Connecting the Language Classroom and the Wild : Re-enactments of Language Use Experiences

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.