Accommodating understanding in English : an applied linguistic analysis of UK and international university students navigating TESOL tasks

• Main Author: Wicaksono, Rachel Emma
• Published: University College London (University of London) 2012
• Subjects: 428.24071
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.573049

Two critical incidents at a UK university where I teach, and teach about teaching, English to speakers of other languages (TESOL), provided the impetus for this study. The incidents exemplified and challenged routine, taken-for-granted aspects of the overlapping contexts (TESOL, internationalising universities and Applied Linguistics) in which they occurred. In response to the critical incidents, I designed a series of classroom tasks that required my UK and International students to record interviews with each other. These interviews provided the data analysed in the first phase of this study. In phase one of my study, I explore the relationships between accommodation, intelligibility and (mis)understanding implied by the critical incidents. My two overarching research questions are: • in classroom talk between UK and International students navigating TESOL tasks, what conversational adjustments occur? • what are the relationships between these adjustments and (mis)understanding? Underpinning the second question is a series of four sub-questions. These four questions aim to explore the sequencing of conversational adjustments and misunderstanding, the relationship between adjustments and the contexts of the interaction, the global and local relationship of adjustments to (mis)understanding, and whether adjustments and misunderstanding are a problem or a resource for the interactants. I find that, in international situations, there are various ways of (un)successfully communicating meaning in evolving contexts that are oriented to, re-created and contested through talk. My findings provide support for the importance of noticing aspects of the context which may affect accommodation in talk, and of an awareness of one's own talk and its effects on one's interlocutor. Furthermore, the findings suggest that adjusting one's talk in context-appropriate ways is the key to maximising the potential for task achievement. In phase two of the study, I describe how I translated the processural experience of working on the analysis of my data into an awareness-raising task for my students. I conclude by reflecting on the implications of my study for TESOL and for internationalising universities.