Incidental microgenetic development in second‐language teacher–learner talk‐in‐interaction

Abstract

Adopting a strong socio-interactionist approach to understanding second-language acquisition, this article explores incidental microgenetic development during an oral proficiency interview between an intermediate-level US university learner of French and his teacher. The analytic focus is on the collaborative construction of an object of learning and how the learner and teacher dialogically negotiate an opportunity for development. The data are analysed within a conversation analytic framework in order to elucidate the microinteractional features of the Vygotskian notion of microgenesis. Drawing on three excerpts of the interaction, the analysis centres around the identification of a locus of trouble, mediation as a sociointeractional achievement, and the learner’s appropriation of the object of learning into his own interactional repertoire over time. The discussion then focuses on how learning and development are situated in social action and how conversation analytic research can inform our thinking about mediation.