Can You Spell That? : The Organization of Teacherinitiated Repair in the ESL Grammar Classroom

Can You Spell That? : The Organization of Teacherinitiated Repair in the ESL Grammar Classroom

  This paper examines the organization of conversational repair initiated by the teacher in the ESL grammar classroom, presenting various observed characteristics of its repair mechanisms. The organization of repair has been researched primarily with ordinary conversation data and it is only recently that studies on second language classroom repair have been conducted. Five hours of ESL grammar class has been videotaped, transcribed, and analyzed following the conversation-analytic methodology. The findings show that preference for stronger over weaker repair-initiators, observed in ordinary conversation (Schegloff, Jefferson, & Sacks, 1977), holds in the present institutional setting. The ‘pro forma’ type repair-initiation moves and certain gestures and eyegaze as independent repair initiators are also observed in the teacher’s repair-initiating turns. The analysis shows several linguistic features as well including stress signals such as pauses, false starts, self-interruptions, and filler words, repeat of the trouble-source turn, spelling out and enunciating words, and asking students to spell words. Some of these techniques reflect structural and organizational characteristics of the ESL classroom talk and are designed to best accommodate the participants in this particular institutional context.