Special Issue: Classroom Talks || Second Language Acquisition as Situated Practice: Task Accomplishment in the French Second Language Classroom

Second Language Acquisition as Situated Practice: Task Accomplishment in the French SecondLanguage ClassroomAuthor(s): Lorenza Mondada and Simona Pekarek DoehlerSource: The Modern Language Journal, Vol. 88, No. 4, Special Issue: Classroom Talks (Winter,2004), pp. 501-518Published by: Wiley on behalf of the National Federation of Modern Language Teachers AssociationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3588582 .

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Second Language Acquisition

as Situated Practice:

Task Accomplishment in the French

Second Language Classroom

LORENZA MONDADA Universite de Lyon II Laboratoire ICAR-CNRS ENS BP 7000 F 69342 Lyon Cedex France Email: [email protected]

SIMONA PEKAREK DOEHLER Institut de Philologie Romane et de Linguistique Franfaise Universite de Neuchdtel

Espace Louis Agassiz 1 CH 2000 Neuchdtel Switzerland Email: Simona.Pekarek@unine. ch

This article provides an empirically based perspective on the contribution of conversation analysis (CA) and sociocultural theory to our understanding of learners' second language (L2) practices within what we call a strong socio-interactionist perspective. It explores the interactive (re)configuration of tasks in French second language classrooms. Stressing that learning is situated in learners' social, and therefore profoundly interactional, practices, we investigate how tasks are not only accomplished but also collaboratively (re)organized by learners and teachers, leading to various configurations of classroom talk and structuring specific opportunities for learning. The analysis of L2 classroom interactions at basic and ad- vanced levels shows how the teacher's instructions are reflexively redefined within courses of action and how thereby the learner's emerging language competence is related to other (interactional, institutional, sociocultural) competencies. Discussing the results in the light of recent analyses of the indexical and grounded dimensions of everyday and experimental tasks allows us to broaden our understanding of competence and situated cognition in language learning.

OVER THE LAST 2 DECADES, IT HAS BECOME more and more accepted within such different fields as cultural anthropology, language acquisition, and developmental psychology that learn-

ing processes, and more generally cognition, have something to do with social interaction. The

problem, of course, remains how to pin down that

something, that is, how to identify, both theoreti-

cally and empirically, the exact contribution of the interactional dimension to learning.

This embedded nature of cognitive development in social practices has been the focus of

study in two intellectual frameworks. During the

The Modern LanguageJournal, 88, iv, (2004) 0026-7902/04/501-518 $1.50/0 02004 The Modern Language Journal

last 2 decades, studies undertaken in conversation analysis (CA), as well as in the sociocultural and sociocognitive frameworks, have provided empirical evidence suggesting that the social realm cannot be reduced to a mere background factor in relation to which activities, including cognitive processes, take place, but is an integral part of cognitive development itself. This view has been captured by the notion of situated learn-

ing (Lave & Wenger, 1991), according to which

learning is rooted in the learner's participation in social practice and continuous adaptation to the unfolding circumstances and activities that constitute talk-in-interaction. Situated learning invites us to look from a new perspective at what the learner is doing when he or she engages in a

specific task or activity in a given socio-institu-



502

tional context. Such a view, however, has been

consistently excluded from mainstream second

language acquisition (SLA) research. In what follows, some basic principles of what

we call a strong socio-interactionist approach to second language (L2) learning will first be sketched out, drawing from both CA and sociocultural theory. Second, classroom interaction will serve as an empirical testing ground for

investigating the interactional nature of learn-

ing processes, focusing on practical instances of task accomplishment. Given the current enthusi- asm for tasks as both a research and pedagogical object (e.g., Ellis, 2003), the notion of task ac-

complishment deserves critical analysis. On the one hand, tasks as instructed actions are a classical

topic of ethnomethodology (Garfinkel, 1963, 2001), allowing us to respecify the problem of

following a rule; on the other hand, sociocultural theory deals with tasks as activity that is both locally and historically shaped. On the ba- sis of these two theoretical frameworks, we will be treating L2 classroom tasks as practices that are reflexively defined and accomplished by learners, and collaboratively (re)configured in

relationship to partners, either present, virtual, or absent. We will show the interpretive work that is done during instructed action, by display- ing the active role that learners play in the achievement of learning opportunities. We will also demonstrate the intricate nature of their

linguistic competencies and how these competencies intermesh with other types of socio-institutional capacities. Finally, we will develop a number of conclusions regarding our under-

standing of language competence, social mediation, and cognition.

SOCIO-INTERACTIONIST APPROACHES TO LEARNING

Toward a Strong Socio-Interactionist Perspective

The relationship between social interaction and L2 acquisition, although still marginalized in mainstream L2 research, has been the focus of

increasing interest because the first systematic studies on these questions were undertaken in the late 1970s and early 1980s (see e.g., Faerch & Kasper, 1983; Hatch, 1978; Long, 1983). To date, the role of social interaction in L2 acquisition has received very different interpretations in research, ranging from what can be considered a

strong to a weak conception of this role. The weak version of the interactionist approach ac- knowledges that interaction is beneficial (or

The Modern Language Journal 88 (2004)

even necessary; e.g., Gass & Varonis, 1985) for

learning by providing occasions for learners to be exposed to comprehensible, negotiated, or modified input (e.g., Long, 1983, 1996). This framework basically assumes that social interaction plays an auxiliary role, providing momen-

tary frames within which learning processes are

supposed to take place. Contrary to this position, the strong version of

the interactionist approach recognizes interaction as a fundamentally constitutive dimension of learners' everyday lives. That is, interaction is the most basic site of experience, and hence functions as the most basic site of organized ac-

tivity where learning can take place. In this view, social interaction provides not just an interactional frame within which developmental processes can take place; as a social practice, it involves the learner as a co-constructor of joint activities, where linguistic and other competencies are put to work within a constant process of

adjustment vis-a-vis other social agents and in the

emerging context. This position is typically adopted by conversationalist (Bange, 1992; Gajo & Mondada, 2000; Krafft & Dausendsch6n-Gay, 1994; Pekarek, 1999) or sociocultural (Hall, 1993; Lantolf, 2000; Lantolf & Appel, 1994; Lantolf & Pavlenko, 1995) approaches to L2 ac-

quisition.1 In this article, we develop the constitutive or

strong version of the interactionist approach, which formulates a radical critique of some central notions emanating from mainstream

cognitively oriented research. Many aspects of this position were discussed in Firth and Wag- ner's (1997) seminal article on these issues. Our own view is that the abstraction and isolation of

learning processes (or cognitive processes in

general) from action and interaction has given rise to a number of fundamentally problematic concepts in L2 research. These include: (a) the notion of competence that is treated as a phenomenon that is isolated from socialization processes; (b) a conception of learning that is ab- stracted from the organization of actions, community membership, participation frameworks, and so forth; and (c) a notion of context that tends to be reduced to a stable variable af-

fecting cognitive events. The strong version of the interactionist ap-

proach leads to a respecification of these concepts. For instance, if interactional activities are the fundamental organizational tissue of learners' experience, then their competence cannot be defined in purely individual terms as a series of potentialities located in the mind/brain of a



Lorenza Mondada and Simona Pekarek Doehler

lone individual, but needs to be conceived of as a

plurality of capacities embedded and recognized in the context of particular activities.

These considerations also have important methodological consequences: If everyday interaction is a fundamental locus of socialization and of cognitive and linguistic development, then learning processes need to be observed within ordinary contexts of routine activities. This position motivates a focus on studying learning within empirical settings, concentrating on the organizational details of naturally occur-

ring actions and interactions, rather than on in-

vestigating data that are elicited by researchers. The emphasis put on this locally achieved order offers not just a methodological input to the in-

vestigation of SLA but also provides a fundamental contribution to the understanding of both the context-dependent and the context-renew-

ing methods by which learners become competent members in a community of practice.

Two Sources of Theoretical Inspiration: Conversation

Analysis and Sociocultural Theory

The strong interactionist position can be located within the partial convergence of two lines of research, namely the ethnomethodological and CA approach to social interaction and the sociocultural approach to cognition. We have discussed in detail elsewhere how these two frameworks contribute to a notion of cognition that is consistent with an interactionist approach to L2 learning (Mondada & Pekarek Doehler, 2000). Here, we limit ourselves to sketching only briefly their relevance for L2 research.

Ethnomethodology and CA have played a central role within the social sciences in understand-

ing social order as praxis, that is, as an interlock-

ing set of reasoning practices, institutional structures, and language. In Garfinkel's (1963) ethnomethodological program, order is viewed as a phenomenon that is constantly achieved lo-

cally by participants in a way that produces its

indexicality as well as its stability. Normative ex-

pectations and social order are seen as the

emergent products of a vast amount of communicative, perceptual, judgmental and other "accomo- dative" work whereby persons, in concert, and en- countering "from within the society" the environments that the society confronts them with, establish, maintain, restore and alter the social structures that are the assembled products of the temporally extended courses of action directed to these environments as persons "know" them. (pp. 187-188)

Contrary to what is sometimes assumed, this view does not deny the existence of social structures, norms, and values, but focuses on the way in which they are continuously achieved through members' practices in a methodic way. CA, launched by the work of Harvey Sacks and Emanuel Schegloff, deepens our understanding of the methods by which participants structure their action in an accountable way, by showing the endogenous, systematic organization of talk-in-interaction (Sacks, Schegloff, &Jefferson, 1974; Schegloff & Sacks, 1973). CA also deals with the ways in which social order is jointly established (Schegloff, 1991) and shared cognition is continuously generated, maintained, and transformed. CA methods are systematic procedures (of turn-taking, repairing, opening or clos-

ing conversations, etc.) by which members sus- tain, defend, and adjust their interpretations and their conduct in order to make them mutu-

ally understandable. As such, they are part of

practical reasoning that defines human cognition not as an individual, decontextualized, or universal property but as a situated process that is enacted through social activities. We suggest that these methods play a central role in situated

learning and are at the same time part of the

competence that allows members to participate in adequate ways in social interactions, including learning activities.2

Although ethnomethodology and CA do not aim to develop a model of language acquisition, they provide a framework that has stimulated a number of analyses of socialization processes, of school settings as well as of other social institu- tions involving learning (e.g., Cicourel, 1974; Francis & Hester, 2000; Lerner, 1995; Macbeth, 1990; McHoul, 1978, 1990; Mehan, 1979). With

regard to L2 learning, this framework has been an influential resource for investigations into interactions between native and nonnative speakers (see de Pietro, Matthey, & Py, 1989; Py, 1991; Krafft & Dausendsch6n-Gay, 1993; Markee, 1994) and into the detailed unfolding of.classroom and other instructional interactions (see Gajo & Mondada, 2000; Markee, 2000; Mori, 2002; Pekarek, 1999; for a discussion, see also Mondada & Pekarek Doehler, 2000; Wagner, 1996).

The second theoretical inspiration for the socio-interactionist view of learning that we draw from is the sociocultural approach to cognition, inspired by the work of Vygotsky and developed in the neo-Vygotskian line of thought (Cole, 1985, 1995; Lantolf & Pavlenko, 1995; Rogoff, 1990; Wertsch, 1991b). In our sense, CA and

503



504

sociocultural theory offer complementary ele- ments with regard to our understanding of everyday activities and of cognitive processes, the former focusing on the way participants method-

ically and systematically accomplish ordinary actions (including learning), the latter stressing the sociocultural dimension of activities and of

cognitive development (for recent studies bringing the two approaches together, see Ohta's 2001 investigation on classroom socialization or Pekarek Doehler's 2002 reconsideration of mediation in the L2 classroom). The comple- mentarity of the two approaches, however, cannot be reduced to using CA merely as an

analytical tool in the service of sociocultural the-

ory. As we illustrate through our analyses, one of the crucial contributions of CA's analytic mental-

ity is that it allows us to respecify crucial notions such as task or competence from a member's perspective (see also Markee & Kasper, this issue).

Sociocultural theory addresses the issue of

cognition more explicitly than CA does, decon-

structing the division between the individual and the social dimensions. A central idea here is the Vygotskian notion of mediation (Vygotsky, 1978): Higher forms of human mental function-

ing are mediated by tools (objects and symbolic means such as language) collaboratively con- structed by members of a culture, and the devel-

opment of these forms is rooted in socio-interactional practices within that culture (cf. Cole, 1985; Wertsch, 1991b). Cognition is thus understood to be situated in social interaction (as stressed by Rogoff, 1990) and in larger contexts (as focused by e.g., Cole, 1995; Wertsch, 1991a, 1991b): As Wertsch (1991a) noted: "Human mental functioning is inher-

ently situated in social interactional, cultural, institutional and historical contexts" (p. 6).

Activities take a particular shape in particular social and institutional settings, a process that

implies specific forms of conduct and socialization, and therefore specific forms of social acceptance, recognition, and valuing of displayed competencies. Learning a language is understood as being profoundly bound to social practices (see Ochs, 1988, for first language acquisition), as being contingent on the learner's

participation as a competent member in the lan-

guage practices of a social group (see Hall, 1993; Lantolf & Appel, 1994; Lantolf & Pavlenko, 1995, for L2 learning). Empirical studies have shown, for instance, how students' joint manage- ment of L2 discourse is based on the establish- ment of intersubjectivity (Donato, 1994) or how the classroom community serves as a mediator,

The Modern LanguageJournal 88 (2004)

defining rules of conduct that value certain forms of agency and involvement (Lantolf, 2000).

Situated Cognition

Both of these frameworks converge in insisting on the central role of contextually embedded communicative processes in the accomplishment of human actions and identities as well as of social facts.3 In bringing these two lines of

thought together, we want to stress that learning activities are both negotiated and accomplished in local contexts and transmitted and elaborated across historical contexts.

Learning a language, in this sense, essentially means learning how to deal with contextualized,

interactionally oriented discourse activities. That is, language learning involves much more than an expert-novice relationship and much more than scaffolded sequences of negotiation. More

specifically, language learning is rooted in learners' participation in organizing talk-in-interaction, structuring participation frameworks, con-

figuring discourse tasks, interactionally defining identities, and becoming competent members of the community (or communities) in which they participate, whether as students, immigrants, professionals, or indeed any other locally relevant identities (see also He, this issue; Kasper, this issue; Mori, this issue, for related insights). Such participation gives rise to cognitive practices, forms of attention, and conjoined orientations that are embedded, publicly exhibited, and made recognizable in actual actions, and are so-

cially mediated and collectively monitored

through interaction. In this sense, cognition can be said to be so-

cially situated in a twofold sense, in the sociocultural definition of the situation as well as in the local contingencies of everyday actions.

THE LEARNER'S PRACTICE: INTERACTIONAL CONSTRUCTION OF TASKS AND LEARNING ACTIVITIES

Formulating, understanding, and accomplishing tasks is an omnipresent problem for members in the classroom-for pupils and teachers alike. This problem relates in general to the

question of rules and of following rules (Garfinkel, 1963; Suchman, 1987; Wittgenstein, 1953) and to the issues of indexicality and reflex-

ivity. Instructions are general phenomena occur-

ring in everyday and professional contexts where their clarity, consistency, completeness, and im-




plementation are issues that are dealt with by members within the practical circumstances of the "work of following instructions" (Garfinkel, 2001, pp. 197-218). This work is not to be con- fused with the rules themselves, because rules can, strictly speaking, neither predict action nor account for it as it is locally and contingently ac-

complished. On the contrary, this work involves skilled practices of adequately interpreting tasks, and this is a competence that pupils have to ac-

quire, but which escapes formal instruction. In this sense, analyzing the detailed ways and practices through which tasks are interpreted and ac-

complished can provide an understanding of central dimensions of learning processes.

In the following analysis of interaction in a French as a second language classroom, we focus on a series of different tasks, ranging from grammar to communication, and show how possible interpretations and decisions are implemented by the highly tuned, moment-by-moment ways in which learners respond to and accomplish them. Thus, we treat tasks not as products but as processes, insisting that they cannot be understood as stable predefined entities. Rather, these tasks are configured by the learner's own activities and interpretation processes.

Data

The data for this study come from two large corpora collected during the 1990s by the authors within two related projects sponsored by the Swiss National Foundation on the acquisition of French as a second language. One of the projects was studying the acquisition of French by im-

migrant children in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. The corpus consists of recordings in classes specially designed for newly arrived immi-

grant children, between 10 and 12 years of age, and of recordings made by these children in their

ordinary out-of-school activities. Excerpts 1, 2, and 3 were collected in three of these classrooms. The second project investigated French as a L2 classrooms in a high school in the German-speaking part of Switzerland. The database consists of conversational classroom activities, including a series of literature discussions that were based on the reading of French novels or plays. Excerpt 4 is drawn from this database.

The Fundamentally Interactional Nature of Classroom Tasks

Let us first turn to our most basic claim, namely that a great deal of learning is profoundly

socio-interactional in nature. Even when it does not appear to be so, learning is interactional because it is always rooted in activities, in language games, in forms of experience. There are, in fact, activity types that our common sense (and much of the technical literature on acquisition) does not immediately or generally associate with social interaction. Instead, these tasks are viewed as be-

ing typically individual or as being concerned with noninteractional objects and objectives. However, once we consider these activities from an empirical perspective, we discover that they are interactionally achieved in their detailed and embodied realizations. Even a traditional grammar exercise in the classroom, generally not considered to be a communicative activity, is a task that is interactionally organized by the participants, as shown in Excerpt 1, taken from a special class for immigrant children (2, in this case, Ada and Dani) who had difficulties with the standard curriculum.

This first excerpt shows how a grammar task is realized through a recurrent pattern, consisting of a series of questions. Each of these questions is initiated (1-4, 14-15, 21-22, 28-29) by the teacher, Eliane (E), and each presents the infini- tive verb plus the person to one or the other of the students, Ada (A) or Dani (D). The students orient to this pattern, partially repeating or re-

casting the questions, mostly in a lower voice, before providing their answers (6, 16, 24). Their

repetitions manifest their work in progress, pro- spectively giving them time to formulate their answers while retrospectively exhibiting their un-

derstanding of the question. The participants' attention to the formulation

of the task is observable in the first sequence: Eliane asks her question (1-2), highlighting its relation to the previous question (2). When no answer is provided (3), she repeats part of it (4) in a lower voice. Ada prefaces her answer (6) by rephrasing the task, mentioning the verb that she has to conjugate, then the person, without the number. Within the same turn, she suggests a first solution (irons 'we will go'), followed by a

pause that is not taken by Eliane as an opportunity for repair, and a second solution that self-re-

pairs the first (non irez 'no, you will go'). It is in-

teresting that the first and the second solutions use the same format, whose repair is initiated by Eliane by means of a strong correction initiator, EH? (9), and by the formulation of the regular pattern that is expected (dis-moi toujours avec le:

pronom 'tell me with the: [personal] pronoun'). Ada self-repairs her first solution in the normative format (nous irons) and then, after a new re-

505



The Modern LanguageJournal 88 (2004)

EXCERPT 1 Let's Continue with the Future

1 E: euh aller, (0.6) euh: Ada (0.7) deuxieme personne, pluriel, eh to go, (0.6) eh: Ada (0. 7) second person, plural,

2 on repart dans le futur hein, let's continue with the future ok,

3 (1.4) 4 E: ?deuxieme personne pluriel,0

second person plural, 5 (0.7) 6 A: aller (0.6) deuxieme personne (0.4) irons

to go (0. 6) second person (0. 4) will go (Ist ps. pl.) 7 (2.55) 8 non irez

no will go (2nd ps. pi.) 9 (0.4) 10 E: EH? dis-moi toujours avec le: pronom [(personnnel)

HEY? why don't you tell me with the: (personal) pronoun 11 A: [nous irons,

[we will go, 12 E: deu:xieme personne

second person 13 A: non vous irez

no you will go 14 E: vous irez. (0.4) .h faire, euh:: troisieme personne

you will go. (0.4) .h to do, eh: third person 15 pluriel (0.35) Dani

plural (0.35) Dani 16 D: faire, (0.4) troisieme (.) ils feront

to do, (0.4) third (.) they will do 17 E: ils feront. comment est-ce que t'ecris ca

they will do. how d 'ou write that 18 (1) 19 D: f a i (0.4) non f eu er (.) o en ?te?

fa i ((spelling)) (0.4) no f e r (.) o n ?t? ((spelling)) 20 E: voila, ef eu, hein, (.) tout du long eu, alors que le verbe

right fe ((spelling)) ok right all long e while the verb 21 faire ef a i er eu. d'accord.(0.7).h etre:, (0.9) euhm

to do f a i r e. ((spelling)) ok. (0. 7) .h to be:, (0.9) uhm 22 premiere personne singulier (0.3) Ada

first person singular (0.3) Ada 23 (1.7) 24 A: ?etre?

?to be? 25 (3.4) 26 A: je serai,

I will be, 27 E: je serai. elles les savent bien hein? c'est vraiment

I will be. they know it well don't they? it's really 28 epatant, (0.35) je serai, tres bien. (1.4) euhm (.) veni:r,

stunning (0.35) I will be, very well. (1.4) ehm (.) to come, 29 (2.8) deuxieme personne singulier, Dani.

(2.8) second person singular, Dani 30 D: je v- non, tu viendras

506




I w- no, you will come 31 E: tuviendras. (.) terminaison?

you will come. (.) ending? 32 D: a [ es

a [ s ((spelling)) 33 A [a es,

[a s, ((spelling)) 34 E: voila.

right.

pair initiated by Eliane, her second solution (13). The exercise is thereby organized in a way that secures the production not only of the ex-

pected grammatical form, but also of an ex-

pected answer format. The latter seems to be even more strongly corrected than the former by Eliane's initiation in line 9. In this way, the organization of the exercise directs the orientation of all participants toward the appropriate pattern.

This pattern is further developed in a contin-

gent way with regard to the specific difficulty involved: For instance, when the question involves an irregular verb (such as faire 'to make, do' in line 14), the correct answer is followed by an extra request, which focuses on the spelling of the form (17). The spelling is initiated and then

self-repaired by Dani (19), who exhibits in the re-

pair itself her orientation toward the difficulty (which is further accentuated by her way of pronouncing the repaired letters eu, line 19). A similar extra request is made in the last case (31), and obtains two answers in two different formats (Dani providing a spelling; Ada pronouncing both letters). In a locally occasioned way, these

specificities are taken by Eliane as an opportunity to insist on a grammatical phenomenon in her closings of the sequence (20), where she provides an explanation in the form of a generaliza- tion. Adjusting the requests to the specificities of its object occasions variations of the exercise format that orient the participants' attention toward their status as grammatical particularities. In this way, the regularities and specificities of the grammar are reflexively embodied in the

very sequential format-both stable and variable-of the exercise.

The excerpt shows not only a grammar exercise on verb forms but also practice on how this exercise may be done acceptably. Moreover, this

practice is clearly being accomplished in and

through the interaction. The clarity and com-

pleteness of the task formulation and accom-

plishment are designed and recognized in ways

that depend on the sequential format and un-

folding of turns at talk and on social practices such as turn taking, answering, repairing, assess-

ing, and so forth. A successful accomplishment of the task, as well as the fulfillment of its pedagogical virtues, rests on the mutual identification of the relevant linguistic forms that are identi- fied (verb, person, and number), the relevant turn formats to be used, and the purpose of the task (e.g., the difference between quoting and

spelling).

The Intertwining of Competencies

Even if traditional grammar exercises are not

designed as communicative tasks, they are indeed interactionally achieved. Moreover, such activities and the problem-solving tasks they im-

ply always involve more than one type of competence. As a consequence, deploying and devel-

oping language competencies also means

deploying and developing a complex set of (social, cultural, or historical) competencies.

In Excerpt 2, the teacher, Therese (T), is do-

ing a grammar exercise on demonstratives, in-

volving different students: Mohammed (M), Bernardo (B), Pierre (P), Lorena (L), Karl (K), William (W), Ariane (A), Robert (R).

The students are involved here in another

grammar exercise that consists of using a noun, adding a demonstrative, and using it in a sentence. Mohammed is selected (1) by the teacher, Therese, and suggests a determiner + noun pair (6). It is interesting that his selection takes time: Therese just mentions his name, as if the previous format of the exercise allows Mohammed to answer without being given any extra instruction. Because he does not answer (2), Therese

repeats the task, in a way that deals with ballon (5) not just as the previous-item, but also as the last item in a series, thereby showing that instructions take their recognizable character not in isolation but in sequentially built paradigms. The

507




EXCERPT 2

This Pencil Case

1 T: Mohammed? 2 (1.9) 3 T: au suivant

the next 4 (2.4) 5 T: le suivant, (0.5) apres ballon

the next, (0.5) after balloon 6 M: ah cette cette trousse

ah this this pencil case 7 T: ctte trousse, comment on ecrit

this pencil case, how do you write 8 (3) 9 M: t er[o (.) u[:

t r [o (.) u [:((spelling)) 10 T: [ce:, [NON, trousse c'est ecrit. mais cette:

[c ((spelling))[NO, pencil case it's written. but thi:s 11 (1.4) 12 M: euh es eu=

ehm s e ((spelling))= 13 T: =ce,

= c, ((spelling)) 14 M: c eu t (i) t eu

c e t (i) te ((spelling))> 15 T: ce eu, (.) [te eu.] (.) une phrase avec [()

c e, (.) [t e ((spelling)) (.) one phrase with [() 16 R: [c'estjuste]

[that's right] 17 B:

18 T: ?chhhh::::::? (.) ?chhhh::::::? (.)

19 L:

[cette chaine, [this chain,

Lorena une phrase avec ce[tte (trousse) Lorena a phrase with thi [s pencil case

[cette trousse [this pencil case

20 est dans ma valise is in my bag

21 T: ok[e:. (.) ou]ais:, ok[ay:. (.) ye]ah:,

22 B: [()] 23 P: cette trousse est a moi

this pencil case is mine 24 J: ((cough)) 25 K: cette trousse est [(0.3) dans ma:] (0.9) ma sac

this pencil case is [(0.3) in my: (fem.)] (0. 9) my (fem.) bag 26 J: [((cough)) ] 27 T: ?mon:,?

?my:, ?

(masc.) 28 K: mon sac

my bag 29 T: sac.

bag. 30 (0.7)

508




31 T: fais une phrase avec cette trousse Ariane. make a phrase with this pencil case Ariane.

32 (0.9) 33 T: cette, (0.4) trousse, (2) comment elle est? (2) cette trousse?

this, (0.4) pencil case, (2) how is it? (2) this pencil case? 34 B: hhhh, 35 (1.5) 36 T: elle est de quelle couleur cette trousse?

which color is this pencil case? 37 W: elle est rouge

it is red 38 A: rouge

red

item, cette trousse 'this pencil case,' is accepted by Therese (7), who then adds a new request. That is, she asks Mohammed to spell it. Her formulation of the request does not specify its object. Af- ter a 3-second silence, Mohammed answers by spelling the noun but not the determiner (9). His turn is overlapped by the beginning of an other repair by Therese (10), which is followed

by an explanation of the response's inadequacy (10). After a while, Mohammed gives a spelling, the initial letter of which is repaired by Therese (13). His spelling is accepted for all practical purposes, by means of Therese's repetition of it (15) and another student's assessment (16).

At that point, although Therese extends the

activity focused on cette trousse by asking for it to be to included in a sentence, another student, Bernardo (B), suggests a new pair of items, cette chaine 'this chain' (17), demonstrating a diver-

gent orientation toward the closing of the se-

quence-which is not accepted by Therese (18). The request for a sentence is now repeated with the selection of the next student, Lorena (L), in line 18, who answers immediately (19-20). Bernardo again utters something that overlaps Therese's ratification, possibly showing his orientation toward the ending of that task. Pierre (P) initiates a new phrase (23) and so does Karl (K; 25). In this way, different students show different orientations toward the interactional

completion of the task, the problem being to know whether the task is complete after a first correct response or if the teacher expects further responses coming from various students. Therese orients toward the latter. She does not do this as a preplanned way of doing the exercise, but as an emergent response that results from the collaborative volunteering of solutions

by other students, namely Pierre and Karl. She selects Ariane (A) as the next speaker (31).

Ariane does not take the opportunity to answer (33, 35) until William (W) suggests a possible sentence (37), which is partially repeated by Ariane (rouge 'red,' 38). Ariane's difficulties, like the ones encountered previously by Mohammed, exhibit the indexical character of Therese's instructions. That is, they demonstrate the amount of interpretive work, of socialization, of specific school skills that are necessary to deal with these instructions. As problems arise, instructions tend to become more elaborated, their relevant tar-

gets are reformulated and focused-but also dis-

placed (37). Possible misunderstandings and

persisting difficulties show that making instructions explicit does not simply imply that they will be followed more accurately; rather, instructions and their results remain embedded in the classroom course of action. Moreover, the reformulation of instructions does not simply perpetuate them, but reflexively reconfigures the task, alter-

ing it, adjusting it to presumed facilitating procedures.

In addition, different skilled orientations toward the task are embodied in different participation frameworks: Pierre and Karl do not participate in the same way as Ariane or Bernardo (22) do. Hence, for the teacher, a central issue is how to make them participate within a conver-

gent definition of the ongoing sequence and its

possible completeness. The excerpt demonstrates an important

point: Being recognized as a good student pre- supposes putting to work not only one's linguistic competence, which focuses on academic content, but also on one's socio-institutional

competence. Being recognized as such involves the proper way of formulating content as well as the proper ways of participating in a specific instructional setting. In general terms, we can as- sume that this competence always combines

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with the way learners are socialized into the communities of practice in which they use the L2, whether as a student, an immigrant, or a

professional person. This latter point is clearly corroborated by crit-

ical experimental work undertaken within both the psychosocial approach to development and the sociocultural paradigm. For instance, work-

ing within the first of these approaches, Perret-Clermont, Perret, and Bell (1991), re-

ported a series of experiments that showed that their participants' cognitive processes in spatial planning and other tasks administered within the Piagetian theoretical framework were often not centered on dealing with the logical and

symbolic features of the task but were focused on

understanding the people, social contexts, and interactions in which they were involved. The authors argued that social factors can no longer be "considered external independent variables af-

fecting the cognitive responses, but appear to be intrinsic parts of the process by which persons create meaning" (pp. 43-44). This idea is sup- ported by further findings reported by the same authors, showing, for instance, that gender and social class differences repeatedly observed in

pretest performances sometimes disappear by the posttest, the participants having come to a better understanding of the kind of reasoning that is expected to be displayed in the given context.

This finding is also in line with Rogoff's (1990) observation, from a sociocultural perspective, ac-

cording to which the participant's cognitive per- formance is the result of his or her interpretation not only of the cognitive dimensions of the task but also of its social meaning and the communicative situation through which the task is administered. A more general and more radical view was offered by Wittgenstein (1953), whose

arguments suggest that instructions are indexical in the sense that their execution always involves a range of possible interpretations (Garfinkel, 1967; Suchman, 1987). That is, the

possibility of following a rule rests on its situated

understanding.

The Interactional Reconfiguration of Tasks and Their Social Mediation

The preceding discussion clearly shows that we cannot consider a task as something predetermined by a curriculum, a program, a plan, or a scientific experiment. Rather, tasks are accomplished in a locally contingent and socially dis- tributed way through the actions of the partici-


pants involved and through their ongoing inter-

pretations of the instructional setting. This situated and praxeological dimension of tasks also means that learners themselves can be actively involved in reconfiguring the task at hand, as in

Excerpt 3. In this excerpt, the students, Fabian (F), Pablo (P), Rita (R), and Beat (B), are involved by the teacher, Mrs. Klein (K), in an exercise that consists of finding nouns derived from verbs.

The teacher, Mrs. Klein, formulates the task by asking for a verb corresponding to the verb

phrase mettre dans la terre 'to put into the earth.' Fabian, in looking for the solution, repeats only the noun terre 'earth' (3-4). In the absence of an

adequate response, Mrs. Klein recasts her question in other terms (6). Pablo provides the answer in overlap (7). This first sequence shows a serial format, similar to the previous examples. Here again, we witness a reformulation and an

adjustment of the task-which first consists of

deriving verbs from nouns or nominalizing them and then in looking for a verb in response to the semantic context provided by Mrs. Klein (6).

The second sequence, initiated by Rita, shows an alternative organization. Rita reads the next occurrence and immediately provides the ade-

quate solution, cri/crier 'scream/to scream' (14), which is accepted by the teacher (15). But she then adds a context in which the target form is used. It is interesting that this context refers to the title of a painting. In this way, Rita does not

simply initiate a topical development out of the exercise, but she also displays her ability to use an abstract form, an isolated noun phrase, in a relevant sociodiscursive context. Her proposal can be compared to Beat's (17): He also orients toward an autonomous noun phrase, but com-

pletes it (le cri [de/dans] la nuit, 'the scream [of/in] the night'); he too refers to a cultural context, a film title, as a relevant context of use for the noun phrase. Like Rita, he orients toward a possible narrative by imitating the scream. But the cultural horizons of the students do not interest Mrs. Klein in the same way, because she

provides for a continuation of Rita's and not of Beat's proposal (18). By asking about the name of the painter, she deals with the visual arts as a

topic that can be fed into in an encyclopedic way. In this manner, however, Mrs. Klein reacts to Rita's topic less as a teacher than as a cultivated person.

It is not only the initial task that is reconfigured by this topical sequencing, but also the relevant categorizations of the participants (Mondada, 1999). Indeed, the participation framework itself




EXCERPT 3 The Scream in the Night

1 K: essayez de trouver un mot de la meme famille, (0.5) un

try to find a word of the samefamily, (0.5) a 2 verbe, (0.8) mettre dans la terre. ['comment tu dis?=

verb, (0. 8) to put into the earth. [?how do you say'= 3 F: [Oterre terre?

['earth earth' 4 0?comme terre ( )"?

0?like earth ( ) ? 5 (1) 6 K: q[uand quelqu'un est mo:rt (.) voila.

w[hen somebody is dead: (.) there you go. 7 P: [enterrer,

[to bury (lit. to put in the earth) 8 (0.6) 9 K: Pablo? 10 P: enterrer

to bury 11 K: en: [terrer.

to bur[y 12 R: [madame?

[missis ? 13 F: en:terrer.

to bury.= 14 R: =madame, 1i:, (.) crier, le cri.

= missis, there:, (.) to scream, the scream. 15 K: ouais.

yeah. = 16 R: =y a un tableau qui s'appelle le cri. il a &et vole (j'pense)

= there's a painting which is called the scream. it has been stolen (I think) 17 B: le cri, (dans/de) la nuit, (0.5) [aaaah

the scream, (in/oJ) the night, (0.5) [aaaah 18 K: [tu sais qui l'a fait?

[do you know who did it? 19 (0.9) 20 R: non

no 21 X: ( ) 22 K: (c'etait pas Van Gogh)

(wasn't it Van Gogh) 23 A: non c'est Munch

no it's Munch 24 K: non, (0.5) qu[i?

no, (0.5) wh[o? 25 A: [c'est c'est Munch (0.25) le[::

[that's that's Munch (0.25) th[e:: 26 K: [ah:: Munch, 27 (0.3) oui c'estjuste,

(0.3.) yes that's right, 28 (0.8) 29 A: c'est un p[eintre euh [norvegien

he is a norwegian eh painter 30 K: [( ) [c'esttres: (1) frappant. (0.6)

[( ) [it's very: (1) striking. (0.6) 31 c'estjuste.

that's right. 32 (2.3)

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is modified, enlarging it to the researcher, Agathe (A; 23, 25), who is normally silent, and

modifying the relevant categories (expert/novice instead of teacher/student)

This intrusion of the out-of-school world is col-

laboratively established, being initiated by a student, accepted by the teacher, and taken up by the researcher; it allows the students to express specific types of knowledge that are not linguistic in nature but encyclopedic; it radically modifies the participation structure of the interaction and leads up to various asymmetric displays of knowl-

edge on the extracurricular topic. This modifica- tion gives the students the opportunity to be involved differently in the exercise, to become more active, to solicit the teacher's attention ex-

plicitly, to initiate topics, to present their points of view, and to provide contributions to talk that are longer and more complex than before. The students thus end up putting to work different dimensions of their language and more diverse social competencies than before.

Such observations draw our attention, among other things, to the reciprocal nature not only of task accomplishment but also of the processes of social mediation, focused on by Vygotsky. They show that it is not simply experts who help learners solve specific linguistic problems but also learners who can help experts adapt their mediation to their own needs and possibilities. In other words, the learners themselves can be mediators with regard to the experts' tasks (Pekarek Doehler, 2002). Moreover, the relevance of cate-

gories, such as expert or learner, can be redefined and renegotiated in the contingent course of the action (Mondada, 1999, 2000).

The Permeability of Tasks and Potential Objects of Learning

A consequence of the intertwining of various

competencies and types of knowledge on the one hand and the situated and socially configured nature of learners' tasks on the other hand is that tasks are multilayered (involving linguistic, socio-interactional, institutional work) and that their targets (i.e., the potential objects of

learning they are oriented to) are permeable to each other. Excerpt 4 is taken from a discussion between a high school teacher, Mr. Ecker (E), and his students about "Les jeux sont faits" by Jean-Paul Sartre. The student in this excerpt, Gilles (G), and the teacher are actually talking about Pierre and Eve, the protagonists of the play.


In this literary discussion, the teacher follows

up on a student's remark, asking in what sense Eve had changed. Responding to the student's silence, he further comments on his questions before the student, Gilles, provides a first response (6-8), stating that Eve understands Peter's actions. In the following turn (9-12), the teacher first confirms this assessment and then inquires about the noun corresponding to the verb

comprendre 'to understand.' He thereby first orients to the activity of interpreting a piece of literature (9-10), and then formulates a meta-

linguistic question (10-11). This move, however, is not just a simple shift from a focus on communicative interaction to a focus on form. Rather, the focus on form is clearly embedded in a conversational exchange centered on the interpretation of Sartre's work.

Various characteristics of the interactional ex-

change support this interpretation. Having asked what noun corresponded to the verb

comprendre 'to understand,' the teacher develops his question at the level of content, inquiring about Eve's character (10-12). The issue of lin-

guistic form is thereby embedded in the discussion of a specific communicative content. Ac-

cordingly, Gilles does not confine himself to

providing a linguistic form but integrates this form into the expression c'est de la comprehension 'it's understanding' (13), thereby providing an answer to the question about Eve's character.

Finally, the teacher himself evaluates the student's response, thereby accomplishing a typical initiation-reaction-evaluation format, while rein-

serting the term comprehension 'understanding' into the talk about Sartre's work (14) and

contextualizing it in this way within the literature discussion. At the same time, the teacher writes the word on the blackboard. The parallel deployment of talk and writing by means of the use of two tools of social mediation-one semiotic (language, spoken and written) and the other material (the chalk and blackboard)-allows at this

very moment for an explicit double focus on content and form.

As a result, the focus on the noun comprehension 'understanding' has two parallel effects. It allows the teacher to attract the students' attention to a lexical element and at the same time serves, on the conceptual level, to deepen the in-

terpretation of the play: Eve not only understands Peter, but what is more, she shows that she understands him. An understanding of the noun phrase la comprehension leads to a better understanding of the literary work. In this sense, the




EXCERPT 4

Understanding

1 E: et maintenant, est-ce que: vous avez dit qu'elle a and now, di:d you say that she has

2 change? eh <je pense qu'elle a effectivement chang6 ((rapide))>, dans

changed? eh <I think that she has in fact changed ((fast))> in 3 quel sens, (5) qu'est-ce qu'elle montre ici, (0.5) vis-a-vis de

what sense, (5) what does she show here, (0.5) regarding 4 Pierre, (.) et vis-a-vis de son acte de ses actes politiques (4) etje

Pierre, (.) and in relation to his act to his political acts (4) and I 5 pense que ca c'est nouveau (.) dans le comportement d'Eve. (3)

think that that's new (.) in Eve's behavior. (3) 6 G: je pense qu'elle le comprend pourquoi il veut faire ca et: et elle

I think that she understands him why he wants to do that and: and she 7 elle essaye de (.) lui donner des forces (et elle lui dit) il y a aussi

she tries to (.) give him strength (and she tells him) there are also 8 des autres (.)

others (.) 9 E: exactement, (.) elle le comprend, elle veut lui donner ( ) la force

exactly, (.) she understands him, she wants to give him () the 10 necessaire oui donc le substantif (.) comprendre (0.5) elle fait preuve

necessary strength strength yes so the noun understand (0.5) she shows 11 la de quelle (.) qualite? (1) qu'on a encore pas tres bien ren- enfin

what quality ? there (.) which we have not yet very much en- well 12 qu'on n'a encore pas souvent rencontree chez elle, (0.5)

which we have not yet often encountered with her, (0.5) 13 G: c'est de la comprehension

it's understanding 14 E: voila n'est-ce pas elle fait preuve de comprehension vis-a-vis de des

yes right she shows understanding with regard to (singular)to (plural) 15 actes de Pierre ((note le terme au tableau)) <bon je pense ca c'est

Pierre's acts ((puts the term on the blackboard)) < well I think that's 16 une des phrases-cle de ce passage ((plus forte voix)) > ((continue))

that's one of the key sentences of this passage ((louder))> ((continues))

twofold orientation of teacher and students toward linguistic form and communicative content is perfectly incorporated in the task accomplishment as an interactionally enacted activity.

These observations lead to three critical

points. First, they cast some doubt on any cate-

gorical distinction between focus on form and focus on communicative content. Not only are formal tasks often organized as interactional ex-

changes (see Excerpt 1), but also a focus on form

may imply a reconceptualization of content that would not otherwise take place. This is another level where linguistic competencies interact with other types of knowledge and skill.

Second, the simultaneity of a content-focused discussion and the material inscription of a formal element on the blackboard illustrates the in-

tertwined orientations of the ongoing activities, revealing that tasks as well as activities are permeable, allowing for subtle transitions between them.

Finally, the example cited reveals the fundamental, multilayered character of discourse and

language learning activities. That is, language use in social contexts always involves the deployment of linguistic and discourse capacities as well as modes of interpreting and thinking about communicative content and ways of acting adequately within socioculturally relevant interaction, patterns, and communicative cultures. This fact corroborates the idea that dealing with the linguistic aspect of the situation is insepara- ble from dealing with its socio-interactional and contextual dimensions. In this way, language ac-

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quisition is inevitably tied to processes of socialization.

The Socio-Institutional Situatedness of Cognitive Processes

The data analyzed here draw our attention not

simply to the impact of socio-interactional factors on cognitive development, which has been

richly documented in previous research, but also to an aspect that has received only limited attention. Social interaction and the related coordination of perspectives, activities, and cognitive efforts contribute to creating the task at hand, to

defining the problem to be solved, and thereby to shaping the context of learning, as well as the

meaning of what learning is (cf. Chaiklin & Lave, 1993; Coughlan & Duff, 1994). This process, of course, raises crucial questions with regard to the relevance of tasks as abstract predefined problems to be solved and, instead, stresses their local contingencies.

One of the conclusions we can draw is that the

dynamic dimension of social interaction involves

ongoing transformations of activities and gives rise to a continuing emergence of new objects of

learning and of new potentials for learning. This issue is highly consequential-reaching far be-

yond the classroom-for the way we collect and

interpret data. It means that neither tasks nor

learning situations have a priori definitions, nor do they trigger a predetermined individual ca-

pacity. Rather, they demand that the learner put to work variable resources and adapt them con-

tinuously to the local contingencies of the ongoing activities.

Such observations raise some fundamental

questions about the possibility of treating tasks as a reliable means for testing individual competencies and of transposing tasks from one context to another. The data discussed here illustrate a

point clearly made by McNamara (1996), who

suggested that individual testing-and hence the assessment of competencies put to work-is a

complex social situation that implies social rou- tines as well as cognitive skills and that requires the learner to put to work not only linguistic competencies but also social and institutional

knowledge and skills. These skills include the communicative means and interactive procedures that are necessary to interpret the situation and to act accordingly in order to solve the task at hand. These phenomena draw our attention to the contextualized nature of the learner's

problem solving activities, and hence to the socio-interactional deployment of competencies

The Modem Language Journal 88 (2004)

and the collective configuration of their local relevancies, whether they are related to ordinary or experimental tasks.

On this and other points, our observations

converge with empirical studies that show that

cognitive skills are embedded in the actual activities of members. That is, cognitive skills cannot be extracted from these activities nor taken for

granted in a general, decontextualized way. An illustration of this point is provided in a study undertaken by Cole (1995) and his team, who organized a series of activities involving reading, writ-

ing, and human-computer interaction tasks for children in primary school. These activities were

implemented in four different institutional contexts: a school, a library, a youth club, and a kin-

dergarten. Results showed that the children were

performing the tasks very differently from context to context, depending on their own inter-

pretation of the setting and on the social rela- tions developed in each of them.

In a study on arithmetic tasks, Lave (1988) documented that participants show elaborate skills in a practical context (such as calculating prices on the market or calories in the everyday preparation of meals) while sometimes obtain-

ing very poor scores in formal tests. A fortiori, this study also cast doubt on the context-neutral value of experimental tests, which are supposed to assess the abstract, general skills of participants. These tests also measure the participants' ability to respond to a particular social situation, represented by the experimental device that transforms settings, reducing them to a con- trolled and constrained frame, largely dissoci- ated from the everyday activities of the participants.

Such analyses not only draw our attention to the researcher's paradox-or, more radically, to the unavoidable reflexivity of the researcher's work-but also underline that the situation set

up for studying language or other skills shapes the participant's production. They also question the possibility of transferring the manifestation and assessment of competencies from one context to the other and of regarding them in a decontextualized way. In this sense, our analyses problematize the very possibility of assessing a

linguistic or cognitive competence indepen- dently from social competence that interprets social situations and responds to them in adequate ways. This finding calls for further investigations into the contextualized efficiency, variability, and adaptation of learners' competencies, as observed in actual settings of social action. In this sense, and in order to develop a better under-




standing of L2 acquisition, it is as important to

investigate what learners are doing in various

learning activities and settings as it is to investi-

gate what they actually learn in these settings.

CONCLUSION

In this article, we have developed a series of ar-

guments inspired by ethnomethodology and CA and by the sociocultural approach to cognition and learning in order to explore some features of classroom tasks and their consequences for a socio-interactionist approach to learning. The

analysis of classroom interactions showed how, through the details of the interactions' sequential organization, a task can be collectively inter-

preted and even transformed, how the resolu- tion of a problem necessarily involves various embedded linguistic, interactional, institutional

competencies, and how the ongoing and reflex- ive redefinition of the task affects the potentialities and the objects of learning as well as the un-

derstanding of what learning is. In this sense, rather than emphasizing the im-

pact of socio-interactional factors on cognitive development, we have focused on the idea that social interaction and the related coordination of perspectives, activities, and cognitive efforts contribute to creating the task at hand, to defin-

ing the problem to be solved, and thereby to

shaping the context of learning as well as the

meaning of what learning is. Several conse-

quences emanate from these observations. Eirst, if interactional activities are the funda-

mental organizational tissue of learners' experi- ences, then their competence cannot be defined in purely individual terms as a series of potentialities enclosed in the mind of an individual, but need to be conceived of as capacities that are embedded and expressed in collective action. De-

ploying and developing language competencies is contingent on deploying and developing a

complex set of (social, cultural, historical) com-

petencies. In this sense, learning to participate in L2 discourse activities, to discuss or defend a

position, to solicit help or to instruct, or to en-

gage in team work or in collaborative problem-solving tasks involves socioculturally valued interactional competencies that are objects of

development themselves, and are at the same time contingent on other objects of learning.

Second, the social construction of the learning situation also calls for a revision of the

Vygotskian concept of social mediation, inviting us to look at mediation not only as a means of

collaboratively solving a problem and creating

possibilities for learning, but also as an activity that participates in the ongoing construction of the situation. In this sense, processes of mediation-in-interaction can be understood as part of the methods by which members construct learn-

ing environments, tasks, identities, and contexts (Pekarek Doehler, 2002).

Finally, this position not only stresses the contextual nature of activities and competencies, but, even more radically, invites us to question some classic dichotomies regarding the concept of cognition that are fundamentally incompati- ble with a socio-interactional understanding of

learning and cognition-such as the distinction between interior and exterior processes, individual and social dimensions, and universal or abstract capabilities and contextualized ones (see Coulter, 1989; Firth & Wagner, 1997; Lave &

Wenger, 1991; Rampton, 1997; Rogoff, 1990). In summary, this position implies that we need

to go far beyond merely postulating activity as a contextual phenomenon. It requires us to recog- nize that cognitive processes in general and lan-

guage acquisition in particular are publicly de-

ployed, socio-interactionally configured, and

contextually contingent. Although there is ad-

mittedly still a long way to go before we can model this concept of cognition in terms of con- crete cognitive processes with any accuracy, the interactionist approach to L2 acquisition, which focuses on the local activities, practices, and tasks that learners are performing in their everyday lives, participates in a broad framework of

contemporary research that allows us to deepen its praxological understanding.

NOTES

1 Some of the interactionist SLA work has received no attention in the Anglophone literature, perhaps because it has (almost exclusively) been published in French. Since the 1990s, a distinct European tradition in SLA has developed, which has so far had little effect on the cognitively oriented mainstream SLA work in the United States. This European tradition is inspired by conversation analysis and is concerned with the different interactional patternings of learning occasions and situations, which include negotiation sequences, different types of classroom interactions, and different interactional formats for learning (see, e.g., the papers collected by Arditty & Vasseur, 1999, and Pekarek Doehler, 2000). Although not explicitly drawing from theories of situated learning (or cognition) and being committed to different degrees to CA's analytic men-

tality, these studies provide interesting insights into

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the social accomplishment of interactional opportunities for L2 development.

2 Notice, for example, how Garfinkel and Sacks

(1970) spoke of the "mastery of natural language" (p. 342).

3 It is worth noting that work emanating from a sociocultural approach and CA (and more generally situated cognition) is brought together in collective volumes-in domains other than L2 acquisition-such as those by Chaiklin and Lave (1993) and Engestrom and Middleton (1996).

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Tribute to Phyllis Franklin Tribute to Phyllis Franklin

Phyllis Franklin, Executive Director Emerita of the Modern Language Association (MLA), died on Au-

gust 20, 2004.

Franklin was born in 1932, grew up in Poughkeepsie, New York, graduated from Vassar College in

1954, and received MA and PhD degrees from the University of Miami. She taught American literature and women's studies at the University of Miami until 1980. After a year as an American Council on Ed- ucation fellow, she served as director of English programs and the Association of Departments of Eng- lish for the MLA from 1981 until 1985. She was executive director of the MLA from 1985 until her re- tirement in 2002.

The recipient of honorary degrees from George Washington University (1986), Rollins College (2001), and Clark University (2001), Dr. Franklin was also named, in March, 2004, the recipient of the ADE Frances Andrew March Award for Distinguished Service to the Profession by the Association of

Departments of English.

As executive director, Dr. Franklin strengthened the finances of the MLA, initiated survey projects about curriculum and trends across the field, and worked to expand the scope of the MLA International

Bibliography and to develop outreach projects such as the MLA-sponsored radio program "What's the Word?" She was the editor of Preparing a Nation 's Teachers ( 1999), a collection of essays reporting on the

3-year MLA teacher-education project that she initiated.

A strong believer in the importance of humanities education and an informed citizenry, she worked

during the 1980s to counter efforts to cut federal funding for the humanities. In 1991, she led the ef- fort to ensure that only the most highly qualified individuals would serve on the Advisory Council to the National Endowment for the Humanities.

In honor of her service to the profession, when Franklin retired, the MLA Executive Council established the Phyllis Franklin Award for Public Advocacy of the Humanities. Memorial contributions may be made to the Franklin award: MLA, 26 Broadway, 3rd floor, New York, NY 10004-1789. Her inspiration and dedication were a driving force in the profession.

Phyllis Franklin, Executive Director Emerita of the Modern Language Association (MLA), died on Au-

gust 20, 2004.

Franklin was born in 1932, grew up in Poughkeepsie, New York, graduated from Vassar College in

1954, and received MA and PhD degrees from the University of Miami. She taught American literature and women's studies at the University of Miami until 1980. After a year as an American Council on Ed- ucation fellow, she served as director of English programs and the Association of Departments of Eng- lish for the MLA from 1981 until 1985. She was executive director of the MLA from 1985 until her re- tirement in 2002.

The recipient of honorary degrees from George Washington University (1986), Rollins College (2001), and Clark University (2001), Dr. Franklin was also named, in March, 2004, the recipient of the ADE Frances Andrew March Award for Distinguished Service to the Profession by the Association of

Departments of English.

As executive director, Dr. Franklin strengthened the finances of the MLA, initiated survey projects about curriculum and trends across the field, and worked to expand the scope of the MLA International

Bibliography and to develop outreach projects such as the MLA-sponsored radio program "What's the Word?" She was the editor of Preparing a Nation 's Teachers ( 1999), a collection of essays reporting on the

3-year MLA teacher-education project that she initiated.

A strong believer in the importance of humanities education and an informed citizenry, she worked

during the 1980s to counter efforts to cut federal funding for the humanities. In 1991, she led the ef- fort to ensure that only the most highly qualified individuals would serve on the Advisory Council to the National Endowment for the Humanities.

In honor of her service to the profession, when Franklin retired, the MLA Executive Council established the Phyllis Franklin Award for Public Advocacy of the Humanities. Memorial contributions may be made to the Franklin award: MLA, 26 Broadway, 3rd floor, New York, NY 10004-1789. Her inspiration and dedication were a driving force in the profession.

Source: MLA Newsletter. 36(3), 2004, p. 1. Source: MLA Newsletter. 36(3), 2004, p. 1.



Documents

Special Issue: Classroom Talks || Second Language Acquisition as Situated Practice: Task Accomplishment in the French Second Language Classroom