the duration of events, coupling each number with

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its respective number gesture. Implicit linguistic feedback is also provided in this reformulation:

This time, Cory redirects his gaze back to Panit immediately before rephrasing the problematic

segment of Panit’s turn, the entertain event (line 19), into there was no:: enter­tainment (lines

26-27), where no entertainment is prosodically emphasized. While Cory’s turn appears to

perform double duties, once again it is the first-order action—offering an alternative version of

prior talk—that is taken up by all participants. Note how Cory’s turn mobilizes more substantial

appreciation for an unusually extended period of mourning from the students (lines 29-31),

whose responses heretofore have been somewhat lukewarm. Panit responds with a confirmatory

yeah, treating the same turn as request for confirmation only (line 28).

What ensues is a clear change in Cory’s orientation to Panit’s contribution—a shift from

highlighting the gist of Panit’s telling towards isolating his error, entertainment. Cory turns to the

board and writes the word entertainment (line 32). Then, by repeating the last clausal TCU of his

formulation, there was no entertainment (line 33), he seamlessly pivots to vocabulary

explanation in a stepwise fashion. Here, Cory leverages Panit’s telling to provide

contextualization for the word entertainment (c.f., Waring, Creider, & Box, 2013) and co-

constructs an explanation of entertainment with Panit: By shifting his gaze to Panit while

providing the first item of a three-part list (like so for the tee vee programs; lines 33-34), Cory

invites him to produce a second item (any concerts; line 35), which then enables Cory to offer a

third item when he redirects his gaze back to the rest of the group (like music- music concerts;

line 36). In this case, Cory appears to prioritize introducing an advanced word that emerged in

student talk to the group over ensuring that Panit can master a new syntactic structure (e.g., there

was no entertainment).

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Unlike previous cases where the teacher uses reformulations, the last extract in this

section presents a variation of formulating student talk, where the teacher completes an

explanation underway by offering an example. In Extract 6, Bonnie’s students have been taking

turns to discuss inappropriate employer behavior in their culture. Just prior to the beginning of

the extract, Bingbing (BIN) mentioned that employers in China might ask their secretaries to

perform tasks unrelated to work. After Soo agrees that the same phenomenon can also be

observed in Korea (line 02), several students jointly produce a description of Asian secretaries’

responsibilities (lines 03-09).

Extract 6 (Bonnie 4_10 Run errands) 1 BIN: so how about Korea. 2 SOO: something like that. yeah. 3 JIN: their secretary is like their (0.2) uh 4 like house to-= 5 SOO: =yeah yeah Δlike this. Δ

Δarms straightened, palms up, as if ‘offering’ somethingΔ

6 BIN: housework. 7 JIN: ^house eh: like (0.2) to keep- to keep

^g to BON 8 their h- clean their- like someone clean their 9 house [(for them).] 10 BON: [ really? ] to [clean the hou-] 11 SOO: [do^mestic work.]

jin ^g to SOO 12 domestic work? 13 JIN: domestic- domestic work. 14 BON: really? 15 JIN: ^to do domestic [^work.]

^g to BON ^g to SOO 16 SOO: [yeah. ]yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. 17 BON: +go to my house and clean?

+g to SOO 18 JIN: [ eh:: ] 19 SOO: [but it]’s not just for housing I think it’s 20 .hh um: tch, 21 BON: -->1 pick up my laundry:, 22 SOO: ­yeah [like that. 23 JIN: [^­ah yeah. ^

^nods & smiles^ 24 KEN: [aw:: 25 BON: [big nod

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26 BON: -->2 you can say, 27 SOO: >or pick up [children,< 28 BON: [do: cho:res. 29 SOO: ­ah- chores? 30 JIN: ((mouthing))-ººdo chore.ºº 31 BON: chores. personal [chores. or- I’ll- I’ll write 32 SOO: [Δchores.

Δnods 33 BON: this word. 34 (6.0)-walks to board 35 BIN: ((g to KEN))-in this way people syl syl will 36 lose their (well-being). 37 BON: ((grabs chalk)) +we can say run errands,

+writes --> 38 (1.5)+

-->+ 39 + run errands +means to uh: go to the bank,

+points at board+ 40 [deposit a check, ] pick up my laundry, 41 SOO: [yeah that’s right.] 42 BON: do grocery shopping, +repeat, run errands. 43 SS: run errands. 44 BON: +mhm. +

+big nod+

Jing has great trouble depicting the secretary’s duty (lines 03-04) and shifts her gaze from

Soo to Bonnie in line 07. When Jing can finally formulate an example of what a secretary would

do for their boss (lines 08-09), right at the first possible completion of Jing’s turn (like someone

clean their house), Bonnie displays surprise with really in rising intonation (line 10). This is

followed by what could be a repair initiation (to clean the hou-), which is interrupted by Soo’s

candidate phrase for Jing (domestic work; line 11). Notice how in line 14, Bonnie repeats really

in rising intonation again to pursue some sort of confirmation and continuation from the students

(McCarthy, 2002). Again in line 17, Bonnie produces a partial-repeat repair initiation in rising

intonation (to go to my house and clean) to convey a heightened sense of disbelief or surprise

toward what has been discussed by the students (Wilkinson & Kitzinger, 2006).

This hearing is also supported by Soo’s and Jing’s subsequent turns. Rather than treating

it as a repair initiation of their prior talk and clarifying their point about domestic work, Soo and

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Jing continue their explanation (lines 18-19). In particular, Soo begins to describe a different

aspect of the secretary’s duty but halts her turn and enters a word search (but it’s not just for

housing I think it’s .hh um: tch; lines 19-20). At this very point, Bonnie presents a new example

of a secretary’s responsibility, pick up my laundry (line 21), which is immediately confirmed by

both Jin and Soo enthusiastically (lines 22-23). This verbal phrase, while ostensibly produced in

response to Soo’s unfinished turn, is in fact not grammatically fitted to what Soo’s turn-in-

progress projects, namely, another prepositional phrase (it’s not just for housing… it’s for X;

lines 19-20). Prosodically, the slightly lengthened last syllable and the intonation contour of the

phrase resembles an item on an as-yet-completed list (Jefferson, 1990; Selting, 2007). Bonnie’s

turn can thus be heard as a second example of “domestic work.” In so doing, Bonnie performs

two actions. Firstly, she displays understanding of an ongoing explanation despite the students’

struggles, thereby progressing the conversation. Secondly, she supplies what Jin and Soo fail to

articulate—another example of an Asian secretary’s duties, thus showing them how their idea

can be most effectively conveyed.

After her understanding is confirmed by Jing and Soo (lines 22-23), Bonnie proceeds to

the second step, where she explicitly addresses gaps in the students’ vocabulary knowledge. The

target vocabulary phrases are prefaced by you can say and we can say and delivered with

upgraded, emphatic prosody: In line 26, Bonnie introduces you can say do: cho:res, which is

immediately treated as vocabulary input by Jing and Soo (lines 29-30). Board work can be

observed when Bonnie introduces the next phrase, we can say run errands (lines 37-39). This

enables Bonnie to set the word in focus and turn it into a learning object for the entire group.

To recap, while the three cases examined in this section all feature varying degrees of

trouble in speaking and non-target like features, what distinguishes these cases from the previous

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section is the teacher’s ability to understand the student contributions despite these production

issues. But similar to the previous section, a stepwise entry in this sequential environment first

involves some sort of intersubjective work. We saw the multivocalic nature of formulating what

a student has trouble articulating (Waring, 2016). It is designed for both the speaker of the

contribution and the rest of the class, as evidenced in the mid-TCU gaze shift (Waring &

Carpenter, 2019). And whether done through reformulating or completing student talk, it can

ensure intersubjectivity as well as offer implicit linguistic feedback (e.g., embedded corrections

or modeling linguistic elements). Such implicit feedback, however, is often unattended by the

speaker of the trouble source.

From an SLA perspective, the teacher’s first responsive turn in Extracts 4 and 5 can be

categorized as a recast (i.e., the teacher provides a target-like version of student talk; see Lyster

& Ranta, 1997). A note, however, may be made on the term’s limited explanatory power for

classroom participants’ actions and orientations. As a type of corrective feedback, recasts focus

on the grammatical operation performed on a student turn, rather than what a teacher turn is

doing interactionally. As such, while the teacher might indeed be correcting, it might not be the

only action; and while characterizing instances in this section as recasts seems appropriate, doing

so without thoroughly analyzing the sequential context falls short of capturing the full

complexity of the teacher’s turn design and action formation. Hauser (2005) even goes as far as

arguing that applying the label this way, as is typical in SLA’s approach to recasts, may even

‘obscure, even render unobservable, what is happening within particular instances of interaction”

(p. 306). By giving sequential position and turn design full consideration, the analysis has instead

shown that the teacher’s first formulation of student talk is sensitive to the prior speaker’s

displayed uncertainty regarding their production (i.e., self-repairs, gaze shift to peers). The

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formulation is also delicately tailored to other classroom members, who might need a

clarification of the student contribution in order to better follow what is being talked about.

Therefore, just as teachers can “let the error pass” to prioritize other pedagogical concerns, the

‘error producer’ can also sidestep the corrections and instead orient to the need to confirm the

teacher’s understanding. In addition, the analysis has also underscored the importance of looking

beyond the recast turn in appreciating the teacher’s approach to feedback. As shown, the second

step in the stepwise structure, the explicit feedback turn, plays a crucial role in marking a turn as

“doing language only”; this overt shift in orientation from meaning to form can be accomplished

by board work and turn initial prefaces such as we say or you can say before the teacher hones in

on accuracy and precision by modeling and supplying resources (e.g., vocabulary or syntax) that

fill gaps in students’ linguistic knowledge.

Offer Linguistic Feedback without Stepwise Entry

Having shown two types of a stepwise entry into linguistic feedback, I will now present a

case to discuss potential problems when the teacher responds to a trouble-laden student turn

without a stepwise entry. Consider Extract 7, where Bonnie (BON) is teaching students the

concept of “narrative arc” using Edgar Allen Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart. Right before the

extract, Bonnie has asked Jing what the resolution of the story is. Jing exhibits great difficulty in

finding the correct verb when describing a key detail in the story (line 06). In Poe’s Tell-Tale

Heart, the narrator buries the body of his victim but in the end asks the police officers who

interrogate him to remove the body from the floorboards. As will become clear, while Jing refers

to the latter detail as the resolution, Bonnie mistakenly assumes that she means the former

without giving her an opportunity to clarify her meaning.

Extract 7 (Bonnie 4_24 The body) 01 BON: in this story, before we look at the declining 02 action, what is the resolution.

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03 (0.2) 04 MIS: uhm- 05 REB: he confes- 06 BON: +Jing?

+points at JIN, holds until line 9 --> 07 JIN: ^uh he:: (.) ^#wor- wor- werp- (0.2) he::::

^ motions hands to chest --> ^staring ^g to BON midair fig #7.1

08 (0.5) (#^ºswap?º)^ the- ^the body under the

-->^RH ‘scoop’ ^palms face down motion fig #7.2

09 floor and [ he-] 10 BON: --> [+he ]+hides the body under the

+g to ss +palms face down

11 floors.+=is that the resolu[tion?] +points at board

12 JIN: [ ^no.] ^lifts and shakes hand -->

13 +no he:: ^put- #put it- ^gestures ‘lifting’ bon +g to JIN fig #7.3

14 BON: oh::, +he ta:kes the body [out.+ ]

+gestures ‘lifting’ +points at JIN 15 JIN: [ah yeah.] 16 yeah he takes the body out by himself and 17 his .hh criminal- his cream was found.

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The severity of Jing’s speaking trouble is reminiscent of the cases in the first section. She

enters a prolonged word search soon after uttering the subject he, the narrator of the story, where

she stretches the vowel in he and begins searching for the next-due syntactic element, a verb

(line 07). Her gaze shifts to Bonnie as she produces a candidate verb (wor-) while motioning her

hands to her chest (Figure 7.1). After repairing the pronunciation of the candidate verb multiple

times, Jing restarts her TCU with a substantially lengthened he and enters a search again. In line

08, we see a try-marked search candidate delivered in very low volume (swap). This search

solution is coupled with a hand motion, as if Jing is “scooping” something up with her right hand

(Gif 7.2).

Notice that while Jing supplies Bonnie both verbal and gestural clues to join the search,

Bonnie’s lack of involvement up until this point reflects her trouble understanding the elusive

verb that Jing is searching for. Indeed, it is not until Jing continues with the noun phrase the body

under the floor with her palms facing down that Bonnie displays recognition of Jing’s

contribution (lines 07-08). Immediately after the noun phrase, without missing a beat, Bonnie

shifts her gaze to the rest of the class and provides an other-correction, replacing swap with hide

(he hides the body under the floors; lines 10-11). This case is different from the first group of

cases, where linguistic feedback is preceded by the teacher seeking confirmation of their

candidate understanding of the student talk. Bonnie’s turn here in lines 10-11, however, is

delivered very differently: with gaze to the other students and not Jing, the trouble source

speaker, and delivered in falling rather than rising intonation. Given these features, Bonnie’s turn

can therefore be heard as an other-correction (he hides the body under the floor) with a yes-no

question that conveys a critical stance immediately latched onto it (is that the resolution?)

(Waring, 2012c), leaving Jing no space to confirm/disconfirm.

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Bonnie’s interpretation, however, is met with Jing’s overt rejection in lines 12-13. To

clarify her meaning, Jing deploys a new verb and gesture, saying put it while gesturing lifting

something heavy (Figure 7.3). This triggers Bonnie’s elongated and stressed change-of-state

token (oh; line 14), followed by another other-correction that displays her renewed

understanding of Jing’s point while offering a better choice of verb (he takes the body out; line

14). This time, Jing quickly aligns with Bonnie’s understanding display, and Bonnie points at

Jing to offer her the floor to elaborate her answer (line 14).

In sum, then, what insights does this extract reveal? When dealing with Jing’s

problematic talk, there were clearly insufficient grounds to proceed; however, Bonnie, by

offering a correction without first ensuring if such student talk was properly understood,

evidently incurred more interactional work to address the mismatch between Jing’s meaning and

the linguistic form she provided. While one may argue that this could simply be an unfortunate

misinterpretation from Bonnie, we can surmise that Bonnie’s faulty correction might have been

prevented had she taken the stepwise route and managed intersubjectivity first. In contrast to this

example, the extracts presented in the two previous sections have showcased instances where the

teacher’s feedback on form and the student’s intended meaning are closely aligned because the

teacher’s display of understanding has prepared the ground for relevant pedagogical work.

Taking a stepwise entry might therefore safeguard the teacher against hasty or premature

interpretation or correction of a student contribution.

Discussion and Conclusion

This chapter has examined one way teacher can respond to problematic student talk, a

practice that I termed stepwise entry into linguistic feedback. This responsive practice features a

series of interconnected steps that constitute a stepwise sequence structure, where the teacher

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begins with managing understanding and progressively move towards providing linguistic

feedback. Two variations of the target practice were illustrated. In the first variation, we

observed that students may exhibit serious problems of speaking (e.g., labored word searches,

mispronunciation, etc.), which lead to a breakdown in intersubjectivity. In this sequential

environment, the teacher begins the stepwise entry by demonstrating non-understanding. After a

successful student repair, the teacher explicitly indicates a change of state in understanding, then

articulates that understanding before finally providing linguistic resources that the speaker of the

trouble source has shown to be lacking. In the second variation, though no overt understanding

issues are observed, linguistic feedback can still be offered to focus on the accuracy and

precision of student talk. In this case, the teacher response begins with reformulating or

completing student talk. In so doing, implicit linguistic feedback is provided for the student

making the contribution, and potential trouble sources or problematic elements in a student turn

are removed and modified for other classroom participants. The teacher can thus ensure that all

classroom participants share a common understanding of the student contribution before

explicitly establishing language form as the main interactional business for further pedagogical

work.

In addition, I have presented a case where the teacher responds to a trouble-laden student

contribution without affording the student any space to confirm if the teacher interpretation is

correct. We witnessed the aftermath of an absence of a stepwise approach: Without first

ascertaining the meaning of a student turn that is saturated with production problems, the

teacher’s inapposite hearing becomes the basis of an other-correction that is ultimately unhelpful

and unproductive (i.e., replacing swap with hide). A stepwise approach to responding to

problematic student talk, then, ensures that the teacher can “fit” the linguistic feedback to what a

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student wants to say, which is precisely what Ellis (2016) considers to be the very essence of

FonF—showing students how form can be best aligned with meaning.

The findings contribute to the existing literature on CA-for-SLA. An emergent body of

research has respecified traditionally SLA concepts through a CA lens, including attention and

noticing (Kunitz, 2018), negotiation of meaning (Eskildsen, 2018), corrective feedback (Majlesi,

2018; Theodórsdóttir, 2018), focus on form (Fasel Lauzon & Pekarek Doehler, 2013; Kasper &

Burch, 2016; Pekarek Doehler & Ziegler, 2007), and recasts (Åhlund & Aronsson, 2015; Hauser,

2005). As Kasper and Wagner (2018) argue, “Respecification adds value to these concepts

because it furnishes them with a publicly visible interactional grounding and shows in each case

how linguistic items become objects for reflexive linguistic practices by participants” (p. 84).

More specifically, the findings add to this body of work in two ways. Firstly, they show that

instead of seeing linguistic feedback as a “one-and-done” process, feedback could in fact be

offered in the form of a trajectory; thus, FonF can be seen as a gradual process—a series of

interactional steps that prepare the linguistic feedback to be best fitted to a student’s interactional

needs. Secondly, the findings address a common critique of recasts, which argues that teachers’

corrections might go unnoticed and fail to secure learner uptake because of their implicit nature.

As Ellis and Sheen (2006) remark, since “recasts are chameleonlike” (p. 579), more qualitative

work is needed “to tease out the variations and the contextual constraints that give rise to them”

(p. 598). The present chapter offers precisely such qualitative work. As I have shown, while

correcting might not be the first-order business in the teacher’s first responsive turn, it prepares

important groundwork that ensures the responsiveness and efficacy of the focal linguistic

feedback that ensues.

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In addition to capturing an elusive construct such as FonF in concrete interactional terms,

I hope I have shown one practical way that enables teachers to furnish an apt solution to

student’s linguistic issues and further elucidated the rich complexities of what practitioners

commonly call “creating teachable moments.” The practice described here also raises interesting,

practical questions about how to contingently respond to contributions offered by students with a

lower level of proficiency such as those featured in this chapter. While it is important to

acknowledge that teachers can indeed offer a formulation of understanding not followed by a

language focus, or that they can provide a direct other-correction without making

intersubjectivity the overt subject of talk, this practice of stepwise entry embodies a pedagogical

technique that effectively manages both meaning and form: what is being talked about and how

it can be most effectively communicated.

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Chapter 7 – Discussion and Conclusion

In human life, we do not have questionnaires, attitude scales, interviews, fMRI. It all must be managed through interaction. Jonathan Potter, Analyzing Emotion in Interaction As many others are, I am committed to examining and re-examining our analytic choices, to push them to the limits, and to see where alternative choices take us. (Anita Pomerantz, 1990, p. 209)

By pure serendipity, I came across the two quotes above as I was completing my last

analytic chapter. I took them as a timely reminder of what inspired this project in the first place

as I began to reflect on what this project means to me, my profession, and my field.

The two quotes aptly capture my motivation to venture into an uncharted territory, a

place where my professional and analytic interests meet. As a trained conversation analyst, I am

endlessly fascinated by both the power of talk and the power of examining talk. As an ESL

instructor and a teacher trainer, I often wonder why professional development sessions are

primarily about finding the next pedagogical invention and not about critically examining what

actually transpires in the classroom. Ten Have (1997) offers one of my favorite descriptions of

Conversation Analysis (CA): It is “empirical philosophy,” having the power to solve or handle

classical philosophical problems essential to human life. Armed with this analytic tool, I sought

to uncover some ways the philosophical problem of understanding is dealt with in mundane

classroom life. The social nature of human life—and by extension the social nature of

instruction—makes talk-in-interaction a perfect medium to examine understanding.

In this study, I challenged the prevalent and deeply entrenched notion that understanding

is an inaccessible, cognitive process. Instead, I respecified understanding as a socially shared,

interactionally grounded, and sequentially achieved phenomenon, offering a microanalytic

account of the how understanding is produced, managed and restored in the adult ESL

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classroom. I believe that this way of viewing understanding allows us to shift our analytic gaze

back to the classroom and that it is empowering for teachers to know that formal assessments are

not the only place to find evidence of understanding. I also believe that this conceptualization is

more than radical rethinking—it best captures the complex work of teaching that happens daily

in the classroom.

This chapter is organized into three main sections. I first summarize the major findings of

the study. I next situate my findings within the broader literature in classroom interaction and

Conversation Analysis. Finally, I conclude by discussing pedagogical implications of the study.

Summary of the Findings

Broadly, this study examines understanding-in-interaction in the context of the adult ESL

classroom. The three analytic chapters in this study describe, namely, (1) how students’

understanding of grammatical errors is facilitated by finger counting; (2) how (and whether)

teachers answer language-related questions in ways that are responsive to students’

understanding troubles; and (3) how teachers’ displays of understanding can be leveraged as a

resource for form-focused feedback.

In Chapter IV, I examined how the teacher facilitates learners’ understanding of

grammatical errors using an embodied practice that I call “finger syntax,” where the teacher

counts words or syntactic elements on their fingers to create a verbal and embodied illustration

of a syntactic structure. When used as a repair initiation prompting learners to self-correct, the

formats of finger counting can vary in their specificity in identifying the location and nature of

the error. When used as an other-correction of linguistic form, finger syntax can render the

corrections of faulty syntactic structures conspicuous to learners. In particular, corrections are

accentuated by prosodic emphasis, bracketed by pauses, and followed by a gestural hold on the

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final finger configuration. By orchestrating verbal and embodied resources in such a way, the

teacher not only effectively illustrates a structure that might otherwise be difficult for lower-level

students to grasp, they can also successfully invite uptake through the skillful use of pauses and

gestural hold. Importantly, finger syntax is recurringly employed in response to learners’

persistent difficulty with self-repair. As such, the malleability and adaptability of finger syntax

can enable the teacher to tailor the amount of “visual support” that a student needs.

In Chapter V, I analyzed how teachers answer student questions related to grammar and

vocabulary in a whole-class setting, considering the extent to which such teacher answers are

able to address the understanding troubles presented in the questions. I focused on answers that

are non-minimal and non-straightforward in terms of turn design and sequential development

(i.e., expanded responses with elements beyond what a question requests). Two types of

answering practices were found. In the first practice, doing more than answering, the teacher

attends to both the what and the why of a student inquiry. In providing an answer-preface or a

topically-relevant expansion, the teacher handles a student question in such a way that both the

questioner and the entire cohort can benefit from appreciating the pedagogical value of the

question and developing a principled understanding of the answer.

In the second practice, doing approximate answering, the teacher operates on partial or

even faulty understanding of a student’s learning problem, resulting in answers that are unfitting

to varying degrees. Of the three types of approximate answers, answering the “possible”

question deviates the least from the concern of the student inquiry. We see that when a student’s

question is equivocal or telegraphic, the teacher might design a response that conveys a broader

rule under which the question can be subsumed (e.g., see Extract 5.5 for how Cory discusses

rules of singular/plural nouns when responding to Chiaki’s these people equal a person). The

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teacher can also answer a related question. Despite sufficiently clear problem formulations, at

times the teacher can choose to address something related to the problem (see Extract 5.10 for

how Cory contrasts the past and the future instead of explaining whether the present continuous

can refer to the future). What falls squarely on the unfitting end of the continuum is answering

the wrong question, which is observed when students construct questions using an example (e.g.,

see Extract 5.13, where Juliana asks is it correct to say ‘I remember my friend and I gone for the

street’?). The teacher may either reiterate a just-prior pedagogical point or correct errors in the

example without addressing the actual question the students have. The teacher’s “professional

vision” (Goodwin, 1994) could thus be a double-edged sword: While it enables the teacher to

infer learning troubles when students struggle to articulate what they do not understand, similar

to what Koole and Elber (2004) observed in mathematics tutorials, teachers often operate on

assumptions of what could cause difficulty rather than on an interactionally derived diagnosis of

learning problems.

Finally, in Chapter VI, I examined one specific type of teacher feedback practice in

response to trouble-filled student contributions that might threaten intersubjectivity, stepwise

entry into linguistic feedback. In this practice, formulations of understanding play an

instrumental role in aligning feedback on language form to what a student intends to express.

The first variation of the practice begins with the teacher displaying or claiming trouble

understanding. A successful repair by the speaker of the trouble source then leads to a change-of-

state token prefaced turn where the teacher overtly expresses their “now-understanding”

(Koivisto, 2015) by articulating what the prior speaker has failed to convey. The final step of the

stepwise structure culminates in the teacher providing linguistic resources that a student has been

shown to be lacking (see Extract 6.1, where Bonnie models tiyul means travel in English,

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something that Rebekah has struggled to formulate). In contrast, in the second variation, the

teacher has no trouble understanding student talk; rather, as evidenced in how the teacher’s gaze

is distributed between the speaker of the trouble source and other students, the first step of

reformulating or completing student talk appeared to be done to simultaneously ensure that all

students share the same appreciation for a contribution while providing implicit feedback on

accuracy and precision. This feedback is subsequently made explicit in the next and final step of

the stepwise structure. A clear orientation to “doing language” is indicated through the use of

turn prefaces such as we say or you can say or semiotic resources like beat gesture or board

work.

Collectively, the three analytic chapters have yielded several practices for managing

different kinds of understandings in the adult ESL classroom. In the next section, I discuss the

theoretical implications of these findings.

Theoretical Implications

The findings of this study contribute to three broad areas in the literature: repair and

corrections in the language classroom, question-answer sequences in institutional interaction, and

understanding in instructional settings. Below, I will explicate each of my contributions and

situate my findings within the broader classroom interaction and conversation-analytic literature.

Repair and Corrections in the Language Classroom

This study extends our knowledge of repair and corrections in the language classroom in

three specific ways: it describes a new practice of embodied repair; specifies form-focused work

in interactional terms; and lastly, offers a thoroughly situated account of repair practices in

beginner level classrooms. Firstly, this study expands a growing body of work on embodied

repair and corrections in instructional settings. Unlike sports or dance instruction where

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reenactment of physical actions targets errors concerning the precision of specific body

movements (Evans & Reynold, 2016; Keevallik, 2010), embodiment in the language classroom

has been shown to initiate repairs on problems concerning hearing and understanding. For

instance, head tilts (Seo & Koshik, 2010) or cupping the hand behind the ear (Mortensen, 2016)

are both used predominantly as stand-alone open class repair initiations (Drew, 1997) targeting

problems of hearing and understanding. As opposed to open class repair, finger counting can be

considered a “strong” type of embodied repair initiation. Various formats of counting can be

employed and adjusted to students’ displayed trouble by identifying the location of the error, the

nature of the problem, and even the method of repair. The role of fingers in repair, to my

knowledge, has not yet been reported on in the literature. In addition, gesture hold and board

work can all work in tandem with an emphatic articulation to mobilize specific forms of

correction uptake such as self-repair or correction-repeat sequences. More generally, the findings

also add to an emerging line of research that examines the “embodied work of teaching”

(Creider, 2016; Hall & Looney, 2019; Kääntä, Kasper, & Piirainen-Marsh, 2018; Ro, 2021),

which specifies the role of embodied conduct in teacher competencies and expertise.

Secondly, this study also adds to the literature on error management in the language

classroom by describing form-focused work grounded in an interactional, emic perspective. Prior

work has captured some of the complexity and possibilities of error management. For example,

teachers can delay corrections (Rolin-Ianziti, 2010), highlight achievement and show

appreciation for a learner attempt before corrections (Fagan, 2015), and delicately balance

accuracy, progressivity (Åhlund & Aronsson, 2015) as well as affiliation (Lo, 2021). As

exemplified in the analyses, language work responsive to trouble-laden student talk can be

approached in a stepwise fashion, wherein overt demonstrations of understanding serve as a

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pivot to linguistic feedback. A small but growing body of work is beginning to respecify second

language acquisition (SLA) concepts; I join this analytic enterprise by describing how focus on

form (FonF) is occasioned, executed, and treated by classroom participants. Capturing form-

focused work from its emergence to completion will complement an SLA approach to error

corrections, which has predominately relied on decontextualized coding and focused on the

cumulative effects of corrections rather than the process of correcting in real time.

Relatedly, my findings also illuminate teachers’ choices of repair strategies in relation to

the types of trouble sources commonly observed in beginner level classrooms. In Chapter 4, we

saw that teachers prioritize self-discovery and make great efforts to promote learner self-repair

on morphosyntactic elements covered by the pedagogical agenda (Waring, 2015). In contrast, in

Chapter 6, we witnessed that learners’ clear lack of linguistic resources would make self-repair

unfruitful or even impossible. Consistent with Park’s (2015) observation that teachers’ direct

repairs can serve as a vehicle for vocabulary teaching for low-literate adults, my work affirms

that direct teacher corrections can be justified as they provide vocabulary or syntactic structures

that lower-level learners lack. This, in turn, can expedite both the feedback process and the

restoration of progressivity. As shown, not all trouble sources are equal: Some can be managed

by the learners themselves; others have a greater impact on intersubjectivity and progressivity.

The teacher’s assessment of whether a learner can identify and repair a trouble source thus plays

a key role in determining whether self-discovery should be pushed or whether language support

should be directly provided (Waring, 2015).

Answering Practices in Institutional Talk

This study examines how teachers respond to student questions; compared to teacher

questions, teacher answers have been relatively less explored to date. Studies have shown that

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unresponsive answering practices such as counter-questions (Markee, 1995) or bypassing the

problem diagnosis phase altogether (Koole & Elber, 2014) often leave learning troubles

unresolved. This study takes up this important line of inquiry by demonstrating the precise ways

by which a teacher answer may be responsive or unresponsive. Experienced teachers, as the

findings reveal, can manage equivocal learner questions by providing a broad, rule-based answer

that might encompass the “possible question.” On the other hand, they might also provide an

answer without establishing what the problem is, misattribute the root cause to a just-prior

teaching point, or even correct an example presented in the question without addressing the

grammar rules behind such corrections. The findings therefore suggest that the teacher’s

epistemic (i.e., authority in a field of knowledge) and deontic authority (i.e., rights to decide

courses of action; see Stevanovic and Peräkylä, 2012) might in fact hinder learners’ answer

pursuits.

Beyond the language classroom, response design is one of the most robust research areas

in CA. The “fittedness” of question and response, in particular, has received considerable

attention in the literature. Studies have shown a myriad of ways question recipients can resist,

challenge, or sidestep the agenda or constraints of a question (Bolden, 2009; Clayman, 1993,

2001; Hakulinen, 2001; Hayashi and Kushida, 2013; Heritage and Raymond, 2012; Kim, 2015;

Stivers, 2018; Stivers & Hayashi, 2010; Waring, 2019a). Different forms of approximate

answering documented here not only demonstrate how teachers “navigate the answer possibility

space” (Stivers, 2018, p. 192), these answers also further illuminate how responses can deviate,

to varying extent, from the central learning concern as formulated in the question in the specific

context of the language classroom. As shown, teacher responses might be structurally

conforming (i.e., providing a yes/no response to a polar question) but pedagogically inadequate

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(i.e., leaving the learner’s problem unaddressed). It is worth noting that while teachers and

journalists can problematize an unfitting answer or revise the question to pursue further

responses (Romanuik, 2013; Zemel & Koschmann, 2011), students frequently receipt a teacher

response with a weak acknowledgement token; a pursuit of an answer to an original question is

not common in my data set. The few instances of pursuits are formatted as dispreferred—delayed

and mitigated. This might suggest that when participants have differential epistemic status and

language proficiency, a recipient’s inadequate analysis of the question may remain unchallenged.

Understanding in Pedagogical Interaction

Returning to the central question of how understanding is managed and restored in

interaction, this study highlights how two different understandings crucial in the adult language

classroom are facilitated: first, understandings of how the target language works; second,

understandings of learner contributions. The former relates to how classroom talk can maximize

the mastery of the subject matter; the latter concerns the management of intersubjectivity

between all classroom participants.

This study adds to a body of research that examines how learners’ understanding of

specific areas of the target language is built (c.f. Waring, 2019b). Among this body of work,

some studies have focused how vocabulary words are explained (Lazaraton, 2004; Mortensen,

2011; Morton, 2015; Waring, Box, & Creider, 2013; Waring, Creider, & Box, 2013). Others

have described how grammar is taught, particularly on how teachers’ embodied conduct can

make abstract concepts intelligible and concrete (Churchill et al, 2010; Majlesi, 2014,

Matsumoto & Dobs, 2017). My study extends this line of research on grammar instruction by

showing how the embodied conduct of finger counting can facilitate an understanding of

morphosyntactic structures, which is a challenging area for many language learners. In addition,

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findings on how teachers address student inquiries on grammar problems show that a principled

understanding of grammar—even for lower-level learners—goes beyond not only knowing the

what but also appreciating the why. Importantly, this study specifies how this “why” can be

accomplished in concrete discursive terms: As shown, the teacher can supply an auxiliary

component that either prefaces or expands the scope of the answer, which works to transform the

question into a pedagogical point relevant to all students.

In addition to “doing teaching,” this study also furthers our knowledge of how teachers

work with learner contributions—steering or shaping such responses towards a more adequate,

correct, or cogent answer (c.f. Waring, 2019b). In particular, as shown in the last analytic chapter

on stepwise entry into linguistic feedback, achieving an agreed upon understanding of learner

talk is critical, if not prerequisite, to any shaping work carefully tailored to the students’ needs.

While much of the existing work focuses on the complex pedagogical work performed in the

teacher’s third turn in the initiation, response, feedback/evaluation sequence (Can Daşkın, 2015;

Fagan, 2014; Hall & Walsh, 2002; Hosoda, 2016; Lee, 2006, 2007, 2008; Sikveland, Solem, &

Skovholt, 2021), this study features a type of learner contributions that have been relatively

understudied, in that they are initiated by lower-level learners and therefore prone to being

misunderstood. As such, the study documents a previously undescribed type of shaping work—

the work of transforming non-target-like, confusing contributions into something

comprehensible, that is, helping students articulate what they mean. Additionally, teachers’

explicit formulations of their understanding of a prior student contribution have been shown to

indicate a successful restoration of intersubjectivity as well as to ensure that the cohort shares the

same understanding of that student contribution. Given that intersubjectivity might also be

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vulnerable in other instructional settings involving as-yet-competent speakers, the findings

highlight the broader significance of intersubjectivity work necessary for successful teaching.

Pedagogical Implications

Scholars interested in second language teaching and learning have long sought to identify

conditions or practices that best facilitate the acquisition of linguistic knowledge. What is equally

important, and yet less explored, is what Waring (2019b) calls the “how” of teaching—how the

production of such knowledge is accomplished in situ. In this section, I discuss how the various

types of “how” reported in this study can be translated into pedagogical knowledge for teacher

trainers, pre-service teachers, and language teachers. I will specifically focus on error

management and responding to student questions, and I conclude with a note on how CA

findings can make inroads into improving language teaching practices.

In terms of error management, this study can be an important resource for teacher

training as it documents how error correction transpires in real time. Such conversation analytic

findings, as Boblett and Waring (2017) so brilliantly articulate, can allow teachers to “see error

correction in slow motion” (p. 93). As previously mentioned, a great deal of work in corrective

feedback relies on coding, which inevitably decontextualizes a teacher’s utterance from its

context. CA marks a great contrast to this approach: Its relentless attention to the finest

interactional detail and commitment to analyzing participants’ actions and orientation will enable

teachers to appreciate error management in its full dimensions. The power of applying a CA

perspective in looking at error correction, in my view, lies in how it prompts teachers to consider

crucial factors such as the sequential environment, the types of errors, whether the student turn is

understood by the teacher or peers, etc. It also enables teachers to see what fine-grained verbal

and embodied resources can be marshalled to design their corrective conduct, how learners orient

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to it, and the interactional outcomes of different repair strategies. Teachers can therefore raise

their awareness of what resources to use and how they should be used productively. My findings

in Chapter IV, for example, can show how finger counting can at times backfire if the

grammatical unit being assigned to each digit is inconsistent. The mapping of a syntactic

structure on fingers exploits the relatively fixed word order in English3, but since phrase

structures are orderly across languages, it is possible that the same technique of mapping a

structure on fingers could be applied to teaching beginners in other languages as well. Moreover,

given that novice teachers are often at a loss for what to do when confronting unintelligible

student talk common in lower-level classrooms, the step-by-step approach in Chapter VI

provides a concrete response strategy for teachers, showing that they can first restore

intersubjectivity before providing learners the resources they need to express themselves clearly.

Another important take-home message for practitioners is that more care should be taken

in responding to student inquiries, an insight that would apply to working with language learners

across all proficiency levels. On a positive note, student inquiries can be leveraged as a

pedagogical asset for the entire cohort when the teacher goes beyond addressing the “what” but

also the “why.” The illustrative exemplars show us what precisely is an “adequate answer” that

facilitates “principled understanding” of linguistic knowledge. On the other hand, the findings

also reveal how students, those with lower proficiency in particular, are systematically

disadvantaged in their pursuit of an answer. Students’ lack of metalinguistic terminology is

evidenced in how they formulate questions with an example. Strikingly, such formulations of

grammatical problems frequently lead to intersubjective issues, which are not resolved until

3 For example, Spanish, a pro-drop language, has a word order structure that is more flexible than English.

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metalinguistic terms are used explicitly to establish common ground. From a practical point of

view, that lower-level students and their teacher do not share the same meta-language of

grammar can have serious consequences for intersubjectivity. Additionally, their minimal answer

receipts might conceal their dissatisfaction with a teacher answer, and teachers often treat this

very weak claim of understanding as sufficient ground to move on. Interestingly, except for a

small number of instances where the teacher has clearly answered the wrong question, resistance

to a teacher answer is rarely observed in my data set. Based on these findings, I suggest that

teacher should reconsider what counts as a sufficient display of understanding and strike a better

balance between intersubjectivity and progressivity. It may also be worth teaching students how

their questions can be phrased using metalinguistic terms, which might help create a more level

playing field in terms of how grammar issues are diagnosed and discussed.

My hope is that the findings of this project will sensitize teachers—both novice and

experienced—to the implications of their talk on understanding. Microanalytic accounts have an

enormous potential to inspire critical reconsiderations. For example, common practices that

practitioners take for granted, such as understanding checks (i.e., do you understand ; Waring,

2012a) or the ubiquitous positive feedback very good (Wong & Waring, 2009) can in fact hinder

learning opportunities. They can be problematized rather than be seen as normal teaching

practices. Commenting on the relationships between CA findings and praxis, Peräkylä and

Vehviläinen (2003) argue that CA findings can falsify, clarify, and exemplify taken-for-granted

professional knowledge. Similarly, I hope that my findings can invite teachers to rethink

understanding as an embodied, situated, and sequential achievement (Mondada, 2011). As such,

teachers may be empowered as they become more aware and critical of what is in their

pedagogical toolbox and how their decisions can affect their own classroom.

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Researchers have just begun to use CA as an intervention in teacher training. One such

example is a CA-based intervention cycle documented in Carpenter (2021), which involved a

TESOL K-12 student teacher who successfully improved her elicitation practices during her

teaching practicum. Waring and Creider (2021) have recently pioneered a set of concrete

guidelines detailing how CA can be used to encourage micro-reflections. Seedhouse (2022)

similarly showcases a range of case studies where Video Enhanced Observation (VEO) enabled

powerful reflection and facilitated actual improvement in various aspects of teaching. This is an

exciting time for language teaching as the field has started harnessing the power of

microanalysis, but much work still needs to be done to engage teachers in reflecting on the

robust, potentially inexhaustible range of teaching practices. I hope I can contribute to this

important endeavor by elucidating the inner workings of understanding in the classroom.

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Appendix: Transcription Notation

(Adapted from Jefferson, 2004 and Mondada, 2014)

. (period) falling intonation ? (question mark) rising intonation , (comma) continuing intonation - (hyphen) abrupt cut-off :: (colon(s)) prolonging of sound word (underlining) stress word the more underlining, the greater the stress WORD (caps) loud speech ◦word◦ (degree symbols) quiet speech ◦◦word◦◦ (degree symbols) the more symbols, the quieter the speech ↑word (upward arrow) raised pitch ↓word (downward arrow) lowered pitch >word< (more than and less than) quicker speech <word> (less than & more than) slowed speech $word$ (dollar signs) smiley voice #word# (number signs) squeaky voice hh (series of h’s) aspiration or laughter .hh (h’s preceded by period) inhalation [ ] (lined-up brackets) beginning and ending of [ ] simultaneous or overlapping speech = (equal sign) latch or contiguous utterances of the same speaker (2.4) (number in parentheses) length of a silence in 10ths of a second (.) (period in parentheses) micro-pause, 0.2 second or less (syl) non-transcribable segment of talk; each “syl” stands for a syllable of talk (word1/word2) two possible hearings ((gazing toward the ceiling)) non-speech activity or transcriptionist comment. SS multiple students + + / * * /∆ ∆ A set of identical symbols (one symbol per participant) delimit participants’ embodied actions. The teacher’s actions are marked by “+ +” throughout the paper; students are given other symbols. Gestures and descriptions of embodied actions are in gray font. cor If an embodied action is not done by the current speaker, the participant who performs the action will be identified in the margins in gray font and lower-case. *---> The action described continues across subsequent lines ---->* until the same symbol is reached. --->> The action described continues after the excerpt’s end. # The exact moment at which a screen shot has been taken fig is indicated with a specific sign showing its position within turn at talk.