Teacher-student rapport has been discussed in previous research, but the communicative behaviors that foster it have yet to be identified. The current study looked at several teacher communicative behaviors to determine which are the best predictors of rapport building. The results suggest that students feel rapport is most influenced by a…

The interactional roles of smile and laughter have been widely explored in both institutional settings and mundane talk (e.g. Holt 2016; Potter and Hepburn 2010). However, the role of one specific kind of smile, what we call a 'squeezed-mouth smile' (SMS), remains unexamined. Using CA, this study explores one teacher's use of SMS in response to…

Using multimodal conversation analysis, this study closely examines moments when an instructor's embodied explanations elicit laughter from his students -- which we refer to as laughing moments -- in an English as a second language classroom. Such laughing moments can exhibit students' attention to the teacher's explanation and also illuminate…

Although there is a body of research on the teacher first language (L1) use in English-medium-instruction (EMI) classrooms, very little research has probed into how international students perceive local teacher L1 use and their learning practices in the English as a lingua franca (ELF) context. To address the gap, the present case study explored a…

Even though small talk has been investigated in a variety of business contexts and service encounters, it is understudied in instructional settings. This paper explores the occurrence of small talk in a university chemistry lab between a Chinese international teaching assistant (ITA) and American students. Drawing on naturally occurring…

Based on interaction recorded in EFL classrooms, this study uses Conversation Analysis to document the post-first deployment of an absurd candidate formulation (ACF) to pursue recipient response at points of interactional delay. ACFs are a form of correction-invitation device in which the question initiator proffers a candidate response that is…

This paper investigates the use of laughter and smiling to manage (dis)affiliation during two types of disturbances in the interactional unfolding of classrooms: delayed and disaligning responses. The analysis reveals that the sequential position and embodied turn design are integral to understanding the (dis)affiliative work laughter and smiling…

This study explored the language practices of a small group of international Chinese students in an anglophone Higher Education context where English was the medium of instruction. The context was the first year of an early childhood education course at an Australian university. Building on findings from research in conversation analysis on…

With the recent shift from negative psychology to positive psychology in the field of second language acquisition deeper understanding regarding the transfer and construction of positive emotions within classroom interactions is needed. Inspired by the concept of emotion contagion in the field of psychology, the purpose of this study was to…

Although research has investigated laughter in professional communication settings, fewer studies have explored laughter-talk in second language (L2) classrooms. This study examines L2 university students' use of laughter-talk in peer group conversation to understand the linguistics of affect and its interactional effects. The author draws upon…

Using a conversation-analytic approach along with the notions of frame and footing (Goffman 1981), this study examines what strategies teachers use to build rapport with their students in Korean as a foreign language classrooms. It also discusses what kinds of interactional resources they employ in tandem with these strategies. Analysis of…