EL DOCENTE Y SU NECESIDAD FORMATIVA EN EL MUNDO DE LAS COMPETENCIAS.

Overlapping speech was, at times, put forward as a measure of nativeness by participants despite the fact that it was evident – although to a lesser degree – in the non-native dialogs as well. Regardless of interlocutor group, however, participants did not seem fond of the overlapping speech, especially when considering the dialogs for classroom use.

Not all overlaps in the dialogs are similar. Some overlaps may be compared to an

‘interruption’ because one speaker begins her turn before the original speaker has fully expressed the content of her idea. Other overlaps are milder in that a speaker begins her turn slightly before the previous speaker’s utterance closure, but both speakers complete their thoughts. There is also evidence of backchannelling such as “hm”, “m-hm”, “yeah”, or laughter; laughter is most prevalent in Dialog 3. Both overlaps and backchannelling could be considered as cooperative in having either a rapport building function or as being part of the process of

negotiation (Johnstone, 2008; Kalocsai, 2011). The total number of overlaps in Dialog 1, Dialog 3, and Dialog 4 are relatively equal, although Dialog 1 contains more of what might be

comments deal with Dialog 1. However, the number of participant comments concerning this dialog could be because this is also the first dialog that participants hear or because of the proficiency level of interlocutors. Participant criticisms against classroom use are primarily concerned with the effort involved when listening.

67 Survey, MA-Nov (NS), commenting on Dialog 1:

Participant 36: Overlaps in speech make comprehension difficult at times. It is real-

world, but difficult to understand.

68 Survey, MA-Adv (NS), commenting on Dialog 1:

Participant 35: The first 10 seconds are difficult to hear because it is quiet and the

speakers are speaking over each other.

69 Survey, MA-Adv (NS), commenting on Dialog 1

Participant 38: A number of people were speaking over each other at the beginning;

this made it hard for me to orient myself when I first started listening.

70 Survey, MA-Adv (NS), commenting on Dialog 1

Participant 53: The beginning of the conversation when the topic is introduced is

difficult to understand due to the fact that multiple speakers are talking at the same time.

71 FG 2, MA-Adv (NS), commenting on Dialog 1:

Jeff: I don’t think I would [use this in a class] because … who is speaking when

isn’t really so clear.

Nancy: They kind of speak over each other, so you have to really listen toit.

72 FG 3, PhD & MA Nov (NS), commenting on Dialog 3:

Peter: Yeah, too much talking over one another

Casey: Yeah.

73 Survey, MA-Adv (NS), commenting on Dialog 4:

Participant 53: […] The second speaker is very hard to understand and when multiple

speakers talk at once it is difficult to distinguish what each speaker is saying. The topic as a whole, however, seems easy enough to follow.

While it is certainly valid for participants to be concerned about the intelligibility of language samples for classroom use, it is interesting that they express concern primarily with the high- intermediate dialogs. Only excerpt 72 (above) concerns the native speaker dialog while all other

comments concern the high-intermediate group. The native dialog does contain more laughter- type overlaps than the other dialogs, but comments on the laughter elsewhere in the data (excerpts 74 – 75, below) do not suggest disapproval of the laughter.

74 Survey, MA-Nov (NS), commenting on Dialog 3:

Participant 43: Sounds like a group of native speakers relating to one another about what

they do in their free time, or ways they waste time, people cutting each other off,

laughing, adding on to what last person said, sounds like all native speakers

75 FG 1, MA-Nov (NNS), commenting on Dialog 3:

Sheryl: About the-, strictly about the interaction, I think it was really good. They’re

like, “oh yeah, right”. And then they’re laugh, they laugh. And laugh and

agree and disagree and everything

For the most part, the laughter seems to be perceived merely as an aspect of the

communicative situation, and in one case (excerpt 74) ascribed to something native speakers do. The point here is that the overlaps in the native speaker dialogs do not elicit negative

comments from participants while the overlaps in the high-intermediate dialogs do12. Yet the

overlaps in the high-intermediate dialogs do not seem to interfere with comprehension: even when the overlaps represent more than backchannelling or supportive laughter, non-native interlocutors orient themselves to the input and they cooperate in integrating the new information from the overlap into continuing the interaction. Interlocutors are cooperating towards

establishing meaning, and none show signs of being disturbed by the overlaps. This behavior

may be interpreted as an example of languaging, a term borrowed from sociocultural theory to

describe communication in which

ELF users … exploit the potential of the language, they are fully involved in the interactions, whether for work or for play. They are focused on the interactional and transactional purposes of the talk and on the interlocutors as people rather than on the linguistic code itself. … an entirely pragmatic undertaking in that the

12 _{Although it is possible that participants did not comment as frequently on overlaps in the advanced and native}

dialogs because they had already done so for the first high-intermediate dialog, this explanation is somewhat unlikely since Participant 53 comments on both of the high-intermediate dialogs (excerpt 70 and excerpt 73).

focus is on establishing the indexical link between the code and the context, and a creative process in that the code is treated as malleable and adjustable to the requirements of the moment (Seidlhofer, 2011, p. 98).

Based on this idea of languaging, the interlocutors in the dialogs perform as successful (and typical) users of ELF (see also Firth, 1996), yet the pragmatic speech overlaps in the non-native dialogs are presented as challenging by the participants who commented on this feature – all of whom are native speakers.

It should be acknowledged at this point that the unnaturalness of the activity may also have contributed to these challenges. For example, several participants mentioned the difficulties associated with “eavesdropping”, such as Butler from Focus Group 1: “it took a second because it’s like, kind of like eavesdropping … I’m trying to figure out … what … their roles are”. Moreover, despite the brief written descriptions provided at the top of the page on the survey that described the interactional context, it is obvious that not all participants were consistently attuned to the information; “I didn't know what the context of the conversation was”, wrote one survey participant. Thus, in addition to the overlapping speech, the unnaturalness of the activity may have played a role in participant difficulties, although the difference in the number of comments made for the high-intermediate group as opposed to native group nonetheless remains

noteworthy.