Cover not available

In:Dialogue in Multilingual and Multimodal Communities
Edited by Dale Koike and Carl S. Blyth
[Dialogue Studies 27] 2015
► pp. 49–77

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
authorization required

Navigating the language-learning classroom without previous schooling

A case study of Li

 | Portland State University, Literacy, Language, and Technology Research Group
 | Portland State University, Literacy, Language, and Technology Research Group
Published online: 10 July 2015
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ds.27.02hel
Drawing on understandings of classrooms as communities of practice and using analytic methods including conversation analysis, this paper describes the path of English language learning taken by an adult immigrant to the U.S. (‘Li’) who had no previous experience with formal education. Although standardized assessment measures indicated that Li did not make progress in her language acquisition during the 18 months of data collection, analysis of intensive video recordings of teacher-student and student-student interactions show how Li moves from peripheral to fuller participation as a member of the community of classroom participants and the community of English language users. Findings suggest that ‘participation’ rather than ‘acquisition’ is a more appropriate metaphor for understanding language learning in this situation.
References (77)
References
Bardovi-Harlig, Kathleen. 2007. “One Functional Approach to Second Language Acquisition:The Concept-Orientated Approach.” In Theories of Second Language Acquisition, ed. by Bill VanPatten, and Jessica Williams, 57–75. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bigelow, Martha, and Elaine Tarone. 2004. “The Role of Literacy Level in Second Language Acquisition: Doesn’t Who We Study Determine What We Know?” TESOL Quarterly 38(4): 689–700. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bigelow, Martha, and Jill Watson. 2013. “The Role of Educational Level, Literacy and Orality in L2 Learning.” In The Routledge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition, ed. by Susan Gass, and Allison Mackey, 461–475. New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Block, David. 1996. “Not so Fast: Some Thoughts on Theory Culling, Relativism, Accepted Findings and the Heart and Soul of SLA.” Applied Linguistics 17(1): 63–83. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2003. The Social Turn in Second Language Acquisition. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Burt, Martha, Joy K. Peyton, and Kirsten Schaetzel. 2008. Working with Adult English Language Learners with Limited Literacy: Research, Practice, and Professional Development. Washington, DC: Center for Adult English Language Acquisition. [URL]Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bygate, Martin, Peter Skehan, and Merrill Swain (eds). 2001. Researching Pedagogic Tasks: Second Language Learning, Teaching, and Testing. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Center for Applied Linguistics. 2010. Education for Adult English Language Learners in the United States: Trends, Research, and Promising Practices. Washington, DC.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chaiklin, Seth, and Jean Lave. 1993. Understanding Practice: Perspectives on Activity and Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Crandall, Jodi. 1993. “Introduction.” In Approaches to Adult Literacy Instruction, ed. by Jodi Crandall, and Joy K. Peyton, 1–14. McHenry, IL: Center for Applied Linguistics and Delta System.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Drew, Paul. 1997. “‘Open’ Class Repair Initiators in Response to Sequential Sources of Trouble in Conversation.” Journal of Pragmatics 2(1): 69–101. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Duff, Patricia. 2002. “The Discursive Co-construction of Knowledge, Identity, and Difference: An Ethnography of Communication in the High School Mainstream.” Applied Linguistics 23(3): 289–322. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope. 1989. Jocks and Burnouts: Social Categories and Identity in the High School. New York: Teachers College Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ellis, Rod. 2009. “Task-based Language Teaching: Sorting out the Misunderstandings.” International Journal of Applied Linguistics 19 (3): 221–246. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Erickson, Frederick. 1982. “Classroom Discourse as Improvisation: Relationships between Academic Task Structure and Social Participation Structure in Lessons.” In Communicating in the Classroom, ed. by Louise C. Wilkinson, 153–181. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Erickson, Frederick, and Jeffrey Schultz. 1981. The Counselor as Gatekeeper. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Firth, Alan, and Johannes Wagner. 1997. “On Discourse, Communication, and (Some) Fundamental Concepts in SLA Research.” Modern Language Journal 81(3): 285–300. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2007. “Second/Foreign Language Learning as a Local Accomplishment: Elaborations on a Reconceptualized SLA.” Modern Language Journal 91(4): 757– 772. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fitzgerald, Richard. 2012. “Membership Categorization Analysis: Wild and Promiscuous or Simply the Joy of Sacks?” Discourse Studies 14(3): 305–311. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Florez, MaryAnn, and Lynda Terrill. 2003. Working with Literacy-level Adult English Language Learners. Washington, DC: Center for Adult English Language Acquisition. [URL]Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Garfinkel, Harold. 1967. Studies in Ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: 
Prentice Hall.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2002. Ethnomethodology’s Program. Working out Durkheim’s Aphorism. 
Lantham, UK: 
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Garfinkel, Harold, and Harvey Sacks. 1970. “On Formal Structures of Practical Actions.” In Theoretical Sociology: Perspectives and Developments, ed. by John C. McKinney, and Edward A. Tiryakin, 337–366. New York: Appleton Century Crofts.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gee, James. P. 2000–2001. “Identity as an Analytic Lens for Research in Education.” Review of Research in Education 25: 99–125.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Green, Georgia. 1996. Pragmatics and Natural Language Understanding. Mahwah, NJ: 
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Halliday, Michael A.K. 1978. Language as Social Semiotic: The Social Interpretation of Language and Meaning. London: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Harris, Kathryn A. 2005. “Same Activity, Different Focus.” Focus On Basics: Connecting Research and Pratice 8(A): 7–10.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heap, James L. 1985. “Discourse in the Production of Classroom Knowledge: Reading Lessons.” Curriculum Inquiry 15(3): 245–279. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1990. “Applied Ethnomethodology: Looking for the Local Rationality of Reading Activities.” Human Studies 13(1): 39–72. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hellermann, John. 2007. “The Development of Practices for Action in Classroom Dyadic Interaction: Focus on Task Openings. Modern Language Journal 91(1): 83–96. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2008. Social Actions for Classroom Language Learning. Clevedon, U.K.: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hellermann, John and Dominique Brillanceau. 2007. Learner Portraits. Retrieved April 15, 2015, from [URL].
Hellermann, John and Simona Pekarek Doehler. 2010. “On the Contingent Nature of Language Learning Tasks. Classroom Discourse 1(1): 25–45. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hellermann, John and Yo-An Lee. 2014. “Members and Their Competencies: Contributions of Ethnomethodological Conversation Analysis to a Multilingual Turn in Second Language Acquisition.” System 44(1): 54–65. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heritage, John. 1984. Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology. London: Polity Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jacoby, Sally, and Tim McNamara. 1999. “Locating Competence.” English for Specific Purposes 18(3): 213–241. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jefferson, Gail. 2004. “Glossary of Transcript Symbols with an Introduction.” In Conversation Analysis: Studies from the First Generation, ed. by Gene H. Lerner, 13–31. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kanagy, Ruth. 1999. “Interactional Routines as a Mechanism for L2 Acquisition and Socialization in an Immersion Context.” Journal of Pragmatics 31(11): 1467–1492. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kasper, Gabriele. 1997. “Can Pragmatic Competence be Taught?” Retrieved March 8, 2005 from [URL]
Kramsch, Claire. 2002. “How Can We Tell the Dancer from the Dance?” In Language Acquisition and Language Socialization: An Ecological Approach, ed. by Claire Kramsch, 1–31. London: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lantolf, James. P. 1996. “SLA Theory Building: ‘Letting All the Flowers Bloom!’” Language Learning 46(4): 713–749. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lantolf, James P. (ed). 2000. Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning. Oxford: 
Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lantolf, James P., and Steven L. Thorne. 2006. Sociocultural Theory and the Genesis of Second Language Development. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lave, Jean. 1996. “Teaching, as Learning, in Practice.” Mind, Culture, and Activity 33: 149–164. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lave, Jean, and Etienne Wenger. 1991. Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Macbeth, Doug. 1994. “Classroom Encounters with the Unspeakable: ‘Do you see, Danelle?’” Discourse Processes 17(2): 311–335. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Markee, Numa. 2005. “The Organization of Off-task Talk in Second Language Classrooms.” In Applying Conversation Analysis, ed. by Keith Richards, and Paul Seedhouse, 197–213. London: Palgrave.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Markee, Numa, and Junko Mori. 2009. “Language Learning, Cognition, and Interactional Practices: An Introduction.” International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching 47(1): 1–9. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McDermott, Ray P. 1993. “The Acquisition of a Child by a Learning Disability.” In Understanding Practice: Perspectives on Activity and Context, ed. by Seth Chaiklin, and Jean Lave, 269–305. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McNamara, Tim, and Carsten Roever. 2006. “Language Testing: The Social Dimension.” Language Learning 56 (supplement 2): 1–291.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mehan, Hugh. 1979. Learning Lessons: Social Organization in the Classroom. Cambridge, MA: 
Harvard University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Menard-Warwick, Julia. 2005. “Both a Fiction and an Existential Fact: Theorizing Identity in Second Language Acquisition and Literacy Studies.” Linguistics and Education 16(3): 253–274. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Murray, Denise E. 2005. “ESL in Adult Education.” Handbook of Research in Second Language Teaching and Learning, ed. by Eli Hinkel, 65–84. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Noonan, Michael. 1999. “Non-structural Syntax.” Functionalism and Formalism in Linguistics, ed. by Michael Darnell, Edith Moravcsik, Frederick Newmeyer, Michael Noonan, and Kathleen Wheatley, 11–31. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Norton, Bonny, and Kelleen Toohey. 2011. “Identity, Language Learning, and Social Change.” Language Teaching 44(4): 412–446. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ochs, Elinor. 1988. Culture and Language Development: Language Acquisition and Language Socialization in a Samoan Village. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ohta, Amy. 2001. Second Language Acquisition Processes in the Classroom. Mahwah, NJ: 
Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Olsher, David. 2004. “Embodied Completions.” In Second Language Conversations, ed. by Rod Gardner, and Johannes Wagner, 221–245. London: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pekarek Doehler, Simona. 2002. “Mediation Revisited: The Interactive Organization of Mediation in Learning Environments.” Mind, Culture, and Activity 9(1): 22–42. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Perdue, Clive. (ed). 1993. Adult Language Acquisition: Cross-linguistic Perspectives vol. 1 and 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ramírez-Esparza, Nairan, Kathryn A. Harris, John Hellermann, Clemence Richard, Patricia Kuhl, and Stephen Reder. 2012. “Socio-Interactive Practices and Personality in Adult Learners of English with Little Formal Education.” Language Learning 6(2): 541–570. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Reder, Stephen, Kathryn A. Harris, and Kristen Setzler. 2003. “A Multimedia Adult Learner Corpus.” TESOL Quarterly 37(3): 546–557. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Richards, Keith. 2009. “Trends in Qualitative Research in Language Teaching since 2000.” Language Teaching 42(2): 147–180. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sacks, Harvey. 1992. Lectures on Conversation vol. 1 and 2. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Scribner, Sylvia, and Michael Cole. 1981. The Psychology of Literacy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Seedhouse, Paul. 2005. “‘Task’ as Research Construct.” Language Learning 55(3): 533–570. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sharrock, Wes, and Bob Anderson. 1982. “Talking and Teaching: Reflective Comments on In-Classroom Activities.” In Doing Teaching: The Practical Management of Classrooms, ed. by George C.F. Payne and Edward C. Cuff, 170–183. London: Batsford Academic and Educational.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Skehan, Peter. 2003. “Task-based Instruction.” Language Teaching 36: 1–14. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Streeck, Jürgen, and Siri Mihus. 2005. “Microethnography: The Study of Practices.” In The Handbook of Language and Social Interaction, ed. by Karen L. Fitch, and Robert E. Sanders, 381–404. Mawah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Swain, Merrill. 2000. “The Output Hypothesis and Beyond: Mediating Acquisition through Collaborative Dialogue.” In Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning, ed. by James P. Lantolf, 97–114. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
van Lier, Leo. 2004. The Ecology and Semiotics of Language Learning: A Sociocultural Perspective. Boston: Kluwer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vinogradov, Patsy, and Martha Bigelow. 2010. Using Oral Language Skills to Build on the Emerging Literacy of Adult English Learners. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics. [URL]Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wenger, Etienne. 1998. Communities of Practice: Language, Learning, and Meaning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wenger, Etienne, Richard McDermott, and William Snyder. 2002. Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yonge, Charlotte, and Andrew Stables. 1998. “‘I am it the Clown’: Problematizing the Distinction between ‘Off Task’ and ‘On Task’ Classroom Talk.” Language and Education 12(1): 55–70. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zuengler, Jane. 2003. “Jackie Chan Drinks Mountain Dew: Constructing Cultural Models of Citizenship.” Linguistics and Education 14(3–4): 277–303. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zuengler, Jane, and Elizabeth R. Miller. 2006. “Cognitive and Sociocultural Perspectives: Two Parallel SLA Worlds?” TESOL Quarterly 40(1): 35–58. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (3)

Cited by three other publications

EILOLA, LAURA E. & NIINA S. LILJA
2021. The Smartphone as a Personal Cognitive Artifact Supporting Participation in Interaction. The Modern Language Journal 105:1 ► pp. 294 ff. DOI logo
Hellermann, John
2018. Talking About Reading: Changing Practices for a Literacy Event. In Longitudinal Studies on the Organization of Social Interaction, ► pp. 105 ff. DOI logo
Miller, Elizabeth R.
2018. Interaction Analysis. In The Palgrave Handbook of Applied Linguistics Research Methodology, ► pp. 615 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 8 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue