Learner-initiated self-selection as a next speaker in a technology-mediated L2 learning environment: A multimodal conversation analytic perspective

Abstract

Extensive research on next speaker selection in L2 classrooms has predominantly examined teacher-initiated nominations (e.g., Mortensen, 2008; Lauzon & Berger, 2015) or student self-selection under teacher coordination (Waring, 2011). This study shifts the focus to how L2 Chinese learners accomplish learner-initiated self-selection in a real-world, technology-mediated environment without teacher presence or institutional scaffolding. Building on Sacks et al. (1974), we reconceptualise learner-initiated self-selection as an interactional trajectory – a sequentially and multimodally achieved process, rather than a competitive act of floor-taking.

Using Multimodal Conversation Analysis (CA), we examine interactions in the Chinese Digital Kitchen (CDK), a task-based language learning environment where 72 beginner-to-advanced L2 Chinese learners cooked authentic recipes using the Linguacuisine App (Seedhouse et al., 2019). The app provided video, audio, image, and text instructions, but learners received minimal guidance and no teacher support. Analysis of the cooking sessions identifies four recurrent trajectories of learner-initiated self-selection: knowledge-display, sequential-organisation, technology-mediated opportunity, and embodied. These trajectories are not mutually exclusive but form overlapping pathways through which learners coordinate turns, manage task progression, and negotiate epistemic and procedural alignment.

Theoretically, this study contributes to CA-for-SLA by reframing self-selection as a distributed, multimodal accomplishment shaped by technological and material affordances rather than institutional regulation. It extends CA-for-SLA into non-institutional, real-world environments, showing how learners mobilise verbal, embodied, and digital resources to self-organise participation and task completion. These findings offer portable analytic categories for examining learner-initiated interaction in informal, teacher-absent, technology-mediated L2 task, and inform the design of multimodal, learner-directed learning environment.