Group Planning among L2 Learners of Italian: A Conversation Analytic Perspective

Abstract: In line with the call for a process-oriented and ecologically sound approach to planning in SLA (Ellis, 2005), and with the behavioral approach adopted in other fields (Murphy, 2004, 2005; Suchman, 1987, 2007), the present work applies Conversation Analysis to the study of group planning. The participants are four groups of adult learners of Italian as a foreign language, engaged in the preparation of a classroom presentation in their L2. The analysis focuses on: 1) the collaborative production of linguistic artifacts; and 2) the complex L1/L2 alternation patterns produced by the students. This type of fine-grained, emic analysis allows to respecify group planning as an intersubjective, goal-oriented activity that is done by multilingual actors as observable behavior, consisting of a nexus of laminated actions (Goodwin, 2013) that occur in the moment and over time in and through embodied talk-in-interaction.