Repurposing Modelled Items in English Grammar Teaching: Transformation of Textbook Exercises in Classroom Interaction
Abstract
While grammar instruction in a second language (L2) relies heavily on course materials, the interactional treatment of those materials at the micro-analytic level remains underexplored. More specifically, the treatment of ‘modelled exercise items’, sample exercise items whose answers are pre-provided by the textbook, requires further interactional investigation. To this end, this multimodal, collection-based conversation analytic (CA) study investigates a teacher’s orientation to ‘modelled exercise items’ in textbooks, within grammar revision talk. The data consisted of 37 classroom hours of video recordings of an EFL classroom at a state university in Türkiye. The participants comprise 30 students and one English language instructor teaching an integrated-skills course. The data were analyzed following CA procedures, including unmotivated looking, repeated viewing, detailed multimodal transcription, turn-by-turn sequential analysis, and collection building. The findings reveal that the teacher systematically transforms modelled exercise items to serve diverse pedagogical purposes. Specifically, the teacher’s turns in leveraging these items function to (i) elicit grammar explanations from the students and (ii) transform the items into an L2 grammar practice. These findings also show that the teacher’s interactional actions are contingent upon the pedagogical goal pursued in situ, highlighting the reflexive relationship between pedagogy, interaction and material use. Furthermore, these contingencies create space for further teaching and learning opportunities. This study contributes to CA research on L2 and classroom interaction by uncovering the micro-details of the interface between materials and classroom interaction within grammar revision episodes, with implications for teachers and teacher educators.
Keywords
L2 grammar teaching, teaching materials, classroom interaction, multimodal conversation analysis, materiality
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