10. The first English (EFL) lesson: Initial settings or the emergence of a playful classroom culture
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Jet Van Dam
Abstract
This discourse-based micro-ethnographic study scrutinizes the various forms of play that are a recurrent and salient feature of a first English (EFL) lesson in a Dutch secondary school context. In the first part of the lesson collective speaking formats associated with cultural games and routines in early L1-acquisition overwhelmingly have the floor. All-class chorusing, rhymes and chants create affordances for off-record and intermittent participation modes in peer-scaffolded speaking and whispering slots. They mediate the transition from (over)hearer to (co)speaker and allow learners to find their voice in the new language - on the basis of self-selection. Individual student voices (even disrespectful ones) are also dialogically modeled by the teacher for taskrelated ‘serious’ business in playful asides in the shared L1 metalanguage (duallanguage teaching strategies). Cued by prosodic shifts, rhythmic variation and other multimodal/semiotic behavioral features, these complex footing changes (Goffman 1979) and (re)framing practices are taken up by individual learners towards the end of the lesson. In the context of an IRF sequence that elicits formulaic phrases in the L2, they spontaneously create virtual identities and playful speaking roles for themselves. Instances of play may, however, present interpretive problems for next speakers. Since play is by definition parasitic on other templates or interactional norms, the challenge is to reflect online created ambiguities in the models we develop to articulate discourse complexity in multiparty classroom floors.
Abstract
This discourse-based micro-ethnographic study scrutinizes the various forms of play that are a recurrent and salient feature of a first English (EFL) lesson in a Dutch secondary school context. In the first part of the lesson collective speaking formats associated with cultural games and routines in early L1-acquisition overwhelmingly have the floor. All-class chorusing, rhymes and chants create affordances for off-record and intermittent participation modes in peer-scaffolded speaking and whispering slots. They mediate the transition from (over)hearer to (co)speaker and allow learners to find their voice in the new language - on the basis of self-selection. Individual student voices (even disrespectful ones) are also dialogically modeled by the teacher for taskrelated ‘serious’ business in playful asides in the shared L1 metalanguage (duallanguage teaching strategies). Cued by prosodic shifts, rhythmic variation and other multimodal/semiotic behavioral features, these complex footing changes (Goffman 1979) and (re)framing practices are taken up by individual learners towards the end of the lesson. In the context of an IRF sequence that elicits formulaic phrases in the L2, they spontaneously create virtual identities and playful speaking roles for themselves. Instances of play may, however, present interpretive problems for next speakers. Since play is by definition parasitic on other templates or interactional norms, the challenge is to reflect online created ambiguities in the models we develop to articulate discourse complexity in multiparty classroom floors.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter i
- Contents v
- Introduction 1
- 1. Language play in conversation 11
- 2. Playing with turns, playing with action? A social-interactionist perspective 47
- 3. The shape of tweets to come: Automating language play in social networks 73
- 4. “This system’s so slow”: Negotiating sequences of laughter and laughables in call-center interaction 93
- 5. Laughter as a “serious business”: Clients’ laughter in prenatal screening for Down’s syndrome 119
- 6. Jocular language play, social action and (dis)affiliation in conversational interaction 143
- 7. “Everything he says to me it’s like he stabs me in the face”: Frontstage and backstage reactions to teasing 169
- 8. Cities, conviviality and double-edged language play 199
- 9. Building rapport and a sense of communal identity through play in a second language classroom 219
- 10. The first English (EFL) lesson: Initial settings or the emergence of a playful classroom culture 245
- 11. The emergence of creativity in L2 English: A usage-based case-study 281
- 12. Teaching language learners how to understand sarcasm in L2 English 317
- 13. Anti-language: Linguistic innovation, identity construction, and group affiliation among emerging speech communities 347
- 14. Celebrations of a satirical song: Ideologies of anti-racism in the media 377
- Index 403
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter i
- Contents v
- Introduction 1
- 1. Language play in conversation 11
- 2. Playing with turns, playing with action? A social-interactionist perspective 47
- 3. The shape of tweets to come: Automating language play in social networks 73
- 4. “This system’s so slow”: Negotiating sequences of laughter and laughables in call-center interaction 93
- 5. Laughter as a “serious business”: Clients’ laughter in prenatal screening for Down’s syndrome 119
- 6. Jocular language play, social action and (dis)affiliation in conversational interaction 143
- 7. “Everything he says to me it’s like he stabs me in the face”: Frontstage and backstage reactions to teasing 169
- 8. Cities, conviviality and double-edged language play 199
- 9. Building rapport and a sense of communal identity through play in a second language classroom 219
- 10. The first English (EFL) lesson: Initial settings or the emergence of a playful classroom culture 245
- 11. The emergence of creativity in L2 English: A usage-based case-study 281
- 12. Teaching language learners how to understand sarcasm in L2 English 317
- 13. Anti-language: Linguistic innovation, identity construction, and group affiliation among emerging speech communities 347
- 14. Celebrations of a satirical song: Ideologies of anti-racism in the media 377
- Index 403
