Student-initiated multi-unit questions in EMI classrooms

Abstract

This conversation analytic study investigates student-initiated multi-unit questions (MUQs) in whole class interaction. Based on a corpus of 30 hours of videotaped interactions from teacher education classrooms in an English-medium instruction university, we demonstrate that students use MUQs to introduce topics, either by recontextualizing some aspect of the prior topic, or alternatively, without these cohesive ties, which requires more interactional work to achieve intersubjectivity. Findings reveal that MUQs render student professional concerns more relevant and salient, foregrounding those inquiries as a space for launching topics. Students bring up issues such as ways of handling particular situations through MUQs and contribute what they already know about the topic of the question, thereby confining the scope of the sought information. The study contributes to understanding how topic initiating practices are enacted through local connections where the student questions do display coherence with the immediately preceding discourse.