ESL Learning Objectives: A Conversation Analysis Approach

This paper explores Conversation Analysis (CA) as a model for generating language-learning objectives for English as a Second Language (ESL) students. It highlights the importance of English as a global language and the necessity for ESL learners to develop strong communication skills. The report delves into the theoretical background of CA, including its principles and types of interactional organization such as turn-taking, sequence, adjacency pairs, and repair. It emphasizes the value of CA in teaching ESL students by fostering sociolinguistic, discourse, grammatical, and strategic competence. The data collection process involves utilizing conversation transcripts from the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English, specifically a Chemical Engineering Group Project Meeting, to analyze real-life conversations and derive practical learning objectives for ESL students. The report also touches on the application of CA in various fields like media, medicine, and politics to show its wide applicability in promoting effective communication.

1.0 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Target Learning Situation
The present paper aims to exploit Conversation Analysis as a model of linguistic
to produce language-learning objectives for the English Second Language (ESL) students.
Undoubtedly, English is the actual universal language, although it is the second largest
native language across the globe, as well as utilized as official language in seventy states.
English can be at least understood almost everywhere in the world among the educated
people and scholars, since it is the globe media language, as well as the language of TV,
computer, cinema, and pop music world. All over the universe individuals known several
English words, their meaning, and pronunciation. Therefore, English language learning is
a very crucial course to ESL students or non-native learners with dynamic dimensions of
life. As ESL learners aim to travel and work in different places across the world, ability to
communicate in languages is a vital component in their future. Linguistics or study of
languages involves an analysis of language form, meaning and context. Furthermore,
language learning is a syllabus that can be viable to both college and university students
whom courses are based to almost all countries across the world. Language learning
benefits college and university ESL students because they are connected to the outside
world. Language learning program can be used across the world in colleges and
universities that provide courses functional in outside countries. This program is
specifically directed to students because they are in preparation for the future and are the
next citizens of any country. At university level, learners have the adequate capacity to
understand any language regardless of the complexity of linguistics. The language can be
used by students of any course to converse or to communicate to people from different
race or culture. In most occasions, languages help in interaction and communication of
people from different countries. Developing a language to college students can also be an

easy way of making them develop a sense of cohesiveness. It is through language
learning that the students will improve their skills both in the school and at home.
Language learning however requires a set of new skills in order to fit in the existing
curriculum. Additionally, in order to incorporate this syllabus in the system, the language
selected should be widely used to most of the nations across the world.
Students that will need this language are the ESL college students pursuing
courses that are offered in many countries across the world. Some courses are functional
to both local and international levels. English language learning is therefore an advantage
to ESL learners in various college and universities because it creates extra capabilities for
easier and fast communication with scholars or lecturers from different countries. At this
juncture, students are competent of understanding and interpreting some of the languages.
2.0 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
2.1 The concept of pragmatic model (Conversation Analysis).
Conversation analysis is considered as one of the primary aspects in pragmatics. By
and large, conversational analysis is an important approach in the study of social interaction.
It embraces both the verbal and non-verbal conduct of the everyday lives of people in the
society. It is imperative to point out that this pragmatic model has had significant influences
across humanities and social sciences, even linguistics. Today, conversational analysts seek
to describe the stable practices and underlying normative organizations of interaction by
individuals within the society (Sidnell, 2016).
Since pragmatics is found in the linguistics field, it is concerned with the language
use. Thus, it emphasizes on the real speaker and his or her interaction of language instead of
analysing word’s internal structure or grammar. In regards to that, pragmatics is located at the

border of sociolinguistics and linguistics. However, the current paper does not focus on the
issue of where and how to place pragmatics as a subject, rather it will investigate
conversation analysis in the process of generating language learning objectives of the ESL
students. Moreover, conversational analysis emphasizes on the use and structure of actual
conversations in real life. Besides, conversation analysis is always based on the fact that
language often utilized in utterance and conversation never stands on their own.
Conversational analysis is needed in teaching English learners for various reasons.
First of all, acts of speech are limited to the instant linguistic and thus does not allow people
to analyze entire conversations efficiently. This is because actual speakers rely on each other:
“Each speaker is affected by what the previous speaker says, and what each speaker says
affects what the next speaker says.”(Cutting 2005, p.24). For conversations, individuals need
to extend their vision field to the context as Mey (1999) states that “the entirety of societal
relevant circumstances that surround the production of language” (p.135). Therefore, analysis
of a conversation is more concerned with the open and extended conversation.
Unlike other theories based on the distinction between performance and competence,
conversational analysis studies and dismisses the particulars of genuine speech;
conversational analysis focuses on studying the naturally-occurring talk and indicates that
spoken interaction is systematically orderly in all its facets. Furthermore, conversational
analysis suggests that it is feasible to investigate talk-in communication by simply evaluating
its recordings. Nonetheless, CA is neither designed for, nor intended on investigating the
fabrication of interactions from a viewpoint that is external to the participants own way of
thinking and understanding of their communication and circumstances.

2.1.1 The Principles of the Conversation Analysis
Although Conversation Analysis is considered as an ethnomethodology, it has individual
principles’ subset. According to Markee (2015) there are four objective of conversation
analysis, which align with the Seedhouse’s CA principles (Seedhouse, 2005). These
principles include:
1. Orderly interactions at all points - interactions are as a result of organised events
(Seedhouse, 2005; Markee, 2015).
2. Analysis is bottom up and data driven (Seedhouse, 2005; Markee, 2015).
3. Contributions to interaction are context shaped- it is essential to consider the sequential
environment in which contributions to talk take place and in which participants are
interacting, as this plays a role in the form of the interaction (Seedhouse, 2005; Markee,
2015)
4. No detail order can be dismissed a priori as irrelevant, accidental, disorderly, where
conversation study needs data that is taking place naturally (Seedhouse, 2005; Markee,
2015).
2.1.2 Types of interactional organization of conversation analysis
The present research will utilize the four types of interactional organization to conduct
CA. These types of interactional organization, include adjacency pairs, repair, turn-taking,
and sequence, and are closely interlinked.
One basic structure of the CA is turn-taking, which observes how and when
participants take turns during the conversation (Schegloff et al. 2001). Turn-taking focuses on
how individuals in interaction pass turns, hold turns, get out and in of a talk (Schegloff et al.
2001). Normally, there are certain paralinguistic or linguistic devices that individuals can use

to take turns in a conversation, which include devices such as body gestures or eye contact,
pauses, and overlaps (Schegloff et al. 2001). Sometimes, participants who are not willing to
take turns, might utilize backchannel responses, such as, really, mm, right, yeah, to show they
have no desire to take turns (McCarthy 2002, p. 27). Moreover, the features of turn taking
structure are to organize talking actions’ allocation amongst individuals to conversation and
constrain the turns’ size in order to make the possible completion of a turn transition-relevant
(Schegloff et al. 2001). The two elements of turn taking are translation relevance place and
turn-constructional units. The former is the projectable of latter, while the latter can be words,
sentences, non-verbal actions, and clauses (Seedhouse, 2005).
The other structure is Sequence, and is classified in into three, including pre-
sequences, insertion, and side sequences. Pre-sequences is the main concern in
sequencing, since they are often utilized in conversation, and it is an effective strategy to
illustrate politeness(Yule, 2000, p. 67-68). Pre-sequences are observed when people in a
conversation want to “draw attention to, or prepare ground for the turn they are going to
take next.” (Cook, 1989, p. 56). In other words, effectively, sequence is also a factor of
conversational analysis where one individual allows the other to respond to a specific
utterance or to add to a statement.
Moreover, Adjacency pair is the other structure of the CA. Adjacency pairs is
defined as “the pairs of utterances in talk, [which are] often mutually dependent”
(McCarthy, 2002, p. 119). Characteristics of adjacency pair include; different people are
involved in the utterance. They involve two utterances, as well as the utterances are
adjacent. Seedhouse (2005) argues that adjacency pairs comprises of paired utterances,
whose second action (answer) is in line with the first action which is a question. Lastly,

there is a structure known as repair which deals with problems or issues that are
associated with hearing, speaking and understanding the talk in conversation. This
follows the principle of anything can go wrong at different stages of communication. The
repair feature of a conversation also takes into account conflicts within the conversation
and among the participants.
2.1.3 Value of CA in Teaching Second English Language Students
Through examining the transcriptions of the non-native or native English speakers’
spoken data, students are likely to learn how to organize a conversation properly regarding
the socio-cultural aspects, thus nurture the competence of sociolinguistic. Secondly, through
investigating the conversation sequence, ESL students can learn ways of co-constructing a
discourse with coherence that functions thus promote their discourse competence. Thirdly,
through examining the elements of conversation organization, ESL students are likely to
learn ways to make choices from resources of English to speak accurately, thus improve their
grammatical competence. Lastly, by investigating how people hold turns, take turns, respond,
close and open a conversation, ESL students can communicate effectively hence develop
their strategic competence. Additionally, CA enables determination of behavior patterns
during conversation, identifies barriers to effective oral communication, and allows for
evaluation of the effectiveness of therapy sessions.
Besides, conversation analysis also has some weaknesses such as when conducting
CA is time consuming, which makes it costly to implement, and people involved in carrying
out the analysis require specialised training.
2.1.3 Application of Conversation Analysis

Conversation Analysis offers researchers in the field of social science with the skills
to examine their disciplines as well as evaluate specific problems and topics. Some of the
areas conversation analysis is utilized are such: firstly, Media professional utilize CA during
their interviews or news, which assists to make sure there is clear communication between
the interviewee and interviewer. Secondly, Conversation analysis is also applied in the field
of Medicine, and it helps doctors to communicate or interact with patients effectively when
prescribing medicines, their usage, and treatment. Thirdly, CA is utilized in the sector of
politics as politicians use CA to help them discuss policies thus improving legislations.
Lastly, various institutions that have both native and non-native English speakers utilize CA
to foster productive conversation among the employees, which creates more opportunities for
the organizations.
3.0. DATA COLLECTION
The participants in this study include both ESL instructor and students, where the data
was collected through videotaping. Furthermore, in this case, data collection involves
choosing various online databases that provide transcripts of conversation that are apt for the
present study. In this research, the preferred conversation transcripts is Chemical Engineering
Group Project Meeting, and is obtained from the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken
English. This specific database is preferred due to its reliability, credibility, and authenticity
of the data offered on the site. Since the Michigan corpus library is an academic database, it
is appropriate for the study as it meets the requirements of the research at hand which needs
reliable and peer reviewed sources of data. The primary merit of considering the academic
databases is due to their high acceptability in the sector of scholarship and also reference
material reliability developed through secondary and primary studies by acknowledged
scholars and other contributors of content such as RSL students. In regards to the specific

reasons of selecting the chemical engineering group project meeting is because such
conversation transcripts offer a high rating of interactivity which is in line with the analytical
method characters for the research. Utilizing the pragmatic models in regards to CA,
conversations that are highly interactive have specific characteristics of repair, sequence,
turn-taking, and adjacency pair. According to the present research, the significance of these
features show the analysis level for the study which aims to educate ESL students with the
particular challenges of holding conversation while at the same time being interactive in
them. As demonstrate in the literature review, several aspects are considered when the
instructor is developing a meaningful conversation among the ESL students to help them
understand the subject matter as well as conversation discourse. Furthermore, CA aims to
inform ESL students concerning the conversation components and the levels of participation
needed for any kind of conversation. Therefore, the aim of selecting a conversation that is
highly interactive is to make sure that the findings as dictated by the chosen analysis method
will take account of the variables that show a quality conversation.
2.1.4 Maxims of conversation
In linguistics, especially in the field of pragmatics and discourse analysis, there exist
maxims of conversations. Primarily, this refers to the unwritten rules that govern the way
individuals within the society make appropriate conversations with each other. Basically, the
rule of appropriate conversation is to be true, relevant, brief and clear while making
interactions with each other. When making conversations, it is important that the speakers
turn-take. Turn-taking is a fundamental and critical aspect of conversational structure. In a
normal and polite conversation, when one participant speaks, the other one listens keenly
until the first speaker is done. Afterwards, the second participant takes the floor and speaks.

This is called turn-taking, and it plays a critical role in conversations and, hence,
conversational analysis.
3.0 METHOD OF ANALYSIS
The study is going to involve both ESL students and instructor, and the venue is an
EFL classroom. In the lesson of 3o minutes, the instructor will interact with the ESL
students to adopt the naming activities or object identification, which is appropriate for
Second Language classroom. Additionally, as for the Conversation Analysis, the entire
teaching conversation comprises of procedural, task-oriented, and form-and-accuracy
contexts. Furthermore, the method of analysis will be based on the implications in the
literature review which shows that there is a reflexive relationship between the sequence,
repair, turn-taking, adjacency repair, and conversation analysis. As Hedge (2001) argues,
error takes the positive role in the process of creative construction of language learning.
Therefore, in this study, the instructor will utilize the literature findings that there is a
reflexive association between conversation analysis and the types of interactional
organization.
4.0 RESULTS
S denotes a speaker
5.0 Portion 1
6.0 “S2: you're not even gonna make, alcohol.
7.0 S3: what's fifty times ten-to-the-fourth? ten-to-the-fourth is,
8.0 S4: fifty thousand.
9.0 S3: okay fifty thousand why don't you, bump that kettle down

10.0 S4: that’s fine fifty, fifty times ten-to-the-fourth, [S3: yeah] yeah that's right yeah.
11.0 S2: fifty thousand
12.0 S3: no cuz five times [S4: it's five hundred thousand] ten-to-the-fourth it's five
hundred thousand.
13.0 S4: for for a what?
14.0 S1: no fifty [S3: well i'm] times- ten-to-the-fourth,
15.0 S2: fifty times ten-to-the-fourth?
16.0 S4: ten-to-the-fourth is ten thousand though yeah it's five hundred thousand.”
(Chemical Engineering Group Project Meeting, 2000).
From the selected data source for analysis in this study, portion 1 above shows the
conversation involving all participants of the interaction. In this conversation, speaker 2 starts
the conversation while speaker 3 and 4 tries to identify when and how to hold their turns
immediately after the first speaker is done with his or her question. On the fourth statement,
after speaker is out of speaking turn, speaker four takes his or her turn again but the
participant 3 tries to interrupt through showing account of agreeing with some portion of
what the speaker four was trying to say. The conversation in portion 1 above, also
demonstrates the interaction organization of adjacency pairs since there is presence of paired
utterances.
Portion 2
“S4: how big do we want it? fifteen hundred gallons?
S3: it's just fifteen hundred gallons.
S4: okay. so that's a hundred thousand.

S3: it's like halfway between, ten-to-the-fourth and [S4: yeah] ten-to-the- fifth,
right?
S4: so, about, about fifty thousand?
S3: fifty thousand? let's change that.
S4: alright. (that'll) save us some money.
S1: what what pressures, (xx)
S2: well then you have to scale it up sti- oh you, oh i see what you're doing okay.
S4: yeah. it's already, in there.
S2: yup.
S3: yay (xx) alright
S4: (good for us)
S1: word. <SS: LAUGH>[S2: (stop.) ] we're getting there we're getting there.”
(Chemical Engineering Group Project Meeting, 2000)
Portion 2 above is acquired directly for the Michigan data sources, which shows the
prevalence of adjacency repair in the first between speaker 4 and 3 since the action of the 3rd
speaker is dependent on the question of the 4th speaker. After sometime of speaker 4 and 3
interacting, speaker 1 and 2 also take part in the conversation hence exhibiting the feature of
turn-taking. The feature of adjacency repair is also demonstrated in portion 2 above since the
speakers have divided the interaction into first and second pair parts hence creating a pair
type. The pair part is observed when speaker 3 and 4 talk first, and later on speaker 1 and 2
talks after they are done. There is also aspects of sequence such as offer-acceptance, and
questions-answers.

Portion 3
“S2: yeah
S3: buy a cooling tank (xx)
S4: so, (xx)
S1: so, i'm sorry tell me what_ we're gonna buy a cooling tank?
S2: yeah
S3: yeah to put right before, the fermenter.
S4: mhm
S3: so don't we have stuff for refrigerated tanks, like in the book and in the
coursepack?
S1: oh i'm sure we do.
S2: i think so yeah
S3: just cooling tanks, we just need to know what temperature it needs to be kept
at probably. <PAUSE:04> i'm just gonna start making a flow chart.
S4: refrigeration...” (Chemical Engineering Group Project Meeting, 2000).
Portion 3 above involves four speakers who clearly utilize the feature of turn taking
although most participants in the above conversation show their unwillingness to take part in
the talk. This is evident through use of back responses such as yeah, mhm, and so in most
part of the interaction. Specifically, speaker 2 and 4, are showing no desires of taking turns in
the conversation, and speaker is the one who does most of the speaking.
Portion 4
“S3: cuz maybe they som- say something about, water.
<PAUSE:04>