Classroom-based Conversation Analytic Research

Silvia Kunitz is Senior Lecturer in English at the Department of Language, Literature and Intercultural Studies at Karlstad University (Sweden). She completed her PhD in applied linguistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (USA) in 2013. In her research, she relies on conversation analysis to explore how teaching and learning are accomplished as socially situated activities. She has recently co-edited the volume Teaching and Testing L2 Interactional Competence: Bridging Theory and Practice (2019, Routledge) with Rafael Salaberry. She is one of the associate editors of Classroom Discourse. She has also worked as a language teacher in Italy and the US and has been involved in teacher education, both at the pre-service and in-service levels in the US and Sweden.
Numa Markee is an Emeritus Associate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (USA). His main research interests include the management of curricular innovation (see Managing Curricular Innovation, 1997, Cambridge University Press) and the use of conversation analysis as a tool for analyzing second language classroom talk and acquisition (see Conversation Analysis, 2000, Lawrence Erlbaum). His most important recent publications are The Handbook of Classroom Discourse and Interaction (2015, Wiley Blackwell) and Conversation Analysis and Language Alternation (2018, John Benjamins, co-edited with Anna Filipi). He is also one of the associate editors of Classroom Discourse. In addition, he has carried out consultancies on EFL curriculum design and implementation as an English Language Specialist for the US State Department in Chile, Brazil, Nepal, India, Thailand and Laos, and has taught ESL/EFL/ESP in the US, the UK, Switzerland, Mexico, Algeria and the Sudan.
Olcay Sert is an Associate Professor of TESOL and Applied Linguistics at Mälardalen University (Sweden). His research deals with classroom discourse, L2 interaction, and language teacher education. His book Social Interaction and L2 Classroom Discourse (Edinburgh University Press, 2015) was shortlisted for the British Association for Applied Linguistics (BAAL) Book Prize in 2016 and was a finalist for the American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL) first book award in 2017. He is leading the Mälardalen INteraction & Didactics (MIND) Research Group and is the editor of Classroom Discourse. He has also worked as a language teacher in Turkey and the UK and has been actively involved in teacher education in Turkey and Sweden.

Introduction / Silvia Kunitz, Numa Markee, and Olcay Sert.- Section 1: CA research in L2 classrooms.- The intersubjective objectivity of learnables: Theoretical underpinnings of praxeological and dialogical research on opportunities for learning in teacher-student interactivities / Ali Reza Majlesi.- Let me help you: Learning to do and correct public writing in the L2 classroom / Søren W. Eskildsen.- The Triadic Ecology of Correcting Spellings in Computer-Assisted Collaborative Writing / Nigel Musk.- Teachers' Instruction Sequences in Italian as a Foreign Language Classes: An Ethnomethodological Conversation Analytic Perspective / Numa Markee and Silvia Kunitz.- Section 2: CA research in content-based language classrooms.- Facework and collaborative learning in primary school CLIL classrooms: A multimodal conversation analysis approach to peer interaction / Natalia Evnitskaya.- Multimodal perspective into teachers' definition practices: Comparing subject-specific language in physics and history lessons / Leila Kääntä.- Teaching target knowledge through interaction in EFL content courses: Tracing sequences of teaching actions / Yo-An Lee.- Section 3: CA research and teacher training.- Transforming CA findings into future L2 teaching practices: Challenges and prospects / Olcay Sert.- Harnessing the power of heteroglossia in teacher talk / Hansun Zhang Waring.- What do you think about this?: Eliciting reflection or prelude to negative assessment? / Younhee Kim  and Rita Elaine Silver.- Section 4: CA and assessment.- A micro-analytic investigation into a practice of informal formative assessment in L2 classroom interaction / Nilüfer Can Daskin.- Firm ground: Conceptualizing and assessing interactional learning targets in second language classrooms / Thorsten Huth.- CA-informed testing: An exploratory intersection of norms / F. Scott Walters.- Conclusions: Two views on the pedagogical applicability of CA findings.- Concluding chapter 1 / Junko Mori.- Concluding chapter 2 / Simona Pekarek Doehler.

"This book offers an accessible overview of CA research in a range of different classrooms and will be of interest to both researchers and teachers." (Tim Greer, JALT Journal, Vol. 45 (1), May, 2023)

"This book offers an accessible overview of CA research in a range of different classrooms and will be of interest to both researchers and teachers." (Tim Greer, JALT Journal, Vol. 45 (1), May, 2023)"This new book demonstrates the latest CA research in the field of second language learning more comprehensively. ... This volume ... represents a new attempt to bridge the gap between the research and practice of Conversation Analysis. The design of the volume is also very friendly. ... . It will also be read widely by audiences who are interested in Conversation Analysis and its application, especially to second language teaching and learning." (Yuntong Liu and Yan Wang, The Linguist List, linguistlist.org, September 9, 2021)

"This book also endeavor to package their findings in ways that are accessible for all kinds of language teaching professionals ... . this book makes a crucial contribution to the field of applied linguistics by deliveringa thoroughly rigorous account ... . This book will be of particular interest to those with a CA background, but it is sure to be an indispensable resource for anyone interested in understanding the complexity of classroom interaction." (Mark Romig, SALT, Studies in Applied Linguistics & TESOL, Vol. 21 (2), 2022)

"The volume could be on the reading list on postgraduate programmes on foreign language teaching as well as teacher training programmes. ... the volume's chapters contain many increments to knowledge in terms of our understanding of the processes of language learning, teaching, and assessment in a wide range of settings. It provides many helpful guidelines and examples of how insights from CA studies may be packaged to make them more digestible and useful for practitioners." (Paul Seedhouse, Applied Linguistics, May 24, 2021)