Doing Being Playful in the Second Language Classroom

Much work on classroom interaction has been devoted to the IRF or IRE structure as well as pair or group work. Relatively little is known about less "legitimate" moments such as humor or off-task talk, and existing studies on playful interaction have been limited to EFL or foreign language classrooms. Based on 16 hours of videotaped interactions from eight different adult ESL classrooms, I provide a conversation analytic account of how participants mobilize identity as a key resource for doing being playful. In particular, I show that it is through ascribing, displaying or invoking situational, relational, and personal identities that the participants manage to enter an alternative universe unfettered by the roles and the setting of the classroom. Under the mask of play, the learners perform a range of subversive acts and experience the equality and contingency of conversation. Findings of this study contribute to illuminating the nature of pragmatic play and provide further empirical support for the legitimacy and utility of playful talk in language learning from a previously unexamined context (i.e., ESL classrooms).