Multimodal repair initiations in video-mediated EFL classroom interactions: Focus on screen-based and embodied actions

Abstract

The recent COVID-19 pandemic has prompted the integration of numerous digital teaching tools into educational practices conducted on various videoconferencing platforms with geographically dispersed learners. In video-mediated interactional settings characterized by interactional asymmetry and limited visibility of non-verbal cues (e.g., gestures, gaze, or body language), embodiment is notably one of the most affected interactional elements by the local configurations of interactional context. This restricted access to participants' embodied actions due to fractured video-frames poses challenges in maintaining intersubjectivity in video-mediated instructional activities. However, despite playing an essential role in repair, multimodal practices addressing interactional breakdowns have remained largely unexplored in online classrooms. Adopting a multimodal conversation analytic approach to the examination of 67 h of screen-recorded video-mediated English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom interaction, this study explores the deployment of multimodal repair initiation practices to maintain the progressivity of interaction and pedagogy. The findings show that by initiating repair through both embodied and screen-based actions to address the students' dispreferred responses, the teacher promotes self-repair and builds interactional space for the students. Revealing how self-repair -a preferred practice in most L2 pedagogical settings- can be transferable to fully online, video-mediated classroom environments, this study brings new insights into language teaching practices in such educational settings.