Kasper2015

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Kasper2015
BibType INCOLLECTION
Key Kasper2015
Author(s) Gabriele Kasper, Younhee Kim
Title Conversation-for-learning: institutional talk beyond the classroom
Editor(s) Numa Markee
Tag(s) EMCA, Classroom, Learning, Institutional
Publisher Wiley-Blackwell
Year 2015
Language English
City London
Month
Journal
Volume
Number
Pages 390–408
URL Link
DOI 10.1002/9781118531242.ch23
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title The Handbook of Classroom Discourse and Interaction
Chapter 23

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Abstract

Conversations‐for‐learning, also called conversation tables, conversation clubs, conversation lounges, or conversation rooms, are activities arranged to provide speakers of a nonprimary language with an environment for target language use outside of the classroom. In a prototypical conversation table arrangement, L2 speakers get together with one or more L1 speaker(s) in order to talk, without a set agenda, about a wide range of topics relating to their lives, experiences and interests, and culture‐specific practices. The expected pedagogical benefit is that in the course of such topical talk, opportunities for learning language and culture will contingently arise. This chapter describes conversations‐for‐learning as a type of nonformal institutional talk. It examines some prevalent practices through which the participants achieve the local order of conversation table interaction, including constructions of identities and their relation to participation frameworks and language choice, and considers how such practices embody the constitutive tension of conversations‐for learning as settings for conversation and language pedagogy. Through multimodal resources, including bodily conduct and writing, participants accomplish mutual understanding and their local interactional projects. At the same time, opportunities for L2 learning are contingently generated. Examples are given of how participants engage in L2 learning as a social activity, and how conversation table interaction over an extended period allows us to observe the development of language resources and interactional practices.

Notes