Interaction and Learning in the Second Language Classroom: A Multimodal (Inter)action Analysis

It is well known that learning is powerfully mediated and shaped by diverse interactional dynamics (Bezemer & Kress, 2015; Duta et al., 2015; Ismail et al., 2018; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Walsh, 2011; Witten, 2012). Therefore, studying classroom interactional encounters has a great potential for understanding what students learn and how they learn (Gardner, 2019; Walsh, 2011). While numerous studies have analyzed EFL/ESL classroom interaction by focusing on language use (Arisandi, 2018; Chapeton-Castro, 2009; Li & Zhang, 2020; Mega Putri, 2018; Nisa, 2014; Shomoossi, 2004; Walsh, 2011; Wang, 2020; Weihua, 2010) and non-verbal communication (Barmaki, 2014; Helweg-Larsen et al., 2004; Macedonia & Klimesch, 2014; Macedonia & Knösche, 2011; Pan, 2014; Smotrova, 2017; Tellier, 2008), relatively few studies have analyzed English Foreign Language (EFL) classroom interaction from ecological, affective, and embodied views on teaching and learning (Atkinson, 2010, 2014, 2019; Atkinson & Shvidko, 2019; Bezemer & Kress, 2015) and social semiotic perspectives where all communication modes (e.g. gestures, gaze, speech, etc.) are equally important to make meaning (Ingerpuu-Rümmel, 2018; Mejía-Laguna, 2023; Park, 2017). This relative dearth of ecological and multimodal studies on L2 classroom discourse, --especially in elementary/high school settings-- is somehow surprising when realizing that learning depends on interaction so heavily, and when acknowledging that understanding classroom interaction is a vital step to understanding how learning unfolds in the classroom. In other words, more needs to be learned about how L2 Critical Learning Episodes are leveraged by different semiotic modes. Although the studies above-mentioned on language and non-verbal communication, mainly grounded on or related to sociolinguistic traditions (e.g., Conversation Analysis, Interactional Sociolinguistics, Systemic Functional Linguistics, Linguistic Anthropology, Critical Discourse Analysis,) have significantly contributed to the understanding of how teacher-student interaction is connected to second/foreign language learning in the classroom, many of them approach classroom interactions from a monomodal or linguo-centric perspective. That is, many of these studies “are based on the assumption that speech and writing are always dominant, carrying the ‘essence’ of meanings, and that other, simultaneously operating modes [e.g. gaze, gestures, posture, etc.] can merely expand, exemplify or modify these meanings” (Bezemer & Jewitt, 2010, p. 2). Although one may think that speech and writing are the most meaningful and relevant modes, multimodality scholars (Bezemer & Jewitt, 2018; Jewitt et al., 2016; Kress, 2010) argue that this is not always the case. This group of scholars challenges this linguo-centric view on human communication by claiming that 1) how language is used can significantly vary across different communities (e.g. signing communities, baby-caregiver communication, blind people, the interaction between people who do not share the same language, people with aphasia or autism, etc.), 2) in certain contexts we mostly rely on other modes to fulfill social needs with yet lots of information that is being communicated (e.g. crossing a street, driving a car, playing certain sports, medical surgeries, people assembling furniture, etc.), and 3) different semiotic modes have different affordances and constraints (language may be better suited to represent sequence; image may be more efficient to show space distribution, etc.). From a neuroscientist perspective, there is also strong evidence that shows that “the processing of information in one sensory modality is continually modulated by concurrent activity in other modalities” (Howes, 2017, p. 323), breaking away from the dominant compartmentalized orientation toward perception. There are well-documented phenomena and effects that indicate that human interaction is inevitably multimodal. For example, while surrounded by a noisy background, people can be more easily understood if they can be both heard and seen (Howes, 2017). Other examples include the McGurk effect (BBC, 2010; Mcgurk & Macdonald, 1976), which takes place when seeing someone's mouth and lips conflicts with what we actually hear, and synaesthesia, which refers to the phenomenon when the stimulation of one sense leads to activation of other senses (Howes, 2017). Analyzing students’ learning based on linguo-centric (or mono-modal) standpoints about communication may not provide enough and comprehensive data to accurately map how students learn within the classroom setting. As stated by Erickson, (2011) “the study of interaction should not privilege talk over nonverbal behavior […]–all is of potential interest” (p. 391). Jewitt (2008) even argues that “from decades of classroom language research, much is known about the semiotic resources of language; however, considerably less is understood about the semiotic potentials of gesture, sound, image, movement and other forms of representation” (p. 246). Since this dearth of studies on L2 classroom discourse is more prominent in elementary/high school settings, the proposed study aims to explore, from a social-semiotic perspective (Jewitt, 2012; Kress, 2010; van Leeuwen, 2015) how the multimodal teacher-student interactions mediate Critical Learning Episodes (CLEs) (Davis et al., 2009; Kiely & Davis, 2010) in an EFL high school classroom at a private school in Bogotá, Colombia. CLEs are brief instances of classroom interaction where the instructor and the researcher believe that learning --as a process-- is being fostered or inhibited (Davis et al., 2009). These scholars argue that CLEs are made up of three characteristics, as follows: Boundaries: It has a start and a finish that are clear to the teachers and/or an observer. Theme: It has a single, unifying centre of gravity. This could be a word, a question, a response, or a phenomenon that has attracted attention in the classroom and contributes to the discourse. Significance: It is important for learning. This could be the resolution of a problem or new understanding developing (learning in terms of classroom subject matter) or activities that contribute to the social or affective factors that support or inhibit learning in the classroom (learning in terms of relationship and interaction management) (pp. 282–283). With this framework in mind, we aim to explore the following guiding question and sub-questions: How do multimodal teacher-student interactions, in an EFL high school classroom at a private school in Bogotá (Colombia), mediate L2 Critical Learning Episodes (CLEs)? What kinds of Critical Learning Episodes (CLEs) are created in the L2 classroom? How do the teacher and her students employ the semiotic resources of multiple modes to create such CLEs? What are the teacher’s and students’ perspectives on the enactment of modes and affordances when crafting L2 CLEs?