Chinese as a Second Language. The journal of the Chinese Language Teachers Association, USA - Volume 59, Issue 3, 2024

In this introduction to the special issue, we provide an overview of the features and development of key approaches to teacher-student interaction in second language (L2) classrooms (and tutoring sessions). Our goal is to emphasize the importance of (re)conceptualizing instructor-student interaction from a multimodal perspective, rather than focusing solely on verbal exchanges. We argue that by examining the coordination of verbal communication, non-verbal/embodied actions, conversation participation structures, and salient artifacts in the environment, we can gain a more comprehensive understanding of instructor-student engagement patterns. Furthermore, we contend that video-based empirical research in this area holds both theoretical significance and practical value. The papers in this special issue all adopt a perspective that is multimodal, interactional, and theoretical as they investigate a variety of interactional settings in the context of Chinese as a second language (CSL). This introduction concludes with summaries of the papers and provides insights into potential future directions for research in this area.

This study investigates how expert teachers of Chinese as a second language (CSL) shift the participation framework from a dyadic conversation between the teacher and an individual student (T-S) to a three-party conversation between the teacher, the individual student, and other students (S-T-SSS), specifically, after the individual student provides a sufficient response. Data analysis of college-level CSL classroom recordings shows that these shifts appear in different sequential positions to complete three common pedagogical actions, including eliciting a choral repetition, highlighting important information, and displaying an affective stance. Expert teachers orchestrate a variety of multimodal semiotic resources to perform such shifts and pedagogical actions, which maximize student engagement in multiple dimensions in the CSL classroom.

L2 teachers employ various multimodal resources, including designedly incomplete utterances (DIUs), to elicit student response in classroom interaction. Building on the work of Wang et al. (2024), this study further investigates how Chinese-as-a-second-language (CSL) teachers use multimodal resources to elicit student responses when DIUs fail to prompt a response. A two-step pattern has been observed in the data. First, the teachers routinely employ scanning gaze and body holds to enhance student participation while they wait for a student response. After that, interrogatives, repetition, and pedagogical artifacts (such as PowerPoint slides) are used as hints to increase the transparency of answers. By providing a micro-level analysis of real classroom interaction and case distribution numbers, this paper demonstrates how teachers orient to and address the issue of a lack of response. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of classroom interactional competence and provides insights for enhancing language teaching practices.

This study investigates the explicit collective engagement (CE) device ‘yìqǐ V,’ ‘let’s V together,’ especially ‘yìqǐ shuō ,’ ‘let’s speak together,’ in Chinese as a second/foreign language classrooms. Focusing on the teacher’s role in encouraging students’ verbal participation, findings reveal that, despite having the same form, yìqǐ shuō constructs different pragmatic meanings and interactional functions based on the pedagogical contexts, such as eliciting either answers (Q-type) or repetition (R-type), through specific turn design and sequence organization. Furthermore, teachers frequently employ various verbal and non-verbal cues — including specific gestures, prosody, and environmental resources — in conjunction with yìqǐ shuō. This micro-level analysis demonstrates experienced native Mandarin teachers’ CE strategies and actual practices. Its findings provide non-native teachers with a structured and concrete multimodal framework that they may incorporate to enhance clarity in student engagement.

This study investigates the multimodal use of the Mandarin discourse marker lái in Chinese as a Second Language (CSL) classrooms. It explores how lái is employed by teachers to structure and manage classroom interactions, particularly in the context of the Initiation-Response-Feedback/Evaluation (IRF/E) sequence. The research employs conversation analysis (CA) and multimodal analysis to examine the usage and functions of lái within local and global sequential contexts. The study reveals that lái serves dual functions: within IRF/E sequences, it acts as a ‘go-ahead’ directive for student responses. Beyond IRF/E sequences, lái operates as a proximal ‘here’ deictic to redirect student attention. The findings highlight the importance of multimodality in classroom communication and the adaptability of lái in various interactional contexts. The study contributes to the understanding of discourse markers/particles in classroom discourse and has implications for language teaching and learning.

As an omnipresent social action, assessment-making has gained increasing attention in studies on teacher-student interaction. However, few studies have investigated the patterns, organization, and functions of assessment as a multimodal package in CSL classrooms. Drawing on data from 10 hours of teaching videos, this study examines the role of assessment as an interactional resource in CSL teaching contexts. The present study has three main findings. First, assessment in CSL teaching predominantly takes a positive valence. Second, positive assessments may be further divided into lower-grade or higher-grade levels, with each level constituting a multimodal package of lexico-grammatical structures, bodily-based actions, and orientation to the learning environment. Lastly, CSL teachers employ assessments of varying degrees to fulfill distinct pedagogical demands.

This study examines the occurrence of claims of insufficient knowledge in one-on-one college-level Chinese tutoring sessions, drawing on 12 hours of videotaped data. Using conversation analysis, it examines the progression of these claims, the multimodal resources employed, and tutors’ responses. Two sequential patterns emerge: (1) claims during vocabulary checks and (2) claims following knowledge-sharing questions. In both patterns, tutees occasionally express direct claims. However, they more often engage in reflective processes, accompanied by embodied displays, before articulating a claim of insufficient knowledge. In the second pattern, they sometimes specify inaccessible aspects, leading to partial claims. Tutors act as facilitators, providing timely support to bridge knowledge gaps and maintain engagement. This study enhances understanding of epistemics, multimodal resources, and participation, shedding light on a specialized yet understudied aspect of teacher-student interaction in Chinese as a Second Language learning.