“Can you repeat please?": Young learners’ emergent awareness and use of interactional repertoires in a telecollaborative exchange

Abstract

This chapter takes a detailed look at the in-class interaction of young language learners as they engage with distanced partners (students in a school in another country), facilitated through Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC). The chapter considers the different ways the teacher and the technology used help scaffold the young learners (ages 7-8) of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) to display interactional competence in the target language. The chapter demonstrates the use of Conversation Analysis (CA) to analyse the interaction in a ‘hybrid classroom’ that involved physical and virtual participation, in order to identify moments when the learners notice and use linguistic and other semiotic resources to navigate the CMC-supported task.