Along a number of samples from language classrooms in different contexts, this paper will focus on the question of how micro-analytic informed research can be applied to the very teaching of interactional awareness and interactional competences to future language teachers.
This presentation will focus on the question of how microanalytical research in the field of foreign language classroom interaction can be turned beneficial for language teacher education. By applying research methodology such as Conversation Analysis or Multimodal Analysis researchers have gained distinct insights into the understanding of the processes involved in classroom interaction (and beyond). For more than 40 years studies have be conducted on how teachers and students interact in institutional settings covering an array of features such as repair, feedback, student initiation, classroom management, code-switching and translanguaging, or the use of teaching materials and gaze. Nonetheless, teacher educators still do not sufficiently make use of the empirically based findings of micro-analytic researchers. Along a number of assorted examples from different contexts and classrooms, we will explore the question of how research findings can support teacher educators and feed into course planning and curricula design, providing feedback for students on their performance when giving presentations or during internships. Furthermore, we will consider to what extent a close examination of fine details of interaction can help prospective language teachers to become more professional in their fields. The samples to be shown will cover language classrooms at primary, secondary, and tertiary level where online communication will be scrutinized in more detail, too. Methodologically, I will draw first and foremost on Conversation Analysis and in particular on CA-SLA as an applied sub-discipline within talk-in-interaction research that focuses on language learning in general but also on the specific context of the language classroom. The presentation aims at opening the floor for a more intensive and broader discussion on how this vein of research can be better applied to the teaching of interactional awareness and interactional competences to future teachers.
