The Anatomy of Learning a Foreign Language in Classroom with a Textbook: An Interactional and Multimodal Approach

Abstract

From the perspective of an ethnomethodological (Garfinkel H, Studies in ethnomethodology. Polity Press, Prentice-Hall, 1967) approach of learning (Nishizaka A, Res Lang Soc Interact 39:119–154, 2006; Berducci D, Pragmat Cogn 19:476–506, 2011) and of a conversation analytic and multimodal approach of writing (Mondada L, Svinhufvud K, Language and Dialog 6:1–53, 2016), this chapter proposes to reconceptualise the connections between language, learning and literacy by examining their temporal and multimodal dimensions in social interaction. I focus on the case of the interactional processes through which a teacher and students teach and learn a foreign language with a textbook. Examination of the interactional processes specific to foreign language learning in the classroom presents two heuristic interests: (1) to show that within social interaction, practices such as talking, listening, reading and writing, are not strictly separated but are embedded within a single course of action. (2) observation of how participants articulate these practices within their interaction reflexively indicates how they organize the teaching/learning of a foreign language in an institutional setting.