Chapter 10

Making teacher talk comprehensible through language alternation practices

This study reports the ways in which students and their teacher co-manage the interactional problems resulting from a lack of understanding of the teacher’s instructions produced in the second language (L2) through language alternation practices. The study draws on data from two Italian as a Foreign Language lessons in an Australian high school involving students aged 13–14 at an A2 (CEFR) level of proficiency. Analysis shows: (1) how the teacher ascribed “expected” knowledge states to students as a class and to students as individuals; (2) how the teacher packaged her instructions multimodally and switched to students’ first language (L1) only as a last resort; and (3) how students availed themselves of serendipitous opportunities presented in the context to build their understanding of Italian as the medium of instruction in order to successfully answer the teacher’s questions or to follow instructions without having to admit that they did not know what was being asked of them.