Chapter published in:
Conversation Analysis and Language Alternation: Capturing transitions in the classroomEdited by Anna Filipi and Numa Markee
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 295] 2018
► pp. 83–106
Chapter 5What is it in Swedish?
Translation requests as a resource for vocabulary explanation in English mother tongue instruction
The present chapter investigates teacher-initiated translation requests as spontaneous vocabulary teaching during English mother tongue instruction in Sweden. The collection-based analysis draws on a corpus of 30 hours (11 weeks) of video-recordings of compulsory school-age students. The analysis shows how the teacher routinely draws on the local availability of two shared languages to accomplish a variety of actions: to check students’ comprehension of topicalised vocabulary; to engage the entire cohort; to perform medium repair; and to prompt student production of the target language. The findings may be of relevance for numerous types of bi- and multilingual settings, where language alternation serves to augment the teaching and learning of languages as well as other subject matter.
Keywords: language alternation, mother tongue instruction, English as a heritage language, translation requests, conversation analysis, vocabulary teaching, transitions
Article outline
- Introduction
- Background and previous research
- Mother tongue instruction in Sweden
- Language alternation and translation in the L2 classroom
- Vocabulary
- Data and method
- Analysis
- Translation as a means of performing comprehension checks
- Trouble orientation: What’s x?
- No trouble orientation
- Translation requests to prompt production
- Trouble orientation
- No trouble orientation
- Discussion and conclusion
Published online: 01 November 2018
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.295.05sto
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.295.05sto
Cited by
Cited by 3 other publications
Filipi, Anna
Ro, Eunseok
Stoewer, Kirsten & Nigel Musk
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