Whole class interaction in the adult L2-classroom : the case of Swedish for immigrants

________ Corresponding author’s email: annika.norlund[email protected] ISSN: 1457-9863 Publisher: Centre for Applied Language Studies University of Jyväskylä © 2019: The authors http://apples.jyu.fi http://dx.doi.org/10.17011/apples/urn.201903251959 Whole class interaction in the adult L2-classroom: The case of Swedish for immigrants Åsa Wedin, Dalarna University Annika Norlund Shaswar, Umeå University This article focuses on verbal interaction in whole class teaching in second language education for adults in Sweden. The article draws on theories treating language as multiple resources that are situated and embedded in material life, and including complex and diverse linguistic, semiotic, physical material and social resources. The material for the article was created in a project based in linguistic ethnography in the form of an action research project, including two municipal Swedish for Immigrants (SFI) schools. The interaction patterns that occurred challenged students’ language proficiency in ways that stimulated meaning negotiation through what we call extended interactions. This stresses the social aspect of interaction, which in these cases included the whole, or nearly the whole, class, students and the teacher. However, in whole class teaching, the space for each interlocutor is limited, and as our experience from other classrooms suggests that group tasks are not frequent in SFI classrooms, there seem to be reasons for the development of teaching practices that include more frequent use of interaction in small groups that offer students more space for interaction. We also see a need for developing more culture-sensitive pedagogies and making more space for the multilingual negotiation of meaning. Keywords: classroom interaction, Swedish for Immigrants, adult education, meaning negotiation 1 Introduction This article focuses on verbal interaction in whole class teaching in second language education for adults. In many countries, global mobility and migration have resulted in an increasing need for language education for adults to support their learning of the dominant language in their new context. Functional skills in that language are often an important key to work and social integration. In Sweden, beginners’ adult education in Swedish as a second language is organised through Swedish for Immigrants (SFI), which is financed by official means and offered through adult education classes run by municipalities or by private operators. SFI includes four courses, A–D, and is organised in three study routes, 1–3, where students are categorised depending on their earlier schooling among other things. Depending on their earlier knowledge, students may start their Apples – Journal of Applied Language Studies Vol. 13, 2, 2019, 45–63 46 Apples – Journal of Applied Language Studies studies in any of the courses and the exam in the last course, D, is also the SFI exam which is in many cases a requirement for job and further studies. Following increased global mobility, there is high demand for teachers in SFI and there is an urgent need for the development of teacher education for this group. The goals for SFI are stated in the Swedish Education Act (2010:800, 20 ch.2) as offering support and stimulation for developing knowledge and competence, to strengthen the students’ position in their social life and in work, and to promote personal development. Developing communicative competence is a specifically mentioned goal. To achieve increased efficiency, SFI was included in the school form Kommunal vuxenutbildning (Municipal Adult Education) following a proposition (Prop. 2014/15:85). The need for rapid language development among students in SFI is stressed in official documents and there is a concern about students who are perceived as taking too long to reach the goals for SFI. The importance of interaction for rapid language development has been established through research (Cummins, 2000; Ellis & Shintani, 2015; Long, 1981) and in this article, the focus is on interaction patterns occurring in whole class teaching in SFI classrooms. Data for the article consists of material from teaching including interaction through digital software (SharePoint) between two classes from different parts of the country. The aim here is to analyse whole class interaction in the two SFI classrooms with a focus on how students use their verbal resources. By using the concept verbal resources, we want to turn our gaze towards varied resources used by the interlocutors while our main interest is on the verbal part. 2 Interaction and language development The importance of interaction for language development has been established through research that draws on both cognitive-interactionalist theories and sociocultural theory, but for varied reasons. While theorists from the cognitiveinteractionalist field focus on interaction as a source for input and output in the current language (for example Long, 1981; Swain, 1985), researchers with a base in socio-cultural theory stress the social importance of interaction as a motivation for language development (such as Cummins, 2000; Vygotskij, [1934]1999). The Output Hypothesis was formulated by Long (1981), and through the Comprehensible Output Hypothesis Swain (1985) claimed that comprehensible output where learners are pushed to produce the L2 is necessary for language acquisition. She argued that output has a consciousness-raising function that helps learners become aware of the gaps in their interlanguage and test their hypotheses about the L2. By talking about their own output, learners can develop metalinguistic awareness about L2 rules, what Swain referred to as languaging. Later (Swain, 1995) she added the importance of noticing for input to become intake. The importance of creating opportunities for students’ extended talk for language development is stressed by Ellis and Shintani (2015). They claim that this is more likely to occur in student-initiated interaction where students have to find their own words, and when they carry out tasks that provide opportunities to perform varied language functions and roles, such as initiating and responding. Also, Thompson (2008) argues for the importance of extended talk, which he defines as “either spoken monologue or an extended turn-in dialogue” (p. 241). Apart from interaction through different types of more or less authentic conversation, tasks including information gaps have also been found to be useful to create the type Å. Wedin & A. Norlund Shaswar 47 of challenges that promote language development (see for example Doughty & Pica, 1986; Nakahama, Tyler, & van Lier, 2001). In socio-cultural theory (Vygotskij, [1934]1999), the importance of language development in the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) is stressed and the focus is on the importance of scaffolding by teachers, peers, books and other learning material. Researchers such as Cummins (2000, 2001) have highlighted the importance of teacher-student interaction in the classroom, and that teachers should focus on language form, language use and social aspects of language. Norton (2001) suggests that the opportunity to talk to other students about important things is what drives the (extended) interaction and results in learning opportunities. The traditional interaction pattern in whole-class communication, Initiation – Response – Evaluation (IRE) (Sinclair & Coulthard, 1975), is usually seen as of low value in language education, not offering students opportunities for extended talk or to exercise important communicative roles and functions, such as initiating, turn-taking, responding, clarifying, agreeing, contradicting and arguing (Wedin, 2004). In Sweden, Lindbladh and Sahlström (2001), Lindberg (2004) and Wedin (2011) showed that teacher-led whole class interaction may be organised in ways that support language development by including necessary opportunities for extended and student-initiated talk. Also, Lindberg (2004) and Rosén and Wedin (2015) showed how teacher-led interaction following the IRE pattern may create opportunities for extended talk, and how teachers’ adaptation to different students’ L2 proficiency may open up for varied interactional patterns. In our own earlier studies in different SFI classrooms1, we found that classroom time was dominated by whole class interaction, sandwiched between students’ individual work with exercises (Norlund Shaswar, 2014; Wedin, Rosén, & Hennius, 2018). In these studies, we found that interaction in the form of group tasks with student-student interaction only rarely took place. We decided to look further into interactional patterns in whole class interaction, as this was the part of the lessons where students were given most opportunities for verbal interaction in Swedish. Thus, we wanted to create an understanding of how interaction patterns may offer students space for performing different communicative functions and to play varied communicative roles. 3 Interaction and mobility During the last two decades and following increased global mobility, different processes of change have transformed sociolinguistic research on multilingualism. Heller (2007) argued that researchers should turn their gaze from stability to mobility and Blommaert (2010, p. 43) called for the development of a sociolinguistics for mobility by changing perspective from a focus on “immobile languages to mobile resources”. Through what has been called the multilingual turn (Conteh & Meier, 2014; May, 2014), the earlier dominating monolingual focus on the target language in second language acquisition research has been questioned. The notion of languages as autonomous and separate entities that may be indexed by labels was questioned and instead languages were treated as multiple resources and understood as an ongoing object of development (see for example Heller, 2007; Makoni & Pennycook, 2007). Notions such as Translanguaging (García, 2009; Paulsrud, Rosén, Straszer, & Wedin, 2017), Superdiversity (Blommaert, 2010), Truncated language (Blommaert, 2010), and 48 Apples – Journal of Applied Language Studies Translingualism (Canagarajah, 2013) were created in relation to multilingualism, which came to be understood as multimodal and as situated, ecological and negotiated. Research in this emerging field has seldom treated aspects of language development in classroom interaction which is our focus here. By focusing on whole class interaction, we turn our interest toward an important space for the students’ development of oral Swedish in SFI. Although we understand language as resources that are situated and embedded in material life, and including complex and diverse linguistic, semiotic, physical material and social resources, we will here turn our gaze towards the verbal exchange. The motivation for that is that we want to create knowledge about SFI as a space for the development of Swedish, which is the explicit main goal of the education. This means that while we realise that much more than verbal exchange is at stake, and we are aware that in classroom interaction external factors are also at play, such as social networks and physical positioning, our attention is on the verbal negotiation of meaning. Following Canagarajah (2018, p. 5) we understand the interlocutors, the teacher and the students, as human agents negotiating meaning, while “orchestrating language and other semiotic resources to their advantage”. In the study of language education on a classroom level, we understand that students and teachers do not speak to prove their proficiency in what is labelled “Swedish” but to negotiate meaning (see Canagarajah, 2018). This means that our interest is the success of the interaction, focusing on the outcomes of interactions rather than formal correctness in terms of standard Swedish, while we are aware of the role that correctness may play in language classrooms. Thus, verbal resources used in the interactions which are socially situated may acquire new meaning that is established through negotiation. Verbal resources used by interlocutors are here understood as mediated and embedded in diverse other semiotic resources, and as such as “situated in expanded social, material, historical and geographical scales” (Canagarajah 2018, p. 7). Here, however, our focus will be on students’ spoken Swedish. 4 Participants, data and methods The epistemological shifts in the sociolinguistics of mobility and multilingualism mentioned above have been reflected in the form of ethnographic and critical methodological approaches (Copland & Creese, 2015; Creese, 2008; Martin-Jones & Martin, 2017; Snell, Shaw, & Copland, 2015). Copland and Creese (2015) show how linguistic ethnography links “the micro to the macro, the small to the large, the varied to the routine, the individual to the social, the creative to the constraining, and the historical to the present and to the future” (p. 26). The use of linguistic ethnography here allows for viewing language as a communicative action in ongoing routines through the investigation of the linguistic sign as a social phenomenon. The material for the article was created in a project based in linguistic ethnography in the form of an action research project with the aim of creating knowledge about language education and the development of teaching practices in SFI based on student exchanges through digital media. The project included two municipal adult education schools and four classes, two in course A–B, the beginners’ level, and two in course C, the intermediate level. For this article material from the two C groups has been used. This choice was made because we found similarities and differences in the two classrooms that were interesting, and Å. Wedin & A. Norlund Shaswar 49 also because the groups were working on the same task, writing and receiving written letters between the two groups. (For analysis of the A–B-groups see Wedin and Norlund Shaswar, submitted). In the action research project, we as researchers worked close together with the teachers to develop educational practices and simultaneously to contribute to teachers’ understanding of ongoing practices (Zuber-Skerritt, 1996). Our role was to initiate tasks, observe educational practices and analyse the outcomes, while teachers were responsible for the teaching and reflected together with the researchers on the outcome. In linguistic ethnography, the analysis is close to language in detail, while the social, cultural, economic and socio-political contexts surrounding the language practices are also central (Rampton et al., 2004). Thus, there is a cross-fertilizing where the ethnography is enrichened by a more explicit analytical focus on language and language development, while linguistics is enrichened by the vicinity and reflexivity of ethnography. The combination of linguistic ethnography with action research gives tools for the creation of both an understanding of the complex and multi-layered phenomena that are at play (Canagarajah, 2006; Hornberger & Johnson, 2017; Zeichner, 2001), and knowledge where both researchers and teachers are agents in the process of change (Wedin, 2017). During the project, classroom observations have been the main source of data, completed with teacher interviews. Field notes were taken during all observations and parts of the observations were in addition either audio- or video-recorded. A total of ten hours of classroom observations were carried out in these two classrooms, with 1.5 hours audio-recorded and 2.5 hours video-recorded. Transcripts used are either from audio- or video-recordings. The lessons consisted of discussions related to students’ earlier pre-planned individual presentations. Students in the two classes had been instructed to create individual presentations about themselves. The presentations were written down and after being rehearsed each presentation was read out individually and audiorecorded. The presentations from the two classes were then exchanged between the two schools digitally through SharePoint. The total number of students and presentations involved were 25. In this article, the focus is on the interaction that took place during the lessons when the presentations were listened to. For ethical reasons, the research has been carried out in ways that show respect for individual students. The teachers and students involved were informed and asked for consent in both oral and written forms, and information was given both in Swedish and in students’ other languages. During the video-recording, the camera was not directed towards students’ faces except when students intentionally turned towards the camera, and those who expressed less comfort with being video-recorded were respected in that the camera was never directed toward them. Thus body language and facial expressions have not been included in transcripts. All material, including field notes, has been stored safely, and material is presented in ways that avoid the recognition of individuals. The recordings were transcribed and analysed to identify parts in whole class interaction where student interaction included student talk in ways that resulted in the negotiation of meaning and students’ use of varied communicative roles and functions. By focusing on the negotiation of meaning and variation in communicative functions and roles, we want to identify interaction patterns that offer students the space to develop their oral language proficiency in Swedish. According to our understanding, performing a transcription of observational data is a process where talk is reduced to writing. This is not a mechanical 50 Apples – Journal of Applied Language Studies procedure but a process that includes interpretation and analysis (Cameron, 2001, p. 43). In addition to verbal aspects, the observational data also includes some interpersonal aspects and non-verbal/extra-verbal interaction that it is not possible to document in an audio- or video-recording. Consequently, before the transcription can start, a number of decisions need to be made concerning how the oral interaction should be interpreted into writing. For the transcription, we have followed a modified version of a transcription key presented by Poland (2004, p. 279). In the selected excerpts, the interaction patterns were analysed further to identify patterns that opened up for the use of varied communicative roles and functions among students. For the transcriptions key, see endnote2. The two teachers, Mr Chris and Mr Philip, each in their respective classroom, have about 10–15 students in their classes, ranging from about 20 years of age to about 60. The students come from countries such as Syria, Somalia, Eritrea and Thailand, among other countries, and have been in Sweden for between one and four years. Some of them are working or have been placed as trainees parallel to their SFI studies. The two teachers usually arrange classroom time so that about half of the time is teacher-led whole class education, where students are invited to share experiences and knowledge, and half of the time is individual work with different tasks. During whole class interaction, both topics related to content and to grammatical form are in focus. This resembles what we have observed in other SFI classrooms (Norlund Shaswar, 2014; Wedin et al., 2018). Planned group or collaborative work was seldom part of observed lessons. The lessons analysed here, 1.5 hours from Mr Chris’ class and 2.5 hours from Mr Philip’s class, have the same topic, to listen to presentations made by students, followed by discussions. 5 Findings At first, we realised that the cases of extended talk on the part of the students were few, while students’ own initiatives in many cases put them in linguistically challenging situations. Also, on some occasions, teachers were observed to challenge students to stretch their language by asking them follow-up questions. As we found that the interaction patterns of the two classrooms differed in certain ways, we will present common patterns found in each classroom, respectively, starting with Mr Chris’ classroom, before we discuss opportunities for the use of varied communicative roles and functions that students are given in interaction. 5.1 Interaction patterns in the classroom of Mr Chris At the time when these lessons were observed, the students in Mr Chris’ class had prepared their own presentations but not yet recorded them. Here, we are concerned with the phase after they finished listening to the recordings from the students in S school. The analysed lessons may be characterized as teacher-led with the IRE pattern visible. This does not mean, however, that the distribution of turns-at-talk is strict, and students for example do not raise their hand to be given the floor, as is common in traditional teacher-led classroom interaction with children or adolescents. Instead, they take the floor spontaneously and simultaneous talk and overlaps are frequent. In a few cases, the teacher takes initiatives to control the interaction. Although Mr Chris does not generally take the role of a teacher who distributes speaking turns, on a few occasions he claims that role by interrupting students who talk simultaneously: “En i taget Sara” (One Å. Wedin & A. Norlund Shaswar 51 at a time Sara) and by giving the word to one student who does not often take the floor: “Vänta vänta Aron har du något att säga om det här?” (Wait wait Aron do you have something to say about this?) On some occasions, he seems to sum up what is said by students like when students try to express what one presenter has said about her children and he adds: “Vad sa du tre flickor och en pojke (.) är det så?” (What did you say three girls and one boy (.) is that so?). After each presentation, Mr Chris attempts to control the discussion by asking questions about the quality of the presentations, and a few times he explicitly invites them to relate their perception of others’ presentations to their own presentations that they are to record afterwards. However, while he asks questions like: “Vad tycker ni? (What did you think?), “Var det här en bra presentation?” (Was this a good presentation?), ”Var det nånting som kunde ha varit bättre (…) som var ett problem?” (Was there anything that could have been better (…) that was a problem?) and “Var det nånting som inte var så bra?” (Was there something that was not very good?), students in most cases do not respond by formulating an assessment but instead repeat what they remember, like in the following example Example 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Chris Masuma Chris Aron Chris Sara Chris Masuma Var det nånting som inte var så jättebra? Hon trivs här Hon trivs här [ja [säkert e var det nånting som inte var så bra A [hon- [i presentationen Bra Was there anything that was not very good? She likes it here She likes it here [yes [certainly uh was there anything that was not so good A [she- [in the presentation Good Like in this example, students in many cases do not respond to his direct questions about the quality, particularly his request for criticism. Perhaps this may be interpreted as a conflict between the teacher’s pedagogical goal regarding students’ own work with their presentations, while students’ may have a more social goal with the talk. Criticism of other students may be perceived as negative. In a situation of formal language education, such as SFI, where students are required to reach some goals and there is a demand for rapid achievement, this may be something that can be perceived as threatening. As is common in many language classrooms, words and expressions are frequently repeated both by students and by the teacher, such as in the following example when the name of the county where one student lived is discussed: Example 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Aron: Chris: Aron: Genet: Chris: Genet Chris: Genet: Aron: [Dalarna [Var bor hon? Dalorna Dadla da Dalarna Dadlarna Dalarna Dalarna Aa [Dalarna [Where does she live? Dalorna Dadla da Dalarna Dadlarna Dalarna Dalarna Yeah 52 Apples – Journal of Applied Language Studies Here, Aron first says “Dalarna”, which is the name of the county, while Chris asks “Where does he live?” and Aron changes to “Dalorna”; Genet interposes “Dadla da”, followed by Chris giving the correct form “Dalarna”; which is repeated by Genet and affirmed by Aron. Also, in example 3 repetition is used when a student talks about what one of the presenters said. Example 3 1 2 3 4 5 Kamal: Chris: Kamal: Sara: Chris: Hon bor med man eller Hon bor med? Med man Man och [he hennes barn [Med sin man She lives with husband or She lives with? With husband Husband and [he her children [With her husband This is an example of other-initiated repair targeting a grammar structure, the use of the reflexive form of the possessive pronoun “sin” (her). First, Kamal provides a candidate outcome for the search, and by “or” signals word search. Chris repeats the first three words, requesting clarification. Kamal’s repetition of ”with husband” could either be interpreted as a response to the teacher’s turn or a clarification if Kamal interprets the teacher’s question as request for information. Sara repeats part of the outcome and complements to the utterance with “he her children”. However the teacher does not respond to her complement but focuses on the grammatical aspect by correcting her “With her husband”. Note how the teacher tries to elicit the correct form but finally gives it himself “Med sin man” (with her husband). There are no cases of extended talk from students during these two lessons in Mr Chris’ classroom. Only the teacher says anything that contains more than one sentence or that may be perceived as a monologue, and then mainly related to evaluating the presentations and how he wants the students to think about their own future presentations. However, students frequently take the floor for short talk turns such as talking about intending to become a bus driver like in example four. Example 4 1 2 3 4 5 Sara: Kamal: Chris: Sara: Chris: Buk chefa vad heter Busschaufför Busschaufför Ja buk Busschaufför Buk deva what’s it called Bus driver Bus driver Yes buk Bus driver In this case, both students and the teacher also scaffold the initiating student by giving the correct word. The Swedish word for “driver” chaufför is quite difficult to pronounce and on several occasions we have noted that students strive to say the word, as becoming a bus driver is a topic that is discussed frequently among the students. (Note that in the English translations we have tried to make pronunciations that depart from the standard visible as far as possible when they are necessary for the understanding.) After one presentation, Hussein takes the floor to state that the presenter lives in a small village outside the town where he studies. However, he does not remember the name of the village, which results in a discussion. Å. Wedin & A. Norlund Shaswar 53 Example 5 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Chris: Kamal: Genet: Chris Kamal Chris Genet Chris Genet Kamal Aron Chris Kamal M exakt hon bor i en liten by Aha X-town En liten by utanför Utanför Jag vet inte [närmare [Gustaf Gustafsson hon säger Va Gustafsson eller Gustafsson Gustaf Jag kommer inte ihåg vilken by det var Gustaf M exactly she lives in a small village Aha X town A small village outside Outside I don’t know [closer to [Gustaf Gustafsson she says What Gustafsson or Gustafsson Gustaf I don’t remember which village it was Gustaf In this case, the student in the presentation had said that he lives in “Gustafs”, which is a small village and the name comes close to the male name “Gustaf” and to the surname “Gustafsson”. Some of the students remember the name of the village, and they seem to mix it up with the name and surname that resemble it, while it is not clear if the teacher understood the name of the village either from the presentation or from the interaction, but they finish with “Gustaf” which is close to the correct name, “Gustafs”. Unlike in example 3 and 4, where the teacher finalises by giving the correct expression, here a student repeats the name in an approximate form. In a context such as this classroom where the floor is quite open for studentinitiated talk by taking the floor spontaneously or interrupting, there is little room for planning the talk, such as to plan how to formulate oneself. Thus, many occasions occur where students ask for support, as in Example 6: Example 6 1 2 3 4 5 6 Hussein: Rami: Chris: Basem: Hussein: Hon mina min e shu isma heter Mahmoud e Hennes man heter Mahmoud Ja Hennes man Hennes man? She my mine shu isma (Arabic for “What is it”) name Mahmoud uh Her husband’s name is Mahmoud Yes Her husband (to other student) Her husband? In this case, Hussein asks for help, and although the teacher confirms the expression given by another student, Hussein turns to a fellow student for confirmation. To conclude, Mr Chris takes a role of the teacher by suggesting topics for the talk, assessing the quality of the presentations, and sometimes regulating the interaction. Still, he leaves space for students’ initiatives and for negotiating both topic and linguistic form. Students are challenged in their output and the interaction includes student talk performing varied roles and functions, such as to initiate topic, turn-taking, repetition, reformulation, confirmation, asking for confirmation, asking for help, responding, affirming, clarification, contradicting and clarification. Students’ speech turns are short, and challenges arise mainly on a word level. 5.2 The classroom of Mr Philip In the classroom of Mr Philip, the presentations are also the focus of the lesson, but on this occasion the recordings from the other class are not yet available, so the 60 Apples – Journal of Applied Language Studies or nearly the whole, class, students and the teacher. The variation in communicative roles that students performed, together with the frequency of meaning negotiation and communication strategies may with Swain (1985), Long (1981), Ellis (1997) and Ellis and Shintani (2015) be understood as offering students relevant opportunities for language development. However, in whole class teaching, the space for each interlocutor is limited, and in interaction of the type we saw here with teachers with a relaxed and sometimes withdrawn style, there is a tendency that some of the participants take a larger part of the speaking space, while others take less. There is also a tendency for several people to talk at the same time, which may be less comfortable for some students. Now, with Ellis and Shintani (2015), there is no evidence of a direct relation between an individual’s amount of output and his or her language development. Some learners who do not talk much in class may develop language just as well or better than others who are more talkative in class. From the example with the student looking up “Nimsa” on his mobile, we see that students may be active participants without talking much in class. However, we see a need for teacher training on how to create more space for negotiation of meaning. As has been shown by García (2009) and Paulsrud et al. (2017), the conscious use of students’ varied linguistic resources through pedagogical translanguaging is positive for language education. There is also a need for training on arranging group tasks in language education for adults that offer students a space for interaction that includes the negotiation of meaning and use of students’ varied verbal resources and communicative strategies. The potential for knowledge gaps (Ellis & Shintani, 2015; Lindberg, 2004) to stimulate the negotiation of meaning was also visible here. In this context, the role of digital media, such as in this case software for communication between schools and students’ mobile phones, in the language education of immigrants would also be relevant. It would be interesting to investigate the role of teaching style in this context. The two teachers here took quite little control of classroom talk, which included not demanding students to express themselves clearly and explicitly. One dominant pattern was that students were left to negotiate meaning, which included using varied communication strategies and exercising varied roles. The teachers could have taken more active roles, such as in Example 9 where Philip could have challenged Arin to reformulate his question until Awet had understood it. With Swain (1995) we suggest that students’ output in these two cases may not automatically lead to learning as neither students nor teachers seem to take notice of the words and phrases used or the communication strategies used. This stresses the importance of basing teaching on students’ produced language, and that their language development needs to be made visible. It seems reasonable to conclude that whole class interaction on its own is not enough for positive language development, but that there is also a need for group tasks. As has been shown in studies of school children (Gröning, 2006; Mykleburst, 2018), collaborative work in small groups may offer students more opportunities for various forms of output and the risk is less prominent that few students dominate the talk space. As our experience from other classrooms suggests that group tasks are not frequent in SFI classrooms, there seem to be reasons for the development of teaching practices that include more frequent use of interaction in small groups. It also becomes clear that more research needs to be done on interaction in SFI classrooms and on the effects that different interactive patterns have on students’ language development, as well as on the societal impact of classroom interaction. Å. Wedin & A. Norlund Shaswar 61 Endnotes 1 In the projects Linguistic resources and digital tools in basic literacy education in SFI, 2016, Flexibility and increased individual adaptation in SFI-education, 2017, and Skriftbruk i vardagsliv och i sfi-utbildning. En studie av fem kurdiska sfi-studerandes skriftbrukshistoria och skriftpraktiker [Literacy in Everyday Life and in the Swedish for Immigrants Programme: The Literacy History and Literacy Practices of five Kurdish L2 Learners of Swedish] 2014. 2 Transcription (Modified after Poland, 2004) (…) Three dots within brackets for pause between half a second and two seconds. (pause) The word “pause” within brackets for pause longer than two seconds. (laughs) Extra-linguistic information, for example that someone laughs, within brackets. she- Hyphen when the interlocutor is interrupted in the middle of a turn. xx xx for inaudible talk. Number of x:s corresponds to approximate number of inaudible words. ? Question mark for talk with the intonation of a question. Aron: [Dalarna Square brackets for simultaneous talk Chris: [Where does she live shu isma Bold for talk in another language than Swedish. References Blommaert, J. (2010). The sociolinguistics of globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cameron, D. (2001). Working with spoken discourse. London: Sage. Canagarajah, A. S. (2006). Ethnographic methods in language policy. In T. Ricento (Ed.), An introduction to language policy: Theory and method (pp. 153–169). Maiden, MA: Blackwell. Canagarajah, A. S. (2013). Translingual practice: Global Englishes and cosmopolitan relations. Abingdon: Routledge. Canagarajah, A. S. (2018). The unit and focus of analysis in lingua franca English interactions: In search of a method. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 21(7), 1747–7522. Conteh, J., & Meier, G. (Eds). (2014). The Multilingual turn in languages education: Opportunities and challenges. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Copland, F., & Creese, A. (2015). Linguistic ethnography: Collecting, analysing and presenting data. Los Angeles: SAGE. Creese, A. (2008). Linguistic Ethnography. In K. King & N. Hornberger (Eds.), Encyclopedia of language and education (2nd ed.) (pp. 229–241). New York: Springer. Cummins, J. (2000). Language, power and pedagogy: Bilingual children in the crossfire. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Cummins, J. (2001). Negotiating identities: Education for empowerment in a diverse society (2nd ed.). Los Angeles, CA: California Association for Bilingual Education. Doughty, C., & Pica, T. (1986). ’Information gap’ tasks: Do they facilitate second language acquisition? TESOL Quarterly, 20(2), 305–325. Ellis, R. (1997). Second language acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ellis, R., & Shintani, N. (2015). Exploring language pedagogy through Second Language Acquisition research. London: Routledge. García, O. (2009). Bilingual education in the 21st century: A global perspective. Malden, MA: Blackwell. 62 Apples – Journal of Applied Language Studies Gröning, I. (2006). Interaktion och lärande i flerspråkiga klasser [Interaction and learning in multilingual classes]. Uppsala: Uppsala universitet. Heller, M. (2007). Discourses of endangerment ideology and interest in the defence of languages. London: Continuum. Hornberger, N., & Johnson, D. C. (2017). Slicing the onion ethnographically: Layers and spaces in multilingual language education policy and practice. TESOL Quarterly, 41(3), 509–532. Lindberg, I. (2004). Samtal och interaktion: Ett andraspråksperspektiv [Conversation and interaction. A second language perspective]. In K. Hyltenstam & I. Lindberg (Eds.), Svenska som andraspråk: I forskning, undervisning och samhälle [Swedish as a second language: In research, education and society] (pp. 461–497). Lund: Studentlitteratur. Lindbladh, S., & Sahlström, F. (Eds). (2001). Interaktion i pedagogiska sammanhang [Interaction in educational settings]. Stockholm: Liber. Long, M. H. (1981). Input, interaction and second-language acquisition. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 379, 259–278. Makoni, S., & Pennycook, A. (Eds). (2007). Disinventing and constituting languages: Critical inquiry in language studies. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Martin-Jones, M., & Martin, D. (Eds.) (2017). Researching multilingualism: Critical and ethnographic perspectives. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. May, S. (2014). Disciplinary divides: Knowledge construction, and the multilingual turn. In S. May (Ed.), The multilingual turn: Implications for SLA, TESOL, and bilingual education (pp. 7–31). New York: Routledge. Mykleburst, R. (2018). Muntlighet i det flerspråklige klasserommet: En studie av elevers samtaler på norsk i fem gruppearbeid på sjuende klassetrinn [Orality in the multilingual classroom: A study of students’ talks in Norwegian in five group works in grade seven]. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway. Nakahama, Y., Tyler, A., & van Lier, L. (2001). Negotiation of meaning in conversational and information gap activities: A comparative discourse analysis. TESOL Quarterly, 35(3), 377–405. Norlund Shaswar, A. (2014). Skriftbruk i vardagsliv och i SFI-utbildning: En studie av fem kurdiska SFI-studerandes skriftbrukshistoria och skriftpraktiker [Literacy in everyday life and in the Swedish for immigrants programme: The literacy history and literacy practices of five Kurdish L2 learners of Swedish]. Umeå: Umeå University. Norton, B. (2001). Non-participation, imagined communities and the language classroom. In M. P. Breen (Ed.), Learner contributions to language learning: New directions in research (pp. 159–171). London: Pearson Education. Paulsrud, B., Rosén, J. Straszer, B., & Wedin, Å. (Eds). (2017). New perspectives on translanguaging and education. London: Multilingual Matters. Poland, B. D. (2004). Transcription quality. In J. A. Holstein & J. F. Gubrium (Eds.), Inside interviewing: New lenses, new concerns (pp. 267–287). Thousand Oaks: Sage. Prop.2014/15:85. Ökad individanpassning: En effektivare sfi och vuxenutbildning. Retrieved from http://data.riksdagen.se/fil/8FA06829-9827-42CF-9C1B-5F92BADA2964 Rampton, B., Tusting, K., Maybin, J., Barwell, R., Creese, A., & Lytra, V. (2004). U.K. linguistic ethnography: A discussion paper. Retrieved on August 28, 2018, from https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/fss/ organisations/lingethn/documents/discussion_paper_jan_05.pdf Rosén, J., & Wedin, Å. (2015). Klassrumsinteraktion och flerspråkighet: Ett kritiskt perspektiv [Classroom interaction and multilingualism: A critical perspective]. Stockholm: Liber. Sinclair, J. McH., & Coulthard, M. R. (1975). Towards an analysis of discourse: The English used by teachers and pupils. London: Oxford University Press. Snell, J., Shaw, S., & Copland, F. (Eds). (2015). Linguistic ethnography: Interdisciplinary explorations. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Swain, M. (1985). Communicative competence: Some roles of comprehensible input and comprehensible output in its development. In S. M. Gass & C. G. Madden (Eds.), Input in Second Language Acquisition (pp. 235–256). Rowley, Mass: Newbury House Publishers. Å. Wedin & A. Norlund Shaswar 63 Swain, M. (1995). Three functions of output in second language learning. In G. Cook & B. Seidhofer (Eds.), Principle and practice in applied linguistics (pp. 125–144). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Swedish Education Act 2010:800, 20 ch.2. Stockholm: Utbildningsdepartementet. Thompson, P. (2008). Learning through extended talk. Language and Education, 22(3), 241–256. Vygotskij, L. S. ([1934]1999). Tänkande och språk [Mind and language]. Göteborg: Daidalos. Wedin, Å. (2004). Literacy practices in and out of school in Karagwe: The case of primary school literacy education in rural Tanzania. Stockholm: Centre for Research on Bilingualism, Stockholm University. Wedin, Å. (2011). Klassrumsinteraktion i de tidiga skolåren: Flerspråkiga elever i skolans språkliga vardag [Classroom interaction in the early school years: Multilingual students in the linguistic everyday of school]. Nordisk Pedagogik, 31(3), 210–225. Wedin, Å. (2017). Flerspråkigt skrivande: Identitet och engagemang [Multilingual writing: Identity and engagement]. Nordisk tidskrift för andraspråksforskning, 13(1), 45–61. Wedin, Å., & Norlund Shaswar, A. (submitted). Interaktionsmönster i sfi-undervisning på grundläggande nivå [Interaction patterns in SFI education on basic level]. Wedin, Å, Rosén, J., & Hennius, S. (2018). Transspråkande multimodalitet i grundläggande skriftspråksundervisning inom sfi [Translanguaging multimodality in basic literacy education within Swedish for immigrants]. Pedagogisk forskning i Sverige, 23(1–2), 15–38. Zeichner, K. (2001). Educational action research. In P. Reason & H. Bradbury (Eds.), Handbook of action research: Participative inquiry and practice (pp. 273–283). London: Sage. Zuber-Skerritt, O. (1996). Emancipatory action research for organizational change and management development. In O. Zuber-Skerritt (Ed.), New directions in action research (pp. 83–95). London: Falmer Press. Received August 28, 2018 Revision received December 2, 2018 Accepted March 16, 2019