Sharing and comparing languages – how teachers and pupils co-construct language comparison interactions

By focusing on differences and similarities between languages, pupils
can increase their learning of abstract principles, metalinguistic
awareness and language learning strategies (Duarte, J., & Günther-
Van der Meij, M. (2018). A holistic model for multilingualism
in education. EuroAmerican Journal of Applied Linguistics and
Languages, 5(2), 24–43; Star, J. R., & Rittle-Johnson, B. (2009). It pays
to compare: An experimental study on computational estimation.
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 102(4), 408–426). However,
research has demonstrated that the possible benefits of
multilingual approaches, such as language comparison, might be
limited due to the nature of the classroom interaction in which
these approaches are implemented (Rabbidge, M. (2019). The
effects of translanguaging on participation in EFL classrooms. The
Journal of AsiaTEFL, 16(4), 1305–1322). By using conversation
analysis, the current study aimed to gain more insight into how
teachers and pupils co-construct language comparison interactions
in whole class conversations. Both the conversational structure and
the teachers’ practices to stimulate pupils’ active contribution to
the interactions were analysed, demonstrating a dominant
conversational structure consisting of two key components.
Dialogic and non-dialogic participation frameworks could be
identified with the first providing pupils more opportunities to
actively participate and contribute their own language
comparisons than the latter. This study provides interactional
evidence for the role of language comparison in making use of
pupils’ diverse languages and has direct implications for teachers’
ways of shaping participation frameworks to stimulate home
language use in the classroom.