Swedish students’ oral proficiency in English as a foreign/second language (L2) is tested annually in a part of the English national test entitled Speaking (test construct: oral production and interaction), which students’ own teachers both administer and assess. Despite access to extensive assessment guidelines from the Swedish National Agency for Education, many teachers choose to construct their own scoring rubrics for assessment. In this study, we examine teachers’ professional knowledge about assessment of oral proficiency in L2 English, as it emerges from policy transformation in these teacher-generated rubrics. Data consists of 20 rubrics for assessment of Speaking in years 6 and 9. Rubrics were collected through professional networks and two English-teacher groups on Facebook. Qualitative content analysis was used to analyze teachers’ conceptualizations of the test construct, as well as similarities and differences between conceptualizations. Results showed consensus of what to assess, but not necessarily how, which was particularly salient for interaction. Analysis of policy transformation indicated that when teacher-generated scoring rubrics were used for assessment of Speaking, each criterion was considered separately, making them beneficial for formative feedback. The professional knowledge that emerged is therefore formed by teachers’ dual roles – as examiner and teacher – in the test situation.
Assessment of foreign/second language (L2) oral proficiency is known to be complex and influenced by the local context. In Sweden, extensive assessment guidelines for the National English Speaking Test (NEST) are offered to teachers, who act as raters of their own students' performances on this high-stakes L2 English oral proficiency (OP) test. Despite guidelines, teachers commonly construct their own NEST scoring rubric. The present study aims to unveil teachers-as-raters' conceptualizations, as these emerge from the self-made scoring rubrics, and possible transformations of policy. Data consist of 20 teacher-generated scoring rubrics used for assessing NEST (years 6 and 9). Rubrics were collected via personal networks and online teacher membership groups. Employing content analysis, data were analysed qualitatively to examine (i) what OP sub-skills were in focus for assessment, (ii) how sub-skills were conceptualized, and (iii) scoring rubric design. Results showed that the content and design of rubrics were heavily influenced by the official assessment guidelines, which led to broad consensus about what to assess-but not about how to assess. Lack of consensus was particularly salient for interactive skills. Analysis of policy transformations revealed that teachers' self-made templates, in fact, lead to an analytic rather than a holistic assessment practice.
Vocabulary experts recommend first language (L1) translation equivalentsfor establishing form–meaning mappings for new second language (L2) words, espe-cially for lower proficiency learners. Empirical evidence to date speaks in favor of L1translation equivalents over L2 meaning definitions, but most studies have investigatedbi- rather than multilingual learners. In our study, we investigated instructed Englishvocabulary learning through an intervention study in six language-diverse secondaryschool English classrooms in Sweden (N=74) involving three conditions for presen-tation of word meanings: (a) definitions in the L2 (English), (b) translation equivalentsin the shared school and majority language (Swedish), and (c) translation equivalents inthe shared school and majority language plus other prior languages among the learners(Swedish and other). Based on overall weighted mean effect sizes and mixed-effects modeling, the results showed that conditions that involved L1 translation equivalentsyielded higher scores than did target language definitions in immediate posttests with asmall effect size but no differences in delayed posttests.
Denna artikel redovisar resultat från en studie av medarbetarsamtal mellan chefer och deras anställda. Studien, som omfattar videoinspelade samtal, intervjuer och en enkät, pekar på strukturella mekanismer och normer som försvårar för medarbetare att lyfta negativa upplevelser av stress i samtalen. Resultaten visar hur olika livsformer kolliderar och hur bilder av en god medarbetare formas av en delvis dold läroplan i organisationen.
Artikeln problematiserar diskursiva konstruktioner av stress i dagens arbetsliv ur ett genusperspektiv. Genom analys av intervjuer och inspelade medarbetarsamtal i tre organisationer argumenterar författarna för att normalisering av stress villkoras av nyliberala principer om valfrihet och individuella lösningar. I den nyliberala stressdiskursen frånskrivs arbetsgivare ansvar för stressproblematik, och en normalisering av stress riskerar därmed att dölja strukturer som blir diskriminerande och långsiktigt ohållbara för hälsa i arbetslivet.
Forskningen innebar en kartläggning av personal- och politikergruppers perspektiv på räddningstjänstens strategiska utveckling. Tidsperspektivet var nutid och 5-10 år framåt. Räddningstjänstsutvecklingen diskuterades utifrån de bakomliggande resonemangen i betänkandet om Lag om skydd mot olyckor.Kartläggningen av de olika perspektiven gjordes i sammanlagt 12 grupper från tre kommuner av olika storlek. Grupper från fyra hierarkiska nivåer inom kommunerna deltog i undersökningen: politisk ledning, räddningstjänstens ledning, chefer för arbetsstyrkor samt arbetslag. I diskussionerna identifierades gruppernas perspektiv vad gällde mål, säkerhetstänkande, prioriteringar och konfliktytor. Även interaktionen i grupperna studerades. Likheter och skillnader i gruppernas perspektiv på utvecklingen beskrivs utförligt i rapporten. Resultatet av studierna visade att samtliga personal- och politikergrupper påpekade behovet av ett omfattande utvecklingsarbete vad gällde skydds- och säkerhetsfrågor och en mycket högre grad av samordning inom kommunen som helhet. Samordningen behövde även förbättras mellan de hierarkiska nivåerna inom räddningstjänstens organisation inom två av kommunerna.Att ha olika perspektiv på räddningstjänstens utveckling och att inte vara överens om målet för den strategiska utvecklingen fick påtagliga känslomässiga konsekvenser för relationerna och samarbetet
Globalisation and migration have brought greater diversity to English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) classrooms. In their daily practice, language teachers gain first-hand experience and develop strategies for managing such diversity. The present study focuses on experienced EFL teachers, positioned as “knowledge generators” (Cummins, 2021, p. 313), aiming to map, document, and understand their language practices in multilingual classrooms from the perspectives of translanguaging pedagogy (García & Wei, 2014, p. 20) and teacher beliefs (Borg, 2006; Uljens, 1997). Drawing on classroom observation and semi-structured interview data from four secondary-school EFL teachers in Sweden, the study addressed three research questions concerning (1) the extent and purposes of the use of different named languages in the classroom, (2) teacher strategies for encouraging student use of English in class, and (3) the beliefs underpinning teachers’ observed language practices. Findings revealed that English was the default and desired classroom language for all four teachers. They also used Swedish to provide translation equivalents, translations of task instructions, to explain grammar, and to communicate with students individually. Regarding strategies to encourage students to speak English in class, teachers reported always speaking English in class themselves, carefully selecting engaging teaching materials, and sometimes topicalising student utterances in Swedish by encouraging the class to develop a translation into English jointly. Teachers’ beliefs underpinning these practices were (a) student comprehension is paramount, (b) the need to use any resource necessary for securing student comprehension, particularly students’ first languages (L1s), and (c) the importance of Swedish-English bilingualism in Swedish society. The article closes by suggesting implications for lower secondary school EFL language practices.
This chapter focuses on challenge and reciprocity in researcher-student collaborative labour (Zigo 2001) in a large multilingual secondary school in Sweden. The school was recruited for a larger longitudinal study of classroom language policy. For the purposes of the present chapter, we analysed ethnographic data to shed light on the well-known challenge of recruiting and retaining students to participate in longitudinal research, and on aspects of reciprocity, which was opera-tionalized as benefits that both parties, i.e. students and researchers, needed or desired (Trainor and Bouchard 2013). Results show that of the 43 students who were present in the classrooms studied, 35 (81%) provided written, informed consent to fill in a language-background questionnaire and participate in an interview. Fewer students with low grades consented to participate, but those who did provided data no less rich than that provided by students with top grades. As to reciprocal benefits, the researchers secured the research data needed, but also new knowledge about students’ heritage languages and the multilingual territories they had left prior to settling in Sweden. Another benefit relates to empowerment. The researchers were empowered by learning culturally appropriate terminology to use when communicating about multilingual and multi-ethnic territories; and interview data suggest that students were empowered when positioned as experts on their multilingual repertoires and the language ecology in their prior home territories. Finally, the chapter reveals that researchers’ stance of reciprocity evolved organically over time through their ethnographic engagement in the classrooms.
This paper focuses on language practices in multilingual English as a foreign language (EFL) classrooms in lower-secondary education. Based in the Ethnography of Language Policy, it presents a case study of a lead teacher of EFL and a year-8 class in a large urban multilingual school in Sweden. The study aims to map and understand language practices used in this classroom as being part of a larger sociocultural context, focusing on the perspectives of the teacher and four successively trilingual students who had had between four and eight years of schooling in Sweden. Field notes, lesson observations and interviews revealed that practices can be described as English Mainly + Swedish, referred to here as ‘English-Swedish translanguaging pedagogy’. While English was the base language in lessons, Swedish was used judiciously but consistently, serving different specific purposes. Discourse analysis of ethnographic data showed that the teacher’s practices can be traced to his lived experience and to discourses in policy documents. Student participants expressed positive attitudes to the language practices used, which can be explained by them having developed sufficient command of Swedish in the school domain and being loyal to an institutional policy document, their teacher and fellow students.
Classroom language ecologies are increasingly diverse as a result of mobility, migration, and information technology. In these spaces, interlocutors may draw upon shared linguistic and cultural resources but also bring in others. Prime examples are additional-language (AL) classrooms, where there is a shared target language, but where students may have different first languages from their classmates and teacher. In this chapter, we review empirical research on interaction in multilingual classrooms in approaches such as ethnography, translanguaging, and conversation analysis (CA), and discuss methods and findings in relation to the growing field of intercultural pragmatics (IP). Additionally, we offer an empirical illustration from video ethnography research in multilingual English AL classrooms in Sweden. With a CA approach, we demonstrate how a group of students participating in a vocabulary game manage an instance of diverging understandings of an English word. We show how, in resolving this interactional trouble, participants draw on the target language English and the societal/school language Swedish, and we discuss the observations in light of the IP concepts of salience and common ground. Finally, we argue that classroom studies detailing social actors’ language repertoires by using audiovisual data are essential in advancing our understanding of multilingual AL classrooms.
Den svenska föreningen för tillämpad språkvetenskap (ASLA, Association Suédoise de Linguistique Appliquée) är den svenska avdelningen av internationella AILA (Association Internationale de Linguistique Appliquée). ASLA grundades 1966 och har till uppgift att främja forskning kring praktiska problem med anknytning till språk, förmedla kontakt mellan språkforskare i Sverige och andra länder, samt rekrytera till de forskningsnätverk som AILA organiserar.
ASLA-föreningen arrangerar regelbundet symposier vid olika svenska lärosäten där såväl svenska som utländska deltagare möts. För närvarande hålls symposiet vartannat år och den 12–13 april 2018 välkomnade Karlstads universitet deltagare från inte mindre än 15 länder. Temat för ASLAsymposiet 2018 var ”Klassrumsforskning och språk(ande)”, på engelska ”Classroom research and language/languaging”. Föreliggande volym representerar fjorton av de bidrag som presenterades vid symposiet och som på olika sätt anknyter till symposiets tema. Volymen speglar den bredd och det djup som den tillämpade språkvetenskapen och ASLA:s verksamhet representerar: från barn till vuxna, från aktionsforskning med lärare till språkandets många faser och både i och utanför skolan.
Drawing on ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, this paper examines video-recorded sequences of interaction where ‘knowledge’ is made relevant in annual performance appraisal interviews (PAIs) in a Swedish bank. We examine how managers and employees collaboratively construct, define, and negotiate knowledge, and seek to understand what knowledge talk is recruited for accomplishing on individual and organizational levels. The study aims to add to the existing literature on management and leadership as situated practice by examining the interactional work accomplished through talk about individual and collective knowledge in the context of PAIs. Findings reveal how participants draw upon formulations of individual and collective knowledge in interactional projects negotiating professional identities, knowledge boundaries and expertise, the organization of work, and a distribution of work tasks. We discuss how the appraisal component of the PAIs has an impact on the employees’ epistemic positionings, and how knowledge talk is related to participants’ situated negotiation concerning a division of labor, relations to clients and colleagues, and individual and organizational goals for learning. While PAIs are generally seen as a cog in the wheel of organizational performance management, we argue that they can also be viewed as a site for the situated practice of organizational knowledge management.
This paper examines how a standardized question is launched and received in a corpus of performance appraisal interviews, with a focus on how pre-formulated questions are translated into interaction. Using conversation analysis, we demonstrate that the same question becomes many different actions in practice. Prefaces as well as prosodic and lexical alterations make relevant different responses, and as such, the question can be recruited to initiate diverse interactional projects such as assessments and other socially delicate activities. As a consequence, goals of uniformity and standardization may be subverted. The interactional adaptations further evidence the strength of recipient design as reformulations also result in more fitted and personalized answers. Our study contributes to the understanding of standardization versus interactionalization, and points to the strong interrelationship between question design and the fitting of response options.
Despite a long-standing interest in repair practices, much is yet to be learned about participants’ selections of components of the repair operation, and their systematic variation across contexts and languages (Hayashi, Raymond, & Sidnell, 2013b; Kitzinger, 2013, p. 241). The present paper targets the initiation of self-repair through examination of a particular discursive object, the Swedish conjunction eller (‘or’), located in repair-prefacing position in a corpus of 79 second language (L2) oral proficiency tests. In the corpus, eller is systematically produced in Swedish, while surrounding talk is produced in the target language, English. As such, the repair initiations are code-switched (e.g., Auer, 1998b). Building on the recent work on or-prefaced repair initiations in English (Lerner & Kitzinger, 2015), we examine the role of eller-initiated repair (EIR), i.e. repair prefaced by eller, in the context of paired L2 tests. We also contrast EIRs with or-prefaced repair initiations in the same dataset. Findings indicate that EIRs serve to display trouble awareness, which may relate to necessary revisions of both form and content of the talk in English. The ‘other-languageness’ (Gafaranga, 2000) of the momentary code-switch amplifies test-takers’ attention to what needs to be replaced or revised, and indicates to co-participants that self-repair is underway. The practice helps push forward turn transition and pre-empts conclusions about the speaker’s stance or linguistic competence, which may be particularly relevant in a language testing context.
In everyday interaction, people recurrently animate, enact, or report on talk. As conversation analysts have shown, reported speech is often deployed in complaint sequences, joking, storytelling, and in moments where some socially delicate matter are to be addressed. In this paper, I examine instances where enactments of hypothetical, non-narrative talk are deployed in the context of modeling desirable stance or conduct. Through examination of segments from academic seminars and performance appraisal interviews in organizations, it is demonstrated how animations of possible talk are used as devices for illustrating proper or improper conduct in contexts that involve orientations to some kind of problematic behavior. Enactments of hypothetical talk (private thought, possible talk in hypothetical scenarios) then serve to illustrate possible, more appropriate conduct, which in turn works to build sequences of modeling or ‘teaching’ co-participants. I demonstrate how enactments of talk or thought serve to facilitate the socially delicate matter of implicitly criticizing the conduct of recipients, and to prescribe normative examples of appropriate or desired conduct. It is argued that modeling talk enactments are one of many resources available for doing implicit criticism and socialization, and that talk enactments are available for performing both explicit and implicit moral work (Drew, 1998) while also attending to the socially delicate nature of such projects.
Performance appraisal interviews are becoming an increasingly important tool for human resources management in organizations. In a corpus of performance appraisal interviews recorded in three different organizations, and using conversation analysis, I examine sequences in which gender is made relevant (or not made relevant) in the context of discussing work-related stress or work-life balance. In addition, I contrast the interaction data with findings from an interview study with participants, and consider the gap between gendered accounts in the interviews conducted by researchers and the displayed orientations to gendered matters in the naturalistic performance appraisal interviews. The study draws on conversation analytic work on qualitative interviews in the social sciences, work on the gendered notion of the ‘ideal worker’ in contemporary organizations, and studies on performance appraisal interviews as situated action.
In everyday interaction, people recurrently animate, enact, or report on talk or thought (Clift and Holt, 2007). In this article, enactments of hypothetical, non-narrative talk in advice-relevant sequences are examined, with a focus on their role in modeling desirable stance or conduct. Data consist of interactions in institutional settings, such as performance appraisal interviews, university teaching, and talk show counseling. It is demonstrated how enactments of possible talk are used as devices for hands-on demonstrations of proper or improper conduct in sequences involving orientations to some kind of problematic behavior or stance, which in turn works to make assessments about different types of conduct. The accomplishment of contrasts between desired and undesired conduct is central, and contributes to the assessment of particular behaviors or stances. Different delivery formats of enactments are examined and compared to the action accomplished. It is argued that modeling talk enactments (MTEs) constitute resources for doing implicit criticism and ‘positive socialization’ in interaction, and that through enactments, participants may perform both explicit and implicit moral work.
Many tests of second language (L2) oral proficiency (OP) include speaking tasks designed to generate narrative talk. From an assessment perspective, frequent turn shifts and a displayed ability to understand and build upon prior talk are generally favored. As storytelling operates through a temporary suspension of ordinary mechanisms for turn-taking, tellings in tests may present challenges for test-takers as well as examiners. This study draws on a corpus of 71 recorded high-stakes tests of oral proficiency and interaction in English in Swedish compulsory school. Test-takers are Swedish 9th graders participating in the compulsory National Test of English, a paired or small group test using topic cards to prompt peer interaction. Drawing on a conversation analytic approach to test interaction and interactional competence (Young & He, 1998; Salaberry & Kunitz, 2019), the study centres on when and how participants recruit small stories for task accomplishment by inviting, resisting, or volunteering tellings. The analysis identifies when tellings are made relevant across task types, and how these local occasionings are oriented to by test-takers. Findings point to the complexity of story-tellings in test contexts, as test-takers often do not treat narratives as relevant or appropriate contributions in the institutional frame of testing.
While paired student discussion tests in EFL contexts are often graded using rubrics with broad descriptors, an alternative approach constructs the rubric via extensive written descriptions of video-recorded exemplary cases at each performance level. With its long history of deeply descriptive observation of interaction, Conversation Analysis (CA) is one apt tool for constructing such exemplar-based rubrics; but to what extent are non-CA specialist teacher-raters able to interpret a CA analysis in order to assess the test? This study explores this issue by comparing two paired EFL discussion tests that use exemplar-based rubrics, one written by a CA specialist and the other by EFL test constructors not specialized in CA. The complete dataset consists of test recordings (university-level Japanese learners of English, and secondary-level Swedish learners of English) and recordings of teacher-raters' interaction. Our analysis focuses on ways experienced language educators perceive engagement while discussing their ratings of the video-recorded test talk in relation to the exemplars and descriptive rubrics. The study highlights differences in the way teacher-raters display their understanding of the notion of engagement within the tests, and demonstrates how CA rubrics can facilitate a more emically grounded assessment.
In the present paper, we report findings from a study of performance appraisal interviews between middle managers and employees. The study is based on analysis of video uptake of authentic performance appraisal interviews, and through detailed examination of participant conduct and orientation, we point to structural mechanisms and institutional norms which limit the possibilities for employees to raise topics connected to negative experiences of stress in performance appraisal talk. It is argued that norms concerning ideal employeeship are shaped by a partly hidden curriculum in the organization which in turn is talked into being in the performance appraisal interviews. The study concludes that empirical attention to the social interplay in performance appraisal interactions reveal how participant conduct aligns or disaligns with institutional and social underpinnings of workplace ideals.
De flesta elever vill förstås lyckas i skolan och göra väl ifrån sig under de nationella proven. Att vara framgångsrik i den muntliga delen av det nationella provet i engelska, där två elever samtalar utifrån på förhand givna ämnen, är dock en komplex historia där språklig färdighet samspelar med en rad andra förmågor och kompetenser (Sandlund & Sundqvist, 2011). I denna artikel analyserar vi hur elever och deras lärare samspelar under den muntliga delen av det nationella provet i engelska i årskurs 9 i syfte att visa hur olika förhållningssätt till provuppgiften samverkar och bitvis kolliderar under provets genomförande. Genom ett samtalsanalytiskt angreppssätt visar vi hur lärarens förförståelse av hur provuppgiften bör genomföras tar sig uttryck i handlingar som styr elevernas samtal i vissa riktningar. Det är inte vårt syfte att på något sätt värdera lärarens agerande under proven utan snarare att belysa de interaktionsmässiga effekterna av att det finns olika perspektiv på den pågående aktiviteten.
In foreign language speaking tests, testees are instructed to stick to the target language and repeated instances of codeswitching (CS) to testees’ L1 during the test often impact test scores negatively (cf. Hasselgren, 1997). However, as conversation analysts have shown (e.g. Auer, 1999; Cromdal, 2000; Wei, 2002), CS is a complex interactional phenomenon, and the dismissal of CS as lacking competence risks resulting in unfair assessment. In the present paper, we discuss the deployment of CS in EFL speaking tests, with the question “Why that, in that language, right now?” (Ustunel & Seedhouse, 2005, p. 321) in focus. Using conversation analysis, we have examined all instances of CS in a dataset of 38 dyadic speaking tests for ninth graders in Sweden. For this presentation, we have focused on instances that appear when testees orient to the task-at-hand (Sandlund & Sundqvist, 2011). By examining the systematics of CS in sequences where the instructions for test-taking are, in some way, unclear to the testees, we discuss how their language choice in situ (L1 or English) becomes part of the task-as-process (cf. Breen, 1989). Aside from testees’ EFL competence, CS can be linked to matters like testwiseness, problem-solving, and disalignment with the task. As such, CS in speaking tests can be viewed as a multi-faceted phenomenon and as a powerful resource for testees, in particular in contexts where they are faced with the challenge of producing assessable talk on pre-set topics they are unfamiliar with. Our findings indicate that it is important for teachers and examiners to have knowledge of CS and its variants in EFL speaking tests in order to conduct valid assessments, since a testee’s deployment of CS may reflect interactional concerns rather than poor oral proficiency skills.
Presumably most students strive to do well in school and on national tests. However, even in standardized tests, students’ and examiners’ expectations on what it means to ‘do well’ may diverge in ways that are consequential to performance and assessment. In this paper, we examine how students and teachers in an L2 English peer–peer speaking national test (9th grade) display their understandings of appropriate ways of dealing with pre-set discussion tasks. Using conversation analysis and 38 recorded national tests in English in Sweden, we demonstrate, e.g., how teachers’ displayed understandings of how tasks should be appropriately handled steer the interactional trajectory between students in particular directions. The analysis shows that participants spend much time on negotiating understandings of the task-at-hand. We argue that in terms of valid assessment of oral proficiency, task understandings merit more attention, as task negotiations inevitably generate different conditions for different dyads and teachers.