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Interactional competence (IC) as a target construct in testing speaking in the classroom and joint-development in study abroad contexts

Quick summary of the previous paper

Speaking in turns and sequences: Interactional competence as a target construct in testing speaking, Carsten Roever and Gabriele Kasper (2018)

The speaking construct in second language (L2) classroom assessment would benefit from a greater incorporation of a sociolinguistic-interactional perspective inasmuch as being able to speak a second language does not only mean to speak it grammatically, but also to be able to display interpersonal skills in order to use socially expected sequentially organized speech.

Summary of the second paper

Initiating and delivering news of the day: Interactional competence as joint-development, Tim Greer (2019)

I decided to analyze a more recent paper to see the evolution of thought about interactional competence one year later than the first paper I chose, as well as in study abroad context (practice) while my previous paper dealt with classroom context (theory).

1.      Introduction

Delivering news of the day = common interactional activity, ritual in groups such as family, friends, co-workers, etc. These narratives ultimately serve the significant social function of maintaining group ties and reinforcing identities. Newcomers to the group need to learn the linguistic/social codes of the routine/ritual.

This study focuses on the development of one’s L2 English speaker’s IC in relation to news-of-the-day tellings during a short-term homestay program and explores how he and his host family adjust their co-accomplishment of this recurring interactional practice over the three-week period.

Conditions of the study:

-          Each of the news-of-the-day tellings is first initiated by another person, the host

-          Interactional aim: to start a conversation where none exists or to elicit talk with a co-present member who has been relatively inactive

-          Sequential organization:

o   Speaker A (expert): initiation in turn 1

o   Speaker B (novice): assessments and/or reportables and/or story-tellings

o   Speaker A: various forms of uptake interspersed throughout the narrative

o   Speaker B: further topic expansion

Challenges:

-          Ability to produce a timely and meaningful contribution within sequence relies on the participant’s IC (Hall et al., 2011)

-          IC is jointly accomplished => how development of IC involves both expert and novice speakers

-          Development of the practice not only according to linguistic knowledge, but also according to the speaker’s familiarity with the routine

Research questions:

1. How does a novice English speaker adapt his news-of-the-day tellings over time?

2. How do relative experts adapt their news-of-the-day initiations over the same period?

2.      Longitudinal Conversation Analysis and the development of IC

Conversation analysis (CA) used in the development of L2 IC to compare changes in individual interactional practices across episodes of naturally occurring talk.

IC ≠ communicative competence because “IC is the construction of a shared mental context through the collaboration of all interactional partners” (Young, 2011).

Act of “telling” = area of IC that has received particular attention in CA-SLA research.

Waring’s study (2013) uses longitudinal CA to examine the development and learning of routine inquiries within an adult ESL classroom setting => pre-class small talk affords both opportunities for authentic language use and a slot for explicit teaching. Pre-class small talk // homestay setting.

3.      Background to the data

Place: a house in Brisbane, Australia

Date: from February to March 2015

Subject: Ryo, 19-year-old undergraduate student from Japan, taking part in a three-week study abroad tour at an Australian university

Homestay family: immigrants from Mexico who speak both Spanish and English. 2 parents and 2 children (Axel, 11 years old and Luis, 6 years old). In the first excerpt, 2 additional guests, Gran and Uncle Juan.

Sample: 4 conversations of approximately 20min each. The initial conversation (T1) was recorded on Ryo’s third night staying with the family, with 2 recordings the second week (T2 and T3) and the final conversation (T4) recorded towards the end of his stay.

NB. The question “How was your day?” can and should be met with an assessment followed by a reportable, such as “Not bad. We got this new shipment from India, which was exciting.”

4.      Analysis

Initial conversation, February 24 (T1), 7 people present, 19 min 00 s recording

Second conversation, March 2 (T2), 5 people present, 19 min 30 s recording

Third conversation, March 4 (T3), 5 people present, 22 min 41 s recording

Last conversation, March 10 (T4), 4 people present, 18 min 20 s recording

Did Mum become aware of Ryo’s responses and therefore initiating the storytelling more clearly for him?

Ryo’s story: Quite long and detailed compared to the previous storytellings. No great change in grammar or pronunciation over the three weeks.

Mum’s news-of-the-day initiations across the four excerpts

T2, T4 = preface “so” while T1, T3 = abrupt topic shift

T1, T2, T3 = initiation invites assessment, although there is an implicit expectation for expansion.

T4 = storytelling initiation allows Ryo to take an extended turn at talk.

CCL: Not only Ryo has become more familiar with the news-of-the-day ritual, but the expert speakers also have come to ask about his day via interactional practices that change the way he delivers that news.

5.      Discussion

Brief responses,                                            Student became familiar with routine, need for post-expansions                                                         detailed and story-like telling

Adjustments in news-of-the-day initiations and delivery over the three-weeks

Week 1                                                                                                                                              Week 4

Ryo was competent in these routines in his first language prior to homestay (cf. formulates basic reportables in T1), yet he needed to get accustomed to this family’s routine to fulfill the news-of-the-day telling task appropriately.

Challenges for the current study: news-of-the-day initiations are open inquiries and therefore do not nominate a specific topic. As such, even among proficient speakers they are frequently met with brief delays, sound stretches and perturbations in the second pair part as the respondent searches for a newsworthy tellable (Button and Casey, 1984). Thus, Ryo’s disfluent responses can be due to 1) the natural unfolding of the talk, and 2) his developing IC.

Counterargument to Ryo’s developing IC = Ryo’s decreasing hesitation markers can be seen as atypical inasmuch as even native speaker need to find some time to find a newsworthy telling when prompted with the question “how was your day?” => Maybe Ryo got used to the routine, hence planning and preenacting his answer (Leyland, 2017).

This study highlights the co-constructed nature of IC as something that is not just the responsibility of the novice language user. Changes in telling initiations => development of the learner’s IC.

Waring’s study (2013): L2 classroom-based study of routine inquiries “How was your weekend?” => student’s brief responses = inadequate and need follow up questions.

Current study: Mum asking, “How was your day?” but needs follow up question such as “what did you do?” or “could you talk to your friends?” because of Ryo’s brief response.

These instances suggest that treating short responses to such routine enquiries as inapposite is something observable beyond the classroom context.

Further observations on the data extracts

1)      Ryo does not reciprocate the tellings by initiating news-of-the-day from the family

Usually, a first story frequently occasions a second story (Jefferson, 1978) + a first-pair part is often redirected back to the initiator on completion of the sequence as a reciprocal or exchange sequence (Schegloff, 2007, p. 95).

2)      Mum’s itemized news inquiry to other family members (Button and Casey, 1985)

Example: she asks her younger son Luis, “What did y- oh you had piano today, right?” (in data not shown).

ð  proffers a possible response for the truncated inquiry and projects a trajectory for the ongoing talk.

Limitations of the analysis due to the co-constructed nature of IC: even though the discussions happen in the same setting with the (almost) same people over three-weeks’ time, each occasion is unique and leads to a unique initiation from the family’s part and a unique response from Ryo’s part.

The familiarity and the development are therefore concerned with both Ryo’s ability to predict and project a regularly occurring interactional routine and his growing fluency in providing a type-fitted response in a timely manner as well as the family's increasingly routinized initiation of news-of-the-day tellings with him at this point in the meal.

6.      A concluding note on pragmatic development and learner mobility

Unlike the form focused training that is found in many language classrooms, homestay offers students the chance to use language in authentic interactional contexts “in the wild” (Hutchins, 1995), and this can be a harrowing yet profitable experience.

Repeating subsequent versions of the same experience allow the learner to reflect on their interactional success and failures and to improve on them in subsequent iterations.

Conclusion

How do expert language users adjust the interactional focus of their initiations and how, over time, does a novice speaker become increasingly proficient at participating in the routine of talking about news at a particular point in the conversation?

This study has shown us that being proficient in a language does not only mean knowing its grammar and vocabulary. These features of L2 knowledge actually become least important in opposition with giving an appropriate response to the family’s routine. Thus, IC both from the expert language users and novice language user is the competence that makes the conversation possible and appropriate. The expert language users learn to adjust their news-of-the-day initiations to their guest while the novice speaker tries to familiarize himself with the family’s routine through repetition.

Personal interpretation

Both articles emphasize the joint-development of interaction, thus of interactional competence (IC). Therefore, three questions came to my mind that I will try to answer throughout this paper:

1)      How to assess IC if it is co-constructed?

2)      Do we need to assess IC in the classroom, or should we let student’s IC develop in study abroad contexts only?

3)      What is the role of study abroad periods in IC learning and how should homestays and classroom learning be laid out for optimizing L2 learning?

1. The co-constructed nature of IC and its assessment

“VanPatten (1998) points out that there is a gap between second language acquisition (SLA) theory and classroom practice due to varying interpretations of the concept ‘communicative’” (Mantero, 2002). Similarly, the concept of IC might be subjected to interpretations. Even though Mehan (1979) defined it as a “competence necessary for effective interaction” and a “competence that is available in the interaction between participants” (Roever and Kasper, 2018), we can interpret ‘effective interaction’ differently depending on the participant’s L2 level or country of origin for instance. Moreover, Greer’s analysis of news-of-the-day tellings showcases the co-constructed nature of IC, that is to say, the expert speaker’s IC influences the novice’s speaker’s IC and vice versa (Greer, 2019). This results in one’s IC to depend on each specific discussion context (where are they talking, when, and with whom). Thus, with all these difficulties of definition, interpretation, and fluctuations, how can we assess the IC of a particular student?

Reading Miguel Mantero’s article entitled “Evaluating Classroom Communication: In Support of Emergent and Authentic Frameworks in Second Language Assessment” (2002), I think the authentic assessment framework developed by Wiggins (1990) and Archbald and Newman (1989) most lends itself to the students’ development of IC in classroom contexts:

“Authentic assessment is any type of assessment that requires students to demonstrate skills and competencies that realistically represent problems and situations likely to be encountered in daily life. When authentic assessment is placed into the context of a language classroom, what follows is a cognitively more demanding method of assessment that has to include more discourse and reliance on emergent grammar by both the student and the instructor because, as Wiggins states, authentic assessment offers opportunities to plan and revise dialogue and discourse, collaborate with others, and help students ‘play’ within contextualized worlds inside of the classroom that are based on the culture(s) of the language being studied” (Mantero, 2002, my emphases)

The authentic assessment emphasizes the co-constructed nature of interaction through the idea of collaboration between participants. The authentic assessment tries, in my opinion, to incorporate both situational authenticity (“’play’ within contextualized worlds inside of the classroom that are based on the culture(s) of the language being studied”) and interactional authenticity (“… realistically represent problems and situations likely to be encountered in daily life”) (East, 2016), which is a great background to stimulate the development of students’ IC.

Both articles mentioned challenges linked to the assessment of IC. For Roever and Kasper (2018) in the context of classroom assessment, the main disadvantage of IC is that the apparent misunderstanding or disfluencies by test takers can be examiner-induced with the test taker’s response actually demonstrating interactional ability rather than lack of proficiency. For Greer (2019) in study abroad context, it is difficult to tell if the changes noticed on the student’s IC are due to his improvement or to the context of the specific discussion T4 in which we noticed improvement (maybe it was a good day, maybe it was due to a change in Mum’s initiation “what happened today?” rather than “how was your day?”, etc.). In any case, both articles underline the high level of contextualization related to IC and its assessment, in addition to the fact that it represents a challenge for assessors.

Due to the highly contextualized dimension of IC, it is difficult to create a standardized test for L2 learners in classroom contexts. As we saw in my presentation of Rover and Kasper’s article (2018), the idea of flexibility and adjustment is highlighted, which stands in sharp contrast with the idea of standardization we aim to in L2 assessment. Indeed, the authors claim that “test protocols need to require examiners to flexibly adjust their actions (questions, instructions, etc.) to the local contingencies of the unfolding assessment talk” (Roever and Kasper, 2018). Yet, van Batenburg et al. (2018) seem to have found a way to standardize the interactional context through scripted speech tasks for L2 assessments. Indeed, “since the context largely determines what type of linguistic and strategic performance is called for (cf. Chapelle, 1998), controlling the context increases the likelihood that individual speakers’ performances can be compared, allowing us to make inferences about their linguistic and strategic ability to convey and understand messages in interaction” (van Batenburg et al., 2018).

Here is the description of van Batenburg et al.’s (2018) scripted test format:

6 dialogic speech tasks designed for the participant’s field of study (in this case, Business and Administration sector). Task settings = professional interactional routines relevant to this sector.

3 main task types:

-          Instruction tasks

-          Advice tasks

-          Sales tasks

For each, 2 dialogic tasks developed in which the candidates need to achieve the same goal (e.g. to explain a procedure) and tap similar language functions, but differ in terms of content, audience, and domain:

-          Professional domain

-          Personal domain

“To reduce variation caused by differences in background knowledge that might influence task performance, candidates were provided with the required content knowledge for each task (cf. Bachman, 2002; Weir, 2005).”

“Brown (2003) points out that interlocutor frames do not control interlocutor contributions sufficiently to ensure standardization. For this reason, interlocutor scripts were used that fully prescribed the interlocutor’s textual and interactional contribution, standardizing both linguistic (complexity, register, style) and interactional (set points requiring the use of interactional strategies) challenges posed to candidates. The scripts also specified the parameters of interactive support that could be offered.”

Example:

The interlocutor asks “My nephew will come and visit me for the day. Will you have a cot for me?” It is expected that candidates will not be familiar with the word “cot,” which should evoke meaning negotiation. Several scenarios may unfold:

·         In cases where candidates do know the word and provide the requested information, the interlocutor proceeds to the next question in the script.

·         Where candidates negotiate for meaning, the interlocutor will provide the standardized alternative of “a small baby bed,” and proceed to the next question once the requested information has been given.

·         In cases where candidates do not engage in negotiation at all, the interlocutor continues to the next question.

·         In cases where candidates do not engage in negotiation, but respond with “yes,” the interlocutor asks: “In both rooms?” This allows candidates to negotiate for meaning.

My opinion

I think this type of assessment bypasses the challenges emerging from the clash between standardization and contextualization. Indeed, this scripted task composed of several responses for each case is a solution to Roever and Kasper’s call for flexibility and adjustment (2018), while allowing standardization through the written options, and it ultimately emphasizes the co-constructed nature of interaction with each student’s response leading to a particular contextualized response from the interlocutor’s part. On top of assessing IC, this type of assessment can assess “automaticity” as well as “appropriate use of language” as mentioned in chapter 9 of the textbook (East, 2016), which are key components of IC. Indeed, the co-constructed nature of interaction implies that interaction is highly contextualized and need appropriate language use in order to be successful. Appropriate language use depends on the context (here personal or professional), on the correct choice of vocabulary (here depending on instruction, or advice, or sale tasks) as well as adequate register depending on if you talk to a superior, a friend, a subordinate, etc. From this type of assessment, automaticity can be easily assessed as spontaneity, that is, ‘unrehearsed’ or ‘unprepared’ conversation since the students do not know the script beforehand.

2. Where, when, and by whom should IC be assessed?

L2 knowledge is usually assessed in the classroom through standardized end-of-the-year high or low stakes assessments by teachers at different levels (beginner, intermediate, advanced). Moreover, Roever and Kasper (2018) advocate for a greater incorporation of a sociolinguistic-interactional perspective in testing speaking, which is conceptualized as the interact assessment format in East (2016), giving pride of place to IC over grammatical knowledge. Nevertheless, where, when and by whom should this new competence be assessed?

As we saw in Roever and Kasper’s article (2018) in classroom context and Greer’s article (2019) in study abroad context, IC can be found everywhere, but not assessed by the same persons. Indeed, the teacher usually prevails as an assessor in the classroom whereas the student finds himself alone in study abroad contexts. In my opinion, IC should be developed both in the classroom and in study abroad contexts. I think the students need to be familiarized about IC in the classroom by the teacher before being able to assess him or herself and develop his or her own IC without the teacher’s help abroad. I will talk about the relationship between in-class learning and study abroad homestays later in my third and last part.

Furthermore, as we saw in chapter 6 of the textbook (East, 2016), interact is more difficult to implement for beginners than advanced speakers, thus leading to an imbalance in the assessment of IC depending on the students’ levels. Because of that, I would suggest incrementing the importance of IC little by little as the student gains proficiency in the L2. This would lead to finding a balance between converse and interact learning and assessment formats. My idea would be to start L2 learning (beginner level) with a focus on converse, allowing the student to build strong linguistic and grammatical scaffolding, without which s/he will not be able to develop his or her IC. Then, as the beginner becomes intermediate, I would like to incorporate IC as a greater part of the speaking construct, with a ratio of assessment that would be 50% converse, and 50% interact. Eventually, as the student becomes an advanced speaker, I think the assessment should become 100% interact as the student now has a strong linguistic and grammatical scaffolding as well as an idea of the importance of IC that completes his or her grammatical knowledge to ensure authentic interactional interaction with native speakers in the future.

Finally, I think L2 speaking assessments would benefit from a greater incorporation of different assessor figures and from encouraging independent learning. In Roever and Kasper’s article (2018), we saw excerpts between examiner and candidate, between speakers of the same L2 level, and speakers of different L2 level. These pairs can lead to one of Storch’s (2001) four types of pair interactions: collaborative, dominant/dominant, dominant/passive, or expert/novice (Devitte, 2016). In Greer’s article (2019), we saw excerpts between native speakers and a novice speaker, falling into Storch’s expert/novice interaction type. In all these cases, IC is found and difficult to assess because of the co-constructed nature of interaction. How should IC be assessed and by whom? In the cases in which the level of interlocutor of the L2 learner is higher, the advanced speaker’s IC can help the student’s IC improve over time (expert/novice). Thus, how can we assess the student’s IC only? When two beginners interact with each other, the conversation sometimes cannot move further due to lack of vocabulary from the participants (passive/passive). In this case, how can we assess their IC? It might be best to vary the examinees’ interlocutors throughout the year (same level, lower level, higher level, native speaker) in order to see how the student reacts to each situation in terms of interactional skills.

Further, I think peer- and self-assessment should be added on top of the teacher’s assessment in order to encourage autonomous learning in the students. For example, in my Japanese classes this semester, I was encouraged to follow up in-class learning with online learning that resulted in self-evaluation at the end of each lesson. I had to evaluate my knowledge of each grammatical rules out of three stars. I think this kind of practices lead to self-awareness and autonomous learning, which adds to the teacher’s feedback. Sometimes however, it is hard to evaluate oneself, especially when it is the first time to do so. Thus, I would advocate to evaluate a peer according to the teacher’s guideline, to familiarize oneself with the practice of self-evaluation. It might also be interesting to compare one self-evaluation with the teacher’s in order to understand one’s true ability. To support my idea, I will quickly give evidence from the article entitled “Conversation Analysis in the Classroom: Guiding Learners to Self-Assess Using Classroom Interactional Competence Guidelines” (Devitte, 2016) in which it is said “Drawing learners attention to the strategies they use during such conversations such as topic management, engagement, turn management, echo, pausing, overlaps, and seeking clarification, has the potential to not only make them more aware of how they speak, but also guide them to understand the benefits of working collaboratively during task and activities” (Devitte, 2016). We might thus be able to fall into only one of Storch’s interaction types: the collaborative interaction, which is the best to hone IC skills due to the co-constructed, thus collaborative, nature of interaction.

3. Study abroad and in-class learning in IC development

According to the above table, each of the learning contexts (in-class or study abroad) has its own benefits and disadvantages. Moreover, in a 21^st century globalized world, it is more and more common to be able to spend some time abroad during one’s studies. Therefore, how can we articulate in-class learning and study abroad homestays to optimize L2 learning and foreground the development of IC?

In a colloquium on Study Abroad Research in European Perspective I attended on November 9^th, 2018 at Paul Valéry University in France, I learned about the management of in-class learning in relation to study abroad. First, as Anu Härkönen, head of International Affairs at Turku University in Finland, mentioned during the colloquium, it must be said that students and staff do not have the same perception of studying abroad (Edmonds et al., 2018):

We can see from the above table that students see the opportunity of studying abroad as an interesting trip for personal growth and goals rather than an opportunity for learning what lacks in L2 classroom teaching: IC. Thus, I would advise to emphasize the importance of IC even as we start teaching according to converse standards, so that the students know what they are missing in the classroom and understand the importance of studying abroad for honing their interactional skills with native speakers.

Moreover, I would like to talk about intercultural learning in student and teacher class interaction, which can be emphasized through studying abroad prospects and returns from studying abroad. The researchers, Ana Beaven and Claudia Borghetti, explained that study abroad must not come into the student’s learning journey without being prepared and followed up (Edmonds et al., 2018). They thus theorized three teaching modules as part of the study abroad journey:

Pre-departure module = a face-to-face module with outgoing students. Interculturality and learning objectives, reframe their expectations:

-          Perception of self and other

-          Anti-discrimination

-          Exploring narrative in intercultural mobility contexts

-          Meeting others abroad

While abroad = online module. Reflect on their own lives abroad (emotions, relationships, academic experience)

-          24h Erasmus life

-          Intercultural geography (ethnography-based approach)

-          Experiencing interculturality through volunteering (field work)

When students come back = face-to-face. Look both ways, back and ahead.

-          Bringing interculturality back home

-          One, two, many… Erasmus experiences

-          Mobility beyond the Academy

These modules focus more on ethics and cultural learning than linguistic knowledge, but these are also part of L2 learning and proficiency. However, as future L2 teacher, I would argue that it might be interesting to couple this three-fold cultural module with a three-fold IC module for the students to prepare themselves for the study abroad period beforehand, as well as reflect on it afterwards and understand the extent of IC on L2 knowledge. We can thus understand why most study abroad programs allow students to participate from their third year of university: students need pre-departure preparation to fully enjoy the benefits of studying abroad. As the researchers point out, neither first-hand experience of the language (study abroad) not theoretical knowledge (classroom) is enough to know a language (Edmonds et al., 2018). The inclusion of study abroad homestays in the curriculum is a huge help in students’ development of IC. In certain schools such as Polytech in France, these homestays are even mandatory to graduate.

To conclude, I would like to present a model that would, in my opinion, lead to IC development in classroom and study abroad contexts from elementary school to graduation, without taking into account the financial feasibility of my framework and according to the French school system:

* end-of-the-year exam

Works cited

Devitte, W. (2016). Conversation analysis in the classroom: Guiding learners to self-assess using classroom interactional competence guidelines. SOPHIA TESOL FORUM / Working Papers in TESOL, (8), 165-181.

East, M. (2016). Assessing Foreign Language Students’ Spoken Proficiency: Stakeholder Perspectives on Assessment Innovation. Educational Linguistics. Springer.

Edmonds, Amanda and Pascale Leclercq (2018, November 9). Colloquium “COST” (Study Abroad Research in European Perspective – SAREP), presented at Paul Valéry University, France.

Greer, T. (2019). Initiating and delivering news of the day: Interactional competence as joint-development. Journal of Pragmatics, 146, 150-164. doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2018.08.019

Mantero, M. (2002). Evaluating classroom communication: In support of emergent and authentic frameworks in second language assessment. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 8(8), 1-4.

Roever, C., & Kasper, G. (2018). Speaking in turns and sequences: Interactional competence as a target construct in testing speaking. Language Testing, 35(3), 331-355. doi:10.1177/0265532218758128

van Batenburg, E. S. L., Oostdam, R. J., van Gelderen, A. J. S., & de Jong, N. H. (2018). Measuring L2 speakers’ interactional ability using interactive speech tasks. Language Testing, 35(1), 75-100. doi:10.1177/0265532216679452