A study of the Korean sentence-ender -(u)psita: Implementing activity transitions in the KFL classroom

• KFL teachers use the Korean sentence ender -(u)psita to begin an activity.
• Two types of transitions are identified: inter- and intra-activity transitions.
• The -(u)psita form draws students’ attention and moves them onto the next activity.
• The power-laden -(u)psita form reinforces teachers’ authority and institutional role.
• Utilizing effective transitions makes significant contributions to teaching.

This study explores how Korean as a foreign language (KFL) teachers implement activity transitions in classrooms by shifting their speech style to the -(u)psita form. The data are derived from twelve hours of audio- and/or video-recorded interactions between teachers and their students in four upper-level KFL classrooms at an American university. Drawing on microanalytic qualitative analysis methods, I present a detailed analysis of six examples of teacher-initiated activity transitions. By using the -(u)psita form to begin an activity, teachers draw students’ attention and collectively move them onto the next item on the agenda as a unified party. The teachers’ right to control the structure of activities and to impose activity boundaries reinforces their authority within the interactional event. Smooth transitions are consequential for teaching and learning because they help students properly follow instructions and prepare them to be involved in the next activity. The findings of this study confirm the importance of examining how transition-signaling processes are accomplished during a lesson, and reveal how utilizing effective transitions makes significant contributions to teaching.