Abstracts - Earli

A 728 August 2007 15:00 - 17:00Room: 3.67 BékésySymposiumConversation analysis as a way of studying learning in interactionChair: Fritjof Sahlström, Uppsala University, SwedenOrganiser: Fritjof Sahlström, Uppsala University, SwedenDiscussant: Ference Marton, University of Gothenburg, SwedenDiscussant: Ingrid Carlgren, Stockholm Institute of Education, SwedenThe symposium “Conversation Analysis as a Way of Studying Learning in Interaction” argues thatlearning as a socially constituted phenomenon can be systematically studied through the closeanalysis of interaction provided by the perspectives and techniques of Conversation Analysis, orCA. The symposium not only argues that CA makes possible a precise pinpointing of learning ininteraction, but demonstrates how learning can be studied empirically, within interaction, focusingon the practices that learners use to display their orientation to objects and processes for learning.The papers contributing to the symposium, are drawn from a wide range of educational settings(teaching of English as a second language to adults, academic supervision, pilot training for uppersecondary students, adult physiotherapy encounters and teenagers playing video games). Allpapers use video and audio recordings of interaction occurring in naturalistic settings, and use wellestablished CA techniques for the analysis. The studies all empirically demonstrate how learning isoriented to, displayed, and constituted in the studied interactions, in particular in relation to therecognition of, and procedures for resolving, disfluencies or ‘troubles’ in an interaction, thusproviding new knowledge to their respective fields. Of general interest is that all papers havefound demonstrable longitudinal changes at different levels in the learner’s performance of thestudied actions, changes which were socially established and upheld, and can be considered asdirect empirical evidence of learning, and of how learning comes about. In being able to show this,the symposium contributes to the field of research on learning as changing participation in socialactivity , and to the rapidly growing field of conversation analysis research on teaching andlearning, both in general and specifically in relation to how ‘troubles’ of different kinds ininteraction provide resources for learning.Language learning seen in practices for repairJohn Hellermann, Portland State University, USAChristiane Bongartz, University of Koeln, USAUsing methods developed in ethnomethodological conversation analysis (Pomerantz & Fehr,1997), this research draws on a large corpus of video recordings of language classrooms to studythe development of practices for repair by adult learners of English. The data come from a corpusof almost 4,000 hours of classroom video recordings in which classrooms were recorded with 6cameras and five microphones every day for four consecutive years (Reder, Harris, & Setzler,2003). Two of the cameras in each classroom were mobile and focused on two learner-learnerdyads engaged in task interaction. The presentation focuses on one learner, a female collegeeducatedimmigrant-learner from Mexico, “Inez” who attended classes at the data collection siteand was recorded for 5 consecutive ten-week terms. The research takes advantage of the largesource of data and innovative technology to move beyond previous conceptions of languagelearning through interaction through a data-driven method that uncovers language practices that– 23 –