Establishing the explainable in Finnish-as-a-foreign-language classroom interaction: Student-initiated explanation sequences

This conversation-analytical study belongs to the field of CA-for-SLA. It deals with student-initiated explanatory sequences in which students problematize linguistic matters by addressing the teacher with a question. The analyzed data were collected from Finnish-as-foreign-language lessons at university level. The analysis focuses on sequences in which participants engage in multi-party discussion to identify the specific linguistic problem. In order to become part of the teacher-agenda and the classroom interaction the explainable matter must be established as relevant and intersubjectively meaningful. Students readily participate in the discussion when the common focus and mutual understanding are endangered. Thus, student linguistic knowledge is inherently connected to the interactional event and to the specific social context. During the explanatory sequence participants ensure intersubjective understanding, while the student becomes the linguistic expert and has the opportunity to share her expertise with the others. For this reason, explaining in a larger sense can be considered a learning practice that leads to situated and general linguistic expertise.