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Conversation Analytic Research on Learning-in-Action pp 105–129Cite as

Learning Behaviors in the Wild: How People Achieve L2 Learning Outside of Class

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Part of the book series: Educational Linguistics ((EDUL,volume 38))

Abstract

This chapter represents a first attempt at building a collection of learning behaviors in L2 speakers’ social practices in the wild. Research has shown that repair, word search activities, and definition talk provide fruitful soil for L2 learning (Brouwer 2003; Eskildsen 2018a; Eskildsen and Theodórsdóttir 2017; Eskildsen and Wagner 2015; Kasper and Burch 2016; Koshik and Seo 2012; Kurhila 2006; Markee 1994; Markee Appl Ling 29:404–427, 2008; Theodórsdóttir 2018; Theodórsdóttir and Eskildsen 2011), but a principled overview of L2 speakers’ learning behaviors when using the L2 outside of class remains to be built. Filling that gap, the chapter shows three distinct learning behaviors: (1) noticing and using new word in word searches; (2) making explicit use of the expert; and (3) re-indexing previously learned items. Consisting of out-of-classroom Danish L2 interactions, the data reveal that word searches may be built in a variety of ways, sequentially and with respect to turn-taking design, but public noticing and use of the new word on the part of the L2 speaker is argued to be a recurring learning behavior in all the examples. The re-indexing of previously learned items follows talk where an L2 speaker has been previously corrected or displayed lack of understanding.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Adopted and revised from Eskildsen and Theodórsdóttir (2017). The present analysis focuses exclusively on learning behavior. For a fuller analysis, please see the original source.

  2. 2.

    The clerk’s actions, correspondingly, may be referred to as “doing teaching”. My concerns are with learning behaviors and I will not deal in any principled way with such actions here (but see Theodórsdóttir 2018 for a discussion).

  3. 3.

    This is not necessarily applicable to all word search instances but it seems to be a prototype of the instances found in my data where learning is argued to be involved. Speakers may, for instance, orient to a co-participant’s speech perturbations as a word search even though the troubling item has not been specifically indexed (Brouwer 2003).

  4. 4.

    Note that Lena also fits the new expression semantico-syntactically to her own purposes: she changes the pronoun to “vi” (“we”) and the tense to preterit “sku” (“went”), and she coerces the structure into the general Danish V2-pattern that posits that the finite verb is in the second syntactic position (here following the adverbial “in Grand Canyon”). Note also that the verb “sku” (preterit of “skal”) is an auxiliary, etymologically related to English “shall”, that in cases like this doubles as main verb denoting motion.

  5. 5.

    On the role of language play in L2 learning, see Bell (2017) for a recent overview.

  6. 6.

    This lexical distinction is expressed through a modal verb in Danish (“skal”, lit: “shall”). “Bruge” is most typically translated into “use”, and “skal bruge” can be translated into the English “need” in this context.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Design and Communication, University of Southern Denmark, Sønderborg, Denmark

    Søren W. Eskildsen

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  1. Søren W. Eskildsen
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Correspondence to Søren W. Eskildsen .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Applied Linguistics, Portland State University, Portland, OR, USA

    John Hellermann

  2. Department of Design and Communication, University of Southern Denmark, Sønderborg, Denmark

    Søren W. Eskildsen

  3. Center for Applied Linguistics, University of Neuchâtel, Neuchâtel, Switzerland

    Simona Pekarek Doehler

  4. Department of Language and Communication Studies, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland

    Arja Piirainen-Marsh

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Eskildsen, S.W. (2019). Learning Behaviors in the Wild: How People Achieve L2 Learning Outside of Class. In: Hellermann, J., Eskildsen, S., Pekarek Doehler, S., Piirainen-Marsh, A. (eds) Conversation Analytic Research on Learning-in-Action. Educational Linguistics, vol 38. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22165-2_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22165-2_5

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