A Conversational Analysis Model for Promoting Practices of Interactional Competence in the EFL Context

Abstract

Formulaic language is a typical feature of textbooks materials used in EFL classes. EFL students are not engaged in the process of recognizing how naturally occurring speech takes place and is carried on. EFL learners in their helpless attempts to converse with others may tend to memorize formulaic fixed expressions and sometimes whole conversations. Following a conversation analysis approach, the present study explores the significance of involving Saudi EFL learners in understanding the flow and structure of spontaneous and interactive conversation. A sample of an excerpt taken from a conversation of an American TV talk show was recorded and transcribed. Practices of interactional competence such as conversational organization, situational characteristics, lexical choices, linguistics devices, and other conventions of speech behavior are identified and then discussed in details. This CA approach is, therefore, meant to serve as a model of salient interactive practices and norms that present the conversational system of actual everyday talk. The purpose is to raise EFL learners’ awareness of the socio-cultural features of real-world communication and enhance their interactional skills necessary to boost their communicative competencies.