A child's development of interactional competence in a Swedish L2 classroom

This study explores a child's emergent second language (L2) interactional competence during her first year in a Swedish immersion classroom. Within the theoretical framework of situated learning, it focuses on how she acquires expertise in a specific classroom practice: multiparty classroom talk. The data cover three periods (the early, middle, and late phases) of her first school year. The methods adopted combine a microanalytic approach with ethnographic fieldwork analyses of L2 socialization within a classroom community. The analyses revealed systematic changes in the novice's interactional engagements. An interplay of language skills and turn-taking skills influenced her participation in multiparty talk during the three periods, casting her as (a) a silent child, (b) a noisy and loud child, and (c) a skillful student. These changes indicate that learning cannot be seen as the unilinear development of a single learner identity. It is argued that a detailed longitudinal analysis may provide important insights into the relationship between participation and L2 learning. Instead of unilinear development of a single learner identity, we may find different participation patterns linked to distinct language learning affordances over time.