In this paper, I offer a reconsideration of "interactional competence" as an object of L2 learning. I argue that the field's uptake of the concept displays a misunderstanding of, or at least a lack of attention to, its related but distinct intellectual roots in linguistic anthropology and conversation analysis. This has resulted in…

Drawing on videotaped recordings from an Adult ESL class, this conversation-analytic paper examines how an experienced teacher responds to learner-initiated tellings of personal experiences while addressing the institutional goals of the language classroom. Specifically, I show three practices which enable the teacher to address institutional…

Drawing on sequential and multimodal analysis of video-recorded classroom interactions, the paper examines in detail the interactional practices and verbal and bodily displays that serve to (re-)establish a congruency between the teacher's expectation with regard to the participants' relative knowledge and the students' actual knowledge claims. By…