Accommodating understanding in English : an applied linguistic analysis of UK and international university students navigating TESOL tasks

摘要

Two critical incidents at a UK university where I teach, and teach aboutudteaching, English to speakers of other languages (TESOL), provided theudimpetus for this study. The incidents exemplified and challenged routine,udtaken-for-granted aspects of the overlapping contexts (TESOL,udinternationalising universities and Applied Linguistics) in which theyudoccurred. In response to the critical incidents, I designed a series ofudclassroom tasks that required my UK and International students to recordudinterviews with each other. These interviews provided the data analysed inudthe first phase of this study.udIn phase one of my study, I explore the relationships betweenudaccommodation, intelligibility and (mis)understanding implied by the criticaludincidents. My two overarching research questions are:ud• in classroom talk between UK and International students navigatingudTESOL tasks, what conversational adjustments occur?ud• what are the relationships between these adjustments andud(mis)understanding?udUnderpinning the second question is a series of four sub-questions. Theseudfour questions aim to explore the sequencing of conversational adjustmentsudand misunderstanding, the relationship between adjustments and theudcontexts of the interaction, the global and local relationship of adjustments toud(mis)understanding, and whether adjustments and misunderstanding are audproblem or a resource for the interactants.udI find that, in international situations, there are various ways ofud(un)successfully communicating meaning in evolving contexts that areudoriented to, re-created and contested through talk. My findings provideudsupport for the importance of noticing aspects of the context which mayudaffect accommodation in talk, and of an awareness of one's own talk and itsudeffects on one's interlocutor. Furthermore, the findings suggest that adjustingudone's talk in context-appropriate ways is the key to maximising the potentialudfor task achievement. In phase two of the study, I describe how I translatedudthe processural experience of working on the analysis of my data into anudawareness-raising task for my students. I conclude by reflecting on theudimplications of my study for TESOL and for internationalising universities.