Orientation to the languages of the moment: Opportunities for learning two target languages in a multilingual foreign language classroom

摘要

This study investigates one EFL classroom in which occasional multilingualism is observed. Foreign language classroom population is increasingly becoming multilingual and multicultural, and the present case exemplifies such a trend. While the use of the L1 in foreign language classrooms is quite common, what has not been studied is that this language can also be another target language in addition to institutionally sanctioned target language when the classroom holds a multilingual student population. This study closely looks at contingently emerging opportunities for learning two different languages for one focal participant who is a learner of both the institutional target language and the language of the host community. Utilizing conversation analysis (CA), the study demonstrates how participants’ orientations to the languages of the moment dynamically shift through their ongoing institutional activity and what and how learning activities are locally co-constructed and negotiated, intertwined with their agency and each other’s situated identities. This microanalysis of multilingual EFL classroom discourse contributes to our understandings of what is really happening or might happen in real-life language learning in such contexts, considering that such classroom environments are expected to increase.