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How Do Students Approach Language Learning Tasks: A Conversation Analytic Study of Beginning German Learners' Task-based Oral Interactions in the Classroom

Ai, Bolin
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1681820957273875

Abstract Details

2023, Master of Arts, Ohio State University, Germanic Languages and Literatures.
This MA thesis aims to examine the peer-to-peer interactions resulting from the language learning tasks in the college-level German textbook Impuls Deutsch 1, which is written for students with little to no prior knowledge of German. The textbook claims to “focus on meaning and communication” and develop students’ communicative competence (Tracksdorf et al. n.d. ) and includes numerous tasks throughout the book. Language learing tasks have been an important instrument in task-based language teaching (TBLT) for realizing the communicative approach that emphasizes “the learner’s participatory experience in meaningful L2 interaction in (often simulated) communicative situations” (Dörnyei, 2009, p. 34). Tasks have also been favored by proponents of the Interaction Hypothesis (Long, 1981, 1989) because interactions arising from tasks can potentially facilitate language acquisition by providing learners with opportunities to receive comprehensible input and negotiate meaning by constantly modifying their utterances. However, the effectivity of tasks and 'task' as a research construct are challenged by researchers because of the divergence between task-asworkplan and task-in-process (Seedhouse, 1999, 2004, 2005a). This problem, according to Seedhouse (2005a), can be solved if conversation analysis is employed to analyze interactions during the task process from a qualitative and emic perspective to complement the SLA and task-based learning research. Inspired by Seedhouse's criticisms (2004, 2005a), I use the conversation analysis methodology to analyse video-recordings of students’ dyadic interactions resulting from two-way information-gap tasks assigned in the German language classroom. The findings confirm the mismatch between task-as-workplan and task-in-process and demonstrate that learners design simplified turns in L2 and rely on L1 to achieve efficient task accomplishment, but they can also orient to the workplan closely in their interactions. The study contributes further to the CA and SLA research on language classroom interactions and argues that it is necessary for language instruction materials to utilize the socio-pragmatic information of the target language afforded by CA research.
Carmen Taleghani-Nikazm (Advisor)
Janice Aski (Committee Member)
Germanic Literature

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Ai, B. (2023). How Do Students Approach Language Learning Tasks: A Conversation Analytic Study of Beginning German Learners' Task-based Oral Interactions in the Classroom [Master's thesis, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1681820957273875

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Ai, Bolin. How Do Students Approach Language Learning Tasks: A Conversation Analytic Study of Beginning German Learners' Task-based Oral Interactions in the Classroom. 2023. Ohio State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1681820957273875.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Ai, Bolin. "How Do Students Approach Language Learning Tasks: A Conversation Analytic Study of Beginning German Learners' Task-based Oral Interactions in the Classroom." Master's thesis, Ohio State University, 2023. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1681820957273875

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1681820957273875
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© , some rights reserved.Creative Commons License How Do Students Approach Language Learning Tasks: A Conversation Analytic Study of Beginning German Learners' Task-based Oral Interactions in the Classroom by Bolin Ai is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.