1st Edition

Instruction Giving in Online Language Lessons A Multimodal (Inter)action Analysis

By Müge Satar, Ciara R. Wigham Copyright 2023
    194 Pages 30 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    This concise volume calls attention to the instruction-giving practices of language teachers in online environments, in particular videoconferencing, employing a Multimodal (Inter)action Analysis approach to explore the challenges, affordances, and pedagogical implications of teaching in these settings.

    The book examines the unique competences necessary for language teachers in multimodal synchronous online environments, which require mediating a mix of modes, including spoken language gaze, gesture, posture, and textual elements. Satar and Wigham’s innovative approach draws on Sigrid Norris’s work on Multimodal (Inter)action Analysis to examine variance in practices, combining in-depth micro-analytic analysis of mediation with a consideration of the modal density and complexity in the act of giving instructions. The volume shows how studying instruction giving can offer a better understanding of how online teachers mediate learning multimodally in electronic environments, but also research-informed guidance for practical implementation in the classroom.

    This book is a valuable resource for scholars in applied linguistics, language education, and language learning and teaching as well as practicing online language teachers.

    Full-size versions of all Figures, Extracts, and Tables are available in colour at https://doi.org/10.25405/data.ncl.20315142

    Chapter 6 of this book is available for free in PDF format as Open Access from the individual product page at www.routledge.com. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

    Preface and introduction

    Chapter 1 Online language teaching and giving task instructions 

    1.1 Online language teaching as a semio-pedagogical activity  

    1.2 What are instructions and why are they important in task-based multimodal online language teaching? 

    1.3 Previous studies that set the ground work 

    1.4 Research gap

    1.5 Chapter summary 

    Chapter 2 Methods 

    2.1 Context 

    2.2 Methodological framework 

    2.3 Chapter summary 

    Chapter 3 Task repetition: Do teachers’ instructions change when they repeat the same lesson with different learners? 

    3.1 Task repetition: Higher-level actions in task instructions-as-process  

    3.2 Task repetition: Lower-level actions in task instructions-as-process  

    3.3 Modal configuration and modal density 

    3.4 Semiotic misalignment and modal density misalignment  

    3.5 Chapter summary 

    Chapter 4 Number of learners: Do teachers’ instructions change when they repeat the same lesson with only one learner?  

    4.1 Number of learners: Site of engagement  

    4.2 Number of learners: Higher-level actions in task instructions-as-process 

    4.3 Number of learners: Lower-level actions in task instructions-as-process 

    4.4 Modal configuration and modal density misalignment: managing resources 

    4.5 Chapter summary 

    Chapter 5 Task type: Do teachers’ instructions change when they give instructions for a different type of task? 

    5.1 Divergent task micro-tasks: Task-as-workplan versus Task-as-process  

    5.2 Teacher perspectives on the impact of task type on their instruction-giving behaviour 

    5.3 Comparison of higher-level actions used in convergent and divergent tasks 

    5.4 Multimodal configuration of higher-level actions and lower-level actions in different task types 

    5.5 New higher-level actions observed in the divergent task for managing resources 

    5.6 Chapter summary

    Chapter 6 Contributions, pedagogical reflections, and future perspectives

    6.1 Contributions to methodology and knowledge

    6.2 Instruction giving and task repetition

    6.3 Instruction giving and number of learners

    6.4 Instruction giving and task type

    6.5 A heuristic framework of higher-level actions in task instructions-as-process

    6.6 Pedagogical reflections for language teachers

    6.7 Limitations and future research

    6.8 Final thoughts

    Appendices 

    Biography

    Mü ge Satar is Reader in Applied Linguistics at Newcastle University, UK. She is interested in communicative and pedagogical aspects of multimodal interaction for online language learning and teaching, focusing on social presence and meaning-making. She is the co-editor of the Journal of Virtual Exchange and General Council member of UNICollaboration.

    Ciara R. Wigham is Senior Lecturer in English Language Teaching at Université Clermont Auvergne . Her research interests include multimodal pedagogical communication in online language learning, teacher education in computer-assisted language learning, and methodologies for multimodal CMC corpora. She is a member of the the Activité, Connaissance, Transmission, éducation research laboratory.