scholarly journals The interactional ecology of homestay experiences: Locating input within participation and membership

2021 ◽  
pp. 026765832110588
Author(s):  
Tim Greer ◽  
Johannes Wagner

Study abroad homestays are generally assumed to provide visitors with opportunities to learn language ‘in the wild’ by participating in the host family’s everyday life. Ultimately such participation is accomplished via individual episodes of interaction as the visitor is socialized into the family’s mundane routines and rituals. Building on research into second language interaction in the lifeworlds of learners beyond the classroom, this study considers (1) how interactants in one homestay context draw on a range of ecologically available resources to co-accomplish participation and membership, and (2) how such participation affords the guest with an expanding repertoire of resources, including linguistic elements and new participatory practices. The study uses multimodal conversation analysis (CA) to discuss two extended extracts from naturally occurring interaction collected between a novice L2 English speaker and his homestay family. The analysis suggests that language learning is more complex than the mere provision of linguistic input: new lexical items and practices emerge within the interactants’ respective lifeworlds in relation to locally situated contingencies, and can be occasioned and explained via recourse to a range of material and embodied affordances beyond just language. Input, therefore, is sequentially and ecologically located in the broader business of an ongoing collective sociality and primarily serves the two key interactional imperatives of progressivity and intersubjectivity.

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 594-623 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niina Lilja ◽  
Arja Piirainen-Marsh

Abstract Using multimodal conversation analysis, this article analyses language learning as an in situ process during a teacher-assigned, experientially based pedagogical activity. The activity involved a three-part pedagogical structure, where learners first prepared for and then participated in real-life service encounters, and later reflected on their experiences back in the classroom. The analysis details how the co-constructed telling sequences through which novice second language users re-enact their experiences create an occasion for language-focused activity. We argue that the actions through which the participants display and sustain an orientation to an interactional practice as an object of learning make visible a learning project. The findings illuminate the practices through which language-focused activity is initiated, sustained, and managed to enable in situ learning. They also show how re-enactments function in storytelling and display a novice learner’s interactional competence. Finally, the findings illustrate how experiences gained in everyday social activities can be ‘harvested and reflected upon’ (Wagner 2015: 77) in the classroom and contribute to recent initiatives to develop teaching practices that support learning in-the-wild.


2015 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 3
Author(s):  
Adrian Leis

The goal of this paper is to gain a deeper understanding of whether a short study abroad program is effective in increasing its participants’ willingness to communicate in a second language. Using a questionnaire designed by Yashima (2002), a pre-post design study was used to examine a sample of 80 Japanese junior high school students who participated in a ten-day study abroad program to Sydney, Australia. The results indicate that although there were no statistically significant differences seen in the second language learning motivation of the students participating in the study abroad program, there were salient decreases observed in the anxiety students felt towards speaking English. Furthermore, as clear differences were seen in international posture, joining the study abroad program also meant that students felt more a part of the global community. Based on these results, the author concludes that traveling abroad for the purposes of study is indeed effective for adolescent learners of English, helping them feel more comfortable using the language as a tool for communication. 本論の目的は、短期海外研修参加者の第2言語におけるWillingness to Communicate (WTC) の向上に及ぼす効果について、より深い知見を獲得することである。八島(2002)によって作成されたアンケートを用い、シドニー•オーストラリアでの10日間の海外研修に参加した80人の日本人中学生のサンプルを事前事後調査方式で研究を行った。結果からわかったことは、統計的にみると海外研修に参加した生徒の第2言語における学習意欲には有意差が見られなかったが、生徒が英語を話すことに対して抱いていた不安の軽減が顕著に見られたということである。さらに、国際的な姿勢に明らかな差異が見られ、海外研修への参加は、生徒が国際社会の一員としての認識を強めるものとなっていた。これらの結果により、筆者は、学習を目的とする海外研修は英語を学ぶ生徒には非常に効果があり、海外研修によって生徒たちはより安心感を持って言語をコミュニケーションツールとして用いることができるようになったとの結論に達した。


2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 553-566 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naoko Taguchi ◽  
Joseph Collentine

Isabelli-García, Bown, Plew & Dewey (forthcoming) presented the ‘state of the art’ in research on language learning abroad. Beginning with Carroll's (1967) claim that ‘time spent abroad is one of the most potent variables’ predicting second language (L2) abilities (p. 137), the scope of study-abroad research has grown multifold in guiding theoretical frameworks, empirical methods, and objects of examination. A half-century of work surveyed in Isabelli-García et al.’s review reveals diverse goals of investigation, ranging from studies focusing on documenting learning outcomes, to studies aiming to unveil the process and nature of learning in a study-abroad context.


Author(s):  
Abigail McMeekin

Abstract Analyzing approximately nine hours of video-recorded naturally-occurring conversations over eight weeks of study abroad between three L2 speakers of Japanese and their L1 speaker host family members, the present study uses conversation analysis to explore how the participants manage intersubjectivity using communication strategies in word searches. Specifically the study explores the following: (a) how participants deploy, manipulate, and respond to communication strategies as interactional resources used to co-construct meaning and progressively disambiguate the referent sought; (b) how strategies are used within the sequential organization of word searches to guide the trajectory of the search on a turn-by-turn basis; (c) how linguistic and non-linguistic resources such as intonation and eye gaze are used in conjunction with strategies to organize participant structure and relevant action in the unfolding talk; and (d) how a microanalytic, interactional approach can redefine our understanding of how strategic mechanisms are used and labeled in interaction.


2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 173-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phil Benson, ◽  
Gary Barkhuizen, ◽  
Peter Bodycott, ◽  
Jill Brown,

AbstractMuch of the literature on study abroad outcomes focuses on language proficiency gains or on the influence of identity factors on opportunities for language learning. A smaller number of studies have looked at the influence of study abroad on participants' identities and have highlighted outcomes that might be placed under the heading of second language identity. Based on a review of this literature and a qualitative, narrative-based study of nine Hong Kong students participating in thirteen- and six-week study abroad programmes, this paper examines the construct of second language identity and its susceptibility to development in study abroad. Three main dimensions of second language identity are identified, related to (1) identity-related aspects of second language proficiency, or the ability to function as a person and express desired identities in a second language setting, (2) linguistic self-concept, or sense of self as a learner and user of the second language, and (3) second language-mediated aspects of personal competence. The study found that most of the students reported developments along all three of these dimensions, although there were variations among individuals that were related both to the duration of the programmes and individual goals and purposes.


2005 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. i-i

The analysis of naturally-occurring spoken interaction is an area which has attracted growing interest over the last few years. In this issue, Paul Seedhouse reviews Conversation Analysis (CA) and its application to areas of language learning and teaching, including teaching languages for specific purposes, materials design, classroom interaction and proficiency assessment. The author then examines the complex issue of what CA can contribute to the study of ‘learning’ and discusses the contribution of CA as a tool in existing social sciences research methodologies.


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