Beyond Grammar: Teaching Interaction in the German Language Classroom

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Beyond Grammar:
Teaching Interaction in the
German Language Classroom
Emma M. Betz
University of Waterloo
Thorsten Huth
University of Tennessee
This collection of teaching materials provides teachers of German with practical, innovative
tools to make face-to-face interaction and language use a specific learning target in the German
foreign or second language classroom. How do German speakers routinely open up a tele-
phone conversation or bring it to an orderly close? How do German speakers quote others
effectively in face-to-face talk (rather than in writing)? Can we actually understand and describe
the function of notoriously elusive modal particles such as halt or denn in interaction? How and
to what effect do German speakers use tag questions such as ne? or oder was? Why should weil
+V2not be dismissed as bad grammar, but mustrather be viewed as a syntactic variant with its
own communicative function? What can we teach about relative clauses and their interactional
function in addition to their mere grammaticality on the sentence level? Why do Germans say
ach! in some contexts and achso! in others to manage knowledge? What do little words and to-
kens such as jaja or achja actually achieve in face-to-face talk?
Such aspects of the German language are often sidelined as too complex or as otherwise too
unwieldy to consider as relevant learning targets. At the same time, learning them opens up
opportunities for learners to fully participate in social interaction with native speakers in cultur-
ally appropriate ways. Starting at the beginner’s level, we are excited to open up such learning
targets for systematic and accessible exploration through a coherent series of teaching units in
four consecutive issues of Die Unterrichtspraxis/Teaching German.
The basic idea driving this project is the notion that teaching about, and practicing the doing
of, interaction greatly benefits both students and teachers. For students of German, learning
how to handle real-life interaction in the target language in clearly specified contexts is
inherently useful and empowering. For teachers of German, teaching the kinds of interactional
phenomena showcased in this series provides a tangible curricular strategy to combine
language teaching with the teaching of culture. Some of the interactional patterns featured in
this collection are culturally specific, allowing teachers and students of German to engage in
cross-cultural discussion and reflection.
Teaching language competencies that reach across national, cultural, and linguistic bound-
aries remains a topic of considerable interest among language teachers (e.g., Dervin &
Liddicoat, 2013; Liddicoat & Scarino, 2013). The 2007 Foreign Language Report of the Mod-
ern Language Association coined the notion of “translingual and transcultural competence”
(MLA, 2007, pp. 3–4; Kramsch, 2010), that is, “the ability to operate between languages”
(MLA, 2007, pp. 3–4). Fostering such abilities is viewed as affording learners the opportunity to
140

become what Kramsch termed „intercultural speakers“ (Kramsch, 1998a, 1998b), a notion
describing speakers who are able to negotiate meaning across culturally variable conceptual
frameworks. Most language professionals are keenly aware of how difficult it can be to reconcile
a given notion of language with a suitable notion of culture. Given the notorious pliability of
these concepts, sufficient theoretical and empirical resources must be at our fingertips so as to
provide firm conceptual ground. This series on teaching German interaction at the beginner’s
level demonstrates that these theoretical requirements can be met and that they can be applied
to good effect in the classroom.
The perspective applied here uses Conversation Analysis (CA), a research methodology
able to analyze, illustrate, and explain how people interact with one another in and through
actual, real-life talk. In the past 20 years, CA-research on interactional structures in German has
produced a valuable pool of empirical knowledge, waiting to be mined by materials developers
for enriching the German language classroom. In 2003, an exploratory panel at ACTFL pro-
vided a first glimpse of what might be possible if one considers CA-informed insight on
language, interaction, and culture as a foundation for creating hands-on teaching materials not
just for advanced learners of German, but rather for beginners.
It is timely now to showcase the results of these efforts in a coherent series of articles that are
based on an informed, research-based pedagogy and provide a) useful background informa-
tion about a broad variety of interactional learning targets; b) hands-on teaching materials for
immediate classroom use organized in coherent units; and c) specific guidance for teachers to
integrate materials into the classroom. While the argument for such materials is not new, and
while pioneering efforts have been undertaken in various languages and in institutional
contexts beyond second/foreign language teaching (Barraja-Rohan, 1997, 2011; Barraja-
Rohan & Pritchard, 1997; Bose & Schwarze, 2007; Fiehler, 2002; Fuji, 2012; Huth &
Taleghani-Nikazm, 2006; Huth, 2007, 2010; Rieger, 2003, 2007; Wang & Rendle-Short,
2013; Wong, 2002), a coherent series of teaching materials exclusively for the German lan-
guage is new. The materials have been conceived for, tested in, and improved upon in German
language classrooms. It is our hope that they complement the German language curriculum
meaningfully as we guide our students in developing translingual/transcultural competence.
Language, Interaction, and Culture
To reap the full benefits of the teaching materials presented in this series, it is useful to be
aware of central theoretical connections concerning interaction and culture and of existing
empirical classroom research on the learnability and teachability of interaction. As we will see,
teaching interaction is different from teaching vocabulary or morpho-syntactic structures in
some important respects. In the following, we (a) delineate the motivation for taking this
approachin lightof largercurricular issues; (b) introduce the non-specialistto somebasic princi-
ples of conversation analysis to illustrate the tangible connection of language and culture in our
materials; (c) review existing empirical research on the learnability and the teachability of
interaction patterns; and (d) discuss caveats and provide essential pedagogical guidance for
teachers.
In the past decades, the goals of teaching languages have evolved beyond the formal study
of words and grammar in order to access significant texts of another culture. Today, language-
teaching professionals aim at training students to become competent communicators in writing
and in speaking. Practitioners quickly realized that being a successful communicator when
operating in languages other than one’s first requires communicating within and across linguis-
tic and cultural boundaries, that is, translingual/transcultural competence.
BETZ/HUTH: INTERACTION 141

As students encounter people, texts, or particular social, political, or historical discourses
through languages other than their first, they are bound to process information from within and
across the conceptual boundaries drawn up by the specific languages involved. The MLA re-
port asserts that
[t]his kind of language education systematically teaches differences in meaning, mentality, and worldview as
expressed in American English and in the target language. [...] In the course of acquiring functional language
abilities, students are taught critical language awareness, interpretation and translation, historical and political
consciousness, social sensibility, and aesthetic perception (MLA 2007, p. 4).
The report reemphasizes an already existing agenda, since fostering cultural competencies
built from language competencies is not a new idea. It stems from the general view that lan-
guage and culture implicate one another (Kasper & Omori, 2010), a notion widely reflected in
current programmatic documents relevant for the teaching of the German language (ACTFL
Standards, 1999; Council of Europe, 2001; MLA, 2007). However, any language teacher who
has made efforts to put such an agenda to work in the classroom soon becomes aware of a
number of difficulties. How do we define language and culture respectively? What materials do
we use to reflect our definitions adequately? Are translingual/transcultural skills indeed teach-
able, learnable, and assessable? Ultimately, what does a token of demonstrated translingual/
transcultural competence look like in student performance? Research raising these questions
reflects a wide array of perceptions concerning how the teaching of language and culture might
be connected (e.g., Brrgger,1992; Chavez, 2002; Crawford-Lange & Lange, 1984; Galloway,
1985; Jarvis, 1977; Lafayette, 1988; Lange, 1999; Nostrand, 1974; Seelye, 1993).
This collection approaches language as culture rather than viewing both as separate (see
Byram & Kramsch, 2008). Its proposed framework locates cultural import not in words or texts
alone, but rather in the back and forth of verbal and non-verbal interaction. Broadly conceived,
interaction describes the orderly, shared ways in which members of a language community
accomplish particular everyday actions, such as greeting and complimenting one another, for-
mulating and responding to a request, oropening up a telephone call. Cultural significance may
reveal itself in these observable, orderly patterns of talk, in particular when they differ across
communities of speakers.
Teaching interaction patterns has been recognized as a fruitful avenue for the teaching of
language and culture, spurring debate among teacher educators to integrate this aspect into
teacher training (Bardovi-Harlig, 1996; Kasper, 1997). Actual, face-to-face interaction is where
learners experience the target language and culture through speaking. This interactional experi-
ence affords novice learners and seasoned travelers successes, but also leads to misunderstand-
ings in intercultural communication. Such misunderstandings contribute to what has been
termed “culture shock”(Oberg, 1960). In other words, it ispreciselythe seeminglyinsignificant,
quick exchanges with native speakers that often play a central role in how learners come to view
the target culture as a whole, how they reflectback on their own culture(s), and how they negoti-
ate their place in and between cultures. In short, it is interaction that shapes the transformation
of cultural identity (Bucholtz & Hall, 2010; Harré & van Langenhove, 1991).
In sum, it is the actual usage of the target language in interaction that can become a true
translingual/trancultural experience for language learners. The materials collected here aim at
making this experience happen in the classroom through systematic, informed instruction
about interaction patterns unique to the target language. Our goal is to raise students’ language
awareness to a point where they connect actual patterns in language use with how these pat-
terns are perceived by others. In this and in the following sections of our introduction, the main
points are summarized in a concluding table (see Table 1).
142 UP 47.2 (Fall 2014)

Table 1. Key Concepts of Teaching Interaction as Culture
·Teaching language involves teaching culture.
·Defining language and culture has been a challenge in the profession.
·Interaction patterns provide a tangible locus where language and culture visibly meet.
·Learning interaction patterns is not only useful for students in and of itself, but it also
develops translingual/transcultural competencies.
Understanding Interaction
If interaction involves both language and culture, what are useful concepts to describe it?
How can we see orderly patterns in interaction so that we may use these as a viable basis for
teaching materials? A quick perusal of the relevant literature theorizing human interaction runs
the gamut of the social sciences, including philosophy, linguistics, anthropology, sociology, and
language acquisition. The larger epistemological frameworks in this vein include pragmatics
(Leech, 1983; Levinson, 1983; Mey, 2001), politenesstheory (Brown & Levinson, 1987), the
notion of “face” across cultures (Scollon & Scollon, 2001), maxims of cooperation and polite-
ness (Grice, 1975), communication as a culture of social action (Habermas, 2001), and
sociocultural theory as it is applied to language learning (Lantolf, 2000). Depending on empha-
sis and respective utility, language and/or culture can be theorized as socially distributed knowl-
edge, as communication, or as related though separate systems of mediation, practices, and
participation (Duranti, 1997). The specific approach taken in this collection relies on CA, a re-
search methodology as well as an approach to theorizing interaction with origins in sociology
(Garfinkel, 1967; Heritage, 1984). We explore below in some detail how CA approaches both
language and culture. We begin, however, with speechact theory and the notion of a speech act
(Searle, 1969).
Saying Is Doing, Language Is Action
One of the most widely known concepts that surface when we describe language usage in
social context is the speech act. Greeting and taking leave, inviting, requesting, thanking, repri-
manding or praising someone—all of these are things that we do with language (Austin, 1962;
Searle, 1969). Interestingly, when doing these things, humans rarely recognizethat they accom-
plish them without actually naming them as we just did. “Good morning.” or “How are you?”
will accomplish a greeting, “Sorry” can get an apology done, and something like “Good job!”
makes for an effective praise in certain contexts. Clearly, human communication in social and
cultural context appears to work in a way that utilizes levels of analysis beyond words and gram-
mar. The things we are getting done with language cannot be extracted from the word or sen-
tence levels alone. While Austin was one of the first to conceive of language as action, this con-
cept has been developed further in CA.
There appears to be a contextual machinery at work that is sensitive to who is speaking to
whom (social context), and to what is being said at which precise moment in the back-and-forth
of talk (interactional context). In order to describe how this works, we need to consider that
speakers never launch their utterances into a contextual void. In real-life conversation, there is
always some action that precedes and informs a given speaking turn, and this, in turn, serves as
a frame of reference for the next turn. As a result, when people talk to one another, they con-
stantly monitor what was just said and continuously decide what is to come as a fitting next
BETZ/HUTH: INTERACTION 143

(Sacks, 1987 [1973]). It is this back and forth of taking turns—the sequentiality of interaction
(Schegloff, 1968, 1990)—that is at the heart of the research informing our teaching materials.
In order to understand how “talk-in-interaction” (e.g., Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson, 1974,
p. 720; Schegloff, 1986) actually works, we need to recognize that conversation proceeds in
subsequent turns as speakers negotiate who is speaking next (Sacks et al., 1974; Sacks, 1984).
We also need to recognize that language, in such an approach, is fundamentally conceived as
action. Speakers do not only monitor that which was just said in order to gauge what to say next.
Speakers also monitor and interpret that which was achieved on the basis of that which was just
said. In this way, anything said in interaction is interpreted as an action. It is such “turns-at-talk”
(see Goffman, 1981, p. 23) that interlocutors (co)construct by using words and grammar. As
such, each turn in conversation has its own discernable meaning that is shaped by, but goes be-
yond, grammaticality, as the title of this introduction suggests.
How this works is the specific object of study in CA research. As a research methodology, CA
emerged from sociological inquiry in the late 1960s, most prominently as it was advanced by
the work of Harvey Sacks, Emanuel Schegloff and Gail Jefferson (Sacks et al., 1974; Schegloff,
2007) in the US and taken up by sociologists and linguists in Germany (see Bergmann, 1981;
Kallmeyer, 1981). CA is concerned with describing how interlocutors make sense of each
other’s conduct as talk unfolds from turn to turn, and how they display their understanding of
each other’s talk in their talk and non-verbal behavior. How speakers anticipate and interpret
their coparticipants’ conduct, and how they produce their own conduct in response is taken as
inherently systematic, inherently social, and contingent on the use of the full array of linguistic
and extra-linguistic resources available (Atkinson & Heritage, 1986). Early CA work was
primarily concerned with the conduct of competent members of a language community or
community of practice (e.g., 911 call takers). Since then, and particularly since Firth and
Wagner’s position papers (1997, 2007), CA concepts have been applied to fields concerned
with language learning and language teaching (e.g., Gardner & Wagner, 2004; Hall,
Hellerman, & Pekarek-Doehler, 2011; Hellerman, 2008; Huth, 2011; Liddicoat, 2007;
Markee, 2000; Richards & Seedhouse, 2005; Schegloff, Koshik, Jacoby, & Olsher, 2002;
Seedhouse, 2004; Sert & Seedhouse, 2011; Ten Have, 2007; Wong & Olsher, 2000; Wong &
Waring, 2010) and have strongly affected the disciplinary landscape in these fields.
TypedTurnsandPairedAction
Arguably, CA’s most important utility for applied linguists is that it can show in great detail
that, with each utterance, speakers construct turns, and that turns-at-talk are not random or id-
iosyncratic in shape and placement. Rather, they constitute shared structures complete with a
systematic internal organization. Some turns are typed, that is, once launched, they require a
particular second/next action. Consider how requests for information (as question–answer
pairs) work in German and English:
144 UP 47.2 (Fall 2014)

Data Excerpt 1 (taken from Sidnell, 2010, p. 53; simplified)
(prior turn)
Bee: Where did you play basketball. Question First Pair Part (FPP)
Ava: The gym. Answer Second Pair Part (SPP)
(next turn)
Data Excerpt 2 (taken from Imo, 2013, p. 345; simplified)
(prior turn)
Hanna: Wie lange fährst du bis zu markus? Question FPP
Howlongadriveisittomarkus’s?
Renate: Ähm, von kassel aus vier stunden. Answer SPP
Uh, from kassel (it’s) four hours.
(next turn)
A question projects an answer, and thus question and answer form a structural unit. This be-
comes particularly clear when we consider that speakers regularly interpret the absence of such
projected next turns (e.g., silence) not just as the absence of communication. Rather, silence in
responseto a first pairpart is understood as an action in and of itself, to be evaluated in whatever
ways are relevant in a given language community. For example, we intuitively know that silence
in response to “Have you done your homework yet?” can easily be read as an admission of
guilt, and silence in response to “Do you want to do lunch tomorrow?” is likely foreshadowing a
rejection of the invitation rather than an acceptance. CA research has empirically shown that
this is indeed how speakers interpret silence in such interactional contexts (see, e.g., Bilmes,
1988; Davidson, 1984; Sacks, 1987 [1973]). Hence, we see that in the back and forth of talk,
turns follow one another, and specific pairs of turns implicate and shape one another. Once we
realize that a given turn may project another or a given range of next turns, we see that paired
action is a fundamental organizing feature of naturally occurring interaction.
Another fundamental insight from these examplesis that talk is not unidirectional, and that
participants in communication can hardly be described as (active) speakers vs. (passive) listen-
ers. All interlocutors involved are constantly monitoring what is being said (and thereby done)
and negotiate what is to come next. Talk, in short, is inherently co-constructed by all partici-
pants. Speech acts do not simply consist of isolated utterances that are in and of themselves
complete actions and can thus be used in ongoing talk with little consideration of local context
(as speech acts in Searle’s or Austin’s sense may suggest). Rather, actions (we will use this term
rather than “speech acts”) are contextualized, sequentially embedded objects. They constitute
a sequential arena in which at least two speakers are getting things done through joint orienta-
tion towards the same verbal activity or specific action format (such as invitation – accep-
tance/rejection) in a given social-interactional context. Speakers may completea recognizable
paired action in two adjacent turns, or this process may require a significant amount of talking
back and forth (Streeck, 1980). Sometimes, as we all know, it takes a 30-minute phone call to
negotiate a seemingly simple request, an invitation for dinner, or an apology.
We see that, from the point of view of CA, language does not simply involve action; lan-
guage is conceived as action. It is not words and grammar alone that breathe meaning into our
talk, but rather the action(s) that words and grammarengenderinconcert.Theseshapeparticular
meanings in the context of turns and sequences of turns, and each turn comes with a trajectory or a
possible range of trajectories forward. As talk unfolds from one turn to a next, turns accomplish not
primarily language but rather actions. This process is deeply consequential for the social worlds of
the participants as they construct meaning and thus their relationships in and through talk. It also in-
volves intersubjective interpretation and is therefore not always successful.
BETZ/HUTH: INTERACTION 145

Misunderstandings are a common phenomenon in any culture and therefore not the exclu-
sive domain of cross-cultural communication.1Simply misinterpreting speaker intention is not
just possible in talk. It is common and further compounded by the fact that naturally occurring
talk occurs at a fast pace. Turns are coordinated at tremendous speed even by slow speakers.
Furthermore, we can note that speakers do not have the capacity to recall verbatim instances of
talk in their entirety or correctly. When we recall what happened in a given interaction, it is un-
likely that we do this turn by turn, utterance by utterance, word by word, pause by pause, gaze
by gaze, gesture by gesture. Instead, we recall talk in terms of propositional meaning, in terms of
the gist of what was said and done, that is, in terms of (perceived) actions.
This leads to a curious state of affairs: Even native speakers are generally not consciously
aware of how interaction actually works in their culture, even though they are fully capable of
participating in it.2This is why sociolinguists, pragmatists, and scholars in CA aim to describe
(recorded) spoken language systematically. Golato (2003) provides a compelling CA-study
that illustrates a gap between what people think they do in interaction and what they actually
do. Interested in German compliment-responses, Golato first video-recorded a number of
German native speakers during every-day activities (e.g., dinner conversations). She then tran-
scribedthe interactionsand extractedcompliment-responsesequences as they were manifestin
the data (i.e., what people actually said). Using this evidence from the real-life recordings,
Golato created a questionnaire that presented the exact situations from the tapes in which
compliments were given. She distributed the questionnaire to the very same German native
speakers that had been previously recorded and asked them to respond to the given compli-
ments. The data from the questionnaire (i.e., what people reported they would say in the situa-
tion presented) were markedly different from the patterns observed in the recorded data. For
example, a type of compliment-response common in the questionnaires (“Thank you.”) was
entirely absent from the unelicited data.
Thus, what people think they say in given situations and what they actually say may well,
and often does, differ in significant ways. Once we realize that native speakers (including those
trained as language teachers) only have a tenuous hold on how interaction works in real life, we
realize that native speaker intuition, including that of educators, is not a reliable source for
teaching materials on language usage and interaction. Instead, teaching materials should be
informed by systematic, empirical research to produce reliable learning targets. The teaching
materials in this collection draw from published, peer-reviewed research findings on inter-
actional patterns. They model how CA findings can be used to raise language learners’ aware-
ness of the connection between interactional structures and social meaning-making.
146 UP 47.2 (Fall 2014)
1In talk-in-interaction, mutual understanding is not guaranteed. As Garfinkel states: “The big question is not
whether actors understand each other or not. The fact is they do understand each other, that they will understand each
other, but the catch is that they will understand each other regardless of how they would be understood” (quoted in
Koschmann, 2011, p. 435). Interlocutors do not always accurately intuit speaker intention, a circumstance providing
the basic precondition for misunderstandings we all experience on a daily basis, be it in L1 or L2 talk.
2A possible explanation for this apparent paradox is the process called language socialization (Schieffelin & Ochs,
1986; Kramsch, 2002), which describes the gradual process of children being molded into the socialprocedures of the
culture into which they are born. Naturally, this includes social conventions of talking (“Say thank you!”) as well as the
fundamentals of turn-taking, of learning how to compliment or greet, of learning when to speak and when to remain si-
lent. Given that many humans typically do not develop a permanent memory until well into their 3rd or 4th year of life,
we note that several years of social molding, including attendant language learning, is already in place by the time we
finally become consciously aware of our surroundings with the capacity to remember. Perhaps this is why native
speakers find it difficult to consciously access social conventions of speaking beyond largely idealized cultural prescrip-
tions such as those we would find in, e.g., Knigge etiquette books in Germany.

Preference Structure, Culture, and Communication
Moerman (1987) was among the first to formulate the significance of CA-research for
cross-cultural communication. He points out that the existence of turns and the interactional
machinery that drives them constitute a culturally shared resource. Clearly, for paired action
(such as question–answer or invitation–acceptance/rejection) to work, it is required that a
community of speakers share those conventions, implicitly or explicitly. CA work also suggests
that typed turns and paired action may be shared interactional features across languages and
cultures (see, e.g., Enfield, Stivers, & Levinson, 2010). However, while particular (paired)
actions such as compliments, reprimands, or invitations may recognizably exist in different
cultures, their interactional organization can vary. More specifically, cultural variability in what
constitutes an acceptable first and/or an acceptable responding action leads to cultural differ-
ences in how first and second pair parts are constructed and thus results in differences in the
overall organization of complex actions.
This is in part due to what conversation analysts call preference (Bilmes, 1988).3If there are
alternative possible responses to a first pair part, interlocutors will typically not perceive the
available options to be equivalent. One second pair part will often be preferred over the
other(s). For example, in English, a preferred response to an offer is an acceptance, while a
dispreferred response is a rejection. We conclude this from observing how preferred and
dispreferred responses are generally delivered in talk. Preferred responses are generally
produced immediately, often in overlap with the previous turn, and they tend to be shorter. In
contrast, dispreferred responses are frequently produced with delay, are accompanied by indi-
rectness or mitigation, or show otherwise more elaborate turn structures (e.g., longer pauses,
cut-offs, restarts). While the structural features of preferred and dispreferred turns seem to hold
across languages, what constitutes a preferred response for certain actions may differ across
languages. In Farsi, for example, the preferred response to an offer is (repeated) rejection,
regardless of what the speaker personally desires; immediate acceptance is dispreferred
(Taleghani-Nikazm, 1998).
This insight allows us to understand why and how intercultural communication may fail
even when non-native speakers are highly proficient in the target language in terms of vocabu-
lary, grammar, and overall fluency. If the ability to anticipate, interpret, and producenext turns
itself is built on social convention, and if paired action and preference structure are indeed vari-
able across cultures in highly similar social contexts, then it is not enough to learn words and
grammar (and isolated action formats) in order to become culturally proficient and thus a
successful communicator. Language learners need to know how to use words and grammar in
orderto form and contextualizefitting andrelevant turns-at-talk.They needto knowwhat tosay
next in precise interactional contexts, informed by an understanding of paired action and
preference structure.
Empirical research into these matters provides convincing evidence that this mechanism is
often the culprit for difficulties and sometimes failurein cross-cultural interaction (Golato, 2002;
Jaworski, 1994; Taleghani-Nikazm, 2002; Thomas, 1983). This is due to pragmatic transfer
(Kasper, 1992). When speaking in an L2, language learners regularlyand systematically “trans-
late” the social conventions at play in their home culture without being conscious of doing so.
This transfer includes the entirety of the social conventions speakers know: how to do small talk,
how to address authority figures, what to say, what not to say, when to speak and when to re-
main silent, when to joke or when to remain serious. And this includes, as we know now, speak-
ers’ L1 sense of anticipating, interpreting, and producing relevant next turns.
BETZ/HUTH: INTERACTION 147
3For an overview and recent, critical discussion of the concept of preference, see Bilmes (2014).

It is now easy to see what drives the sort of personal anecdotes about difficulties and failure
in cross-cultural encounters which abound in emails from students abroad or in the aftermath of
traveling overseas, at all proficiency levels. While at times humorous in retrospective, many
such anecdotes mark encounters precipitating far-reaching personal, professional, or material
consequences. Thus, a central motivation for this series on teaching German interaction is to
provide instructional materials that help learners improve their translingual/transcultual aware-
ness by understanding mechanisms of interaction. Teaching words and grammar can be mean-
ingfully complemented with teaching about what to do with them in actual interaction.
Table 2. Key Concepts in Understanding Interaction
·Interaction focuses not just on what is said, but also on that which is done/achieved.
·In interaction, speakers take turns in systematic ways.
·Typed turns form predictable sequences of turns (“paired action”).
·Some options for a next turn are preferred, others dispreferred (“preference structure”).
·Paired action and preference structure may differ in different languages and cultures.
·Native speakers are generally not consciously aware of interaction patterns in their lan-
guage at the level of detail at which such patterns have been shown to be organized.
·Learners transfer L1 interaction patterns when speaking in an L2 (“pragmatic transfer”).
·Transfer is a key mechanism driving difficulties and failure in cross-cultural communica-
tion irrespective of relative language proficiency.
·Teaching interaction patterns helps learners understand and avoid difficulties and/or fail-
ure in cross-cultural communication.
·Teaching interaction patterns increases learners’ translingual/transcultural awareness.
Learning and Teaching Interaction
Research in interlanguage pragmatics, a subfield of second language acquisition (SLA),
provides useful insight on the learnability and teachability of language use and interaction pat-
terns (Bardovi-Harlig, 1996; Kasper & Dahl, 1991; Kasper & Rose, 1999, 2003; Koike &
Pearson, 2005; Rose, 2005; Rose & Kasper, 2001). This research suggests that interaction can
be staught uccessfully at the beginner’s level and that this endeavor requires unique teaching
strategies. Specifically, there is strong evidence that language use in social and interactional
context (a) is teachable and learnable in instructed language learning; (b) is not fundamentally
constrained by low language proficiency; (c) requires explicit discussion to establish precise
contexts for learners; and (d) involves the judicious use of learners’ L1 in the classroom for ne-
gotiating linguistic and cultural boundaries. Empirical study furthermore demonstrates that our
approach can accomplish what we intend it to accomplish, namely develop tangible
translingual/ transcultural awareness and competencies in our learners (Huth, 2006). Let us ex-
amine these points below.
First, the elementary level is a suitable place for instruction in language usage and interac-
tion. Most language classes already include a wide array of linguistic items that are inherently
connected to social and cultural contexts. Many German language programs start with greet-
ings, introductions, and a brief discussion of formal and informal address: du vs. Sie (Lovik,
1987). Quite clearly, these learning targets have cultural significance and are tied to tangible lin-
guistic elements (phrases and chunks such as „Hallo, wie geht’s?“ „Ich heiße.... Wie heißen
Sie?“ “Darf ich vorstellen: …”) as well as sequencing patterns. The social rules for when to use
Sie vs. du are complex and also involve individual choice, as learners consider how to position
148 UP 47.2 (Fall 2014)

themselves socially, thus negotiating their social identities through their talk (Antaki &
Widdcombe, 1998). However, some basic guidelines concerning du vs. Sie (concerning rela-
tive age, formality of context, private vs. public, etc.) can be taught to students. Greetings and
the common phrases involved in making the first attempts at getting to know one another can
easily be learned by heart. However, doing greetings and managing first encounters involves
not just knowing about social rules, but also requires structural awareness,as (with du vs. Sie)
pronouns have to match verb conjugations. When teaching this at the beginning of a language
course, we often see that the discussion of how words and grammar (here: pronouns and verb
conjugation) are imbued with social and cultural meaning routinely meets with considerable
student interest. Such learning targets abound in elementary German programs, indicating that
we are already doing the kind of teaching that connects language and culture and that we see no
inherent limits in adult learners’ ability to connect the two.
Second, proficiency is no inherent obstacle to teaching language use and interactional
competencies. If we can teach du vs. Sie on day one, and telephone conversations in, say,
chapter 3 of a beginning textbook (in connection with greeting and leave-taking phrases), then
novice learners are clearly capable of connecting particular social contexts and the linguistic
means to navigate them appropriately. There is no doubt that higher proficiency levels allow for
more complex and nuanced learning targets in language use and interaction, as advanced
learners have greater cognitive resources to expend on making interactional choices. However,
empirical study shows that complex interaction patterns across multiple turns can be taught and
learned on the elementary level (Huth, 2006; Huth &Taleghani-Nikazm, 2006). Therefore, low
proficiencydoes notlimit thelearning of L2 interaction patternsby adultlearners anymore than
low proficiency limits the learning of words and grammar. If anything, one might argue that
learning how words and grammar are systematically deployed in specific social and inter-
actional contexts may in fact be a support for learners, especially for beginners.4
Third, language use and interaction cannot be taught implicitly. That is, it is not sufficient to
merely expose students to interaction patterns in the classroom. Research shows that L2 learn-
ers may simply not notice (or correctly interpret) culturally variant structures in the teachers’ talk
or in the materials used, if they are not pointed out (Huth, 2006; Tateyama, 2001). Therefore,
teachers need to direct their students’ attention toward these learning targets and also discuss
them explicitly. Students have to understand what is to be noticed and learned. If students are to
learn, say, not only how to compliment othersand how to react to compliments, but if they are
also to understand cultural differences in complimenting patters and thus different frameworks
for interpreting the social meaning of a certain structure (that is, to develop a transcultural per-
spectiveon thecontext in question), then theyhave todiscuss howthe patterns in question work
in their L1(s) and in German. This comparative exercise is contingent on the availability of rele-
vant knowledge about the phenomenon in question (in the L1 and in German), and it is this
kind of knowledge that our collection of materials strives to make available to teachers. In using
our materials, that is, in exploring, explaining, and discussing interaction patterns with students,
it is beneficial to integrate the judicious use of the L1 (or other shared language) in class.
Ultimately, this last step may be themost important: facilitating an insightful classroom dis-
cussion of the connection between language and culture. What does it mean that some cultures
have du vs. Sie forms and others do not? Can we as teachers and students observe culturally
unique speaking practices and connect them to perceptions and evaluations of the target lan-
BETZ/HUTH: INTERACTION 149
4From an SLA perspective, it may well be argued that providing distinct social and interactional contexts for the
placement of words and grammar may particularly help novices to speak and to understand others. Social and
interactional contexts structure learners’ talk and make it more salient and predictable, which may be an advantage for
beginners as they negotiate a high cognitive load justto summon the most basic vocabulary, pronunciation, and gram-
mar. However, this hypothesis awaits empirical validation.

guage culture? What (new) observations can we make about our own culture(s)? This discus-
sion, if it follows the introduction/exploration, analysis, and practice of L1 and L2 interactional
structures as it is illustrated in this series of teaching units, allows room for individual experience
as well as the discussion of attitudes and emotions. However, it is facilitated not by hearsay,
speculation, or intuition. The discussion we strive for is grounded in empirical evidence which is
accessible in published scholarship on interaction patterns and provides exactly the kind of
solid foundation teachers often call for when teaching language use in its social and
interactional context.
By the time transcultural/translingual discussion commences in class, all students have re-
flected on language as action, have been introduced to a given interactional pattern in the L2,
have analyzed and practiced it in speaking (and typically also in writing), and have compared
and contrasted the L2 materials with what they know or think they know about their L1 in a sim-
ilar interactional context. Each chapter in this collection sets up the final discussion systemati-
cally, so teachers and students alike may truly reach across linguistic and cultural boundaries,
while leaving room for individual experience. At the beginner’s level, this discussion is best
done in the L1 (or common language) of learners involved.
Table 3. Key Concepts in Learning and Teaching Interaction
·The learnability and teachability of interaction patterns have been studied in detail.
·Interaction patterns have been shown to be both learnable and teachable.
·Teaching and learning interaction patterns can be done at the beginner’s level.
·Explicit instruction is necessary for students to notice the learning targets.
·Teaching interaction involves the judicious use of learners’ L1 (or common language).
·Teaching linguistic materials (i.e., learning interaction patterns) precedes translingual/
transcultural discussion in class (i.e., the discussion of language and culture).
Teaching Principles and Best Practices
Prior classroom-based research on teaching interaction patterns provides specific guidance
for how to structure a given teaching unit (Barraja-Rohan, 1997, 2011; Huth, 2007, 2010;
Huth & Taleghani-Nikazm, 2006; Koike & Pearson, 2005; Rieger, 2003; Rose, 2005; Rose &
Kasper, 2001). All chapters in this series on German interaction follow the basic principles for
intercultural teaching proposed by Barraja-Rohan (1997). This includes an initial reflection
phase, contrastive analysis of L1 and L2 structures, working with authentic data to discover pat-
terns and thus explore the learning target in more depth, interactive practice in speaking and in
writing, and a final discussion on the potential translingual/transcultural import of the materials
(see Table 4).
Table 4. Instructional Phases (based on Barraja-Rohan, 1997, 2011)
1. Reflection on how language in action works
2. Contrastive analysis of L1 and L2 structures on the specific learning target
3. Analysis of L2 structures based on authentic transcripts and audio-video materials
4. Practice of L2 structures in speaking and writing
5. Translingual/transcultural discussion and reflection
150 UP 47.2 (Fall 2014)

Why reflect initially about how language as action works (Phase 1)? Students need to be
sensitized to the learning targets just as this introduction sensitizes instructors interested in using
the materials. Students need just as much education as teachers about the basics driving talk
and its organization in real life. They need to see language as action and understand that words
and grammar alone do not get successful communication done. They also need to realize that
we do things with language in systematic ways of which we are not consciously aware: that
typed turns and sequences of turns exist, that paired action allows speakers to anticipate and in-
terpret a co-participant’s turn and to provide relevant next turns. Once principles of turn design
and sequencing have been introduced and students understand that they are crucial for social
meaning-making, students generally understand them intuitively, and less and less time is
needed on this first phase. In this phase then, only the specifics of a given learning target need to
be introduced.
Contrastive analysis of L1 and L2 structures (Phase 2) is possible if empirical evidence is
available for both languages involved, and it has proven to be highly effective. This is because
students realize that they do not always consciously know the mechanisms that drive their own
culture’s speaking practices, even though they are fully competent members. L1 interactional
structures and students’ awareness of them (however accurate or inaccurate) provides a useful
springboard for analyzing and discovering regularities in the L2.
Huth (2007) argues for incorporating naturalistic data examples directly lifted out of pri-
mary research articles (Phase 3). This strategy is useful because it provides examplesof talking
thatare taken from real lifewithout havingbeen idealizedor otherwise modifiedby theprescrip-
tive or aesthetic considerations of material developers. However, Jeffersonian transcription
notation (Jefferson, 2004; Hepburn & Bolden, 2013) is often viewed as cumbersome to read
by the uninitiated. From an exclusively pedagogical perspective, we note that the complexity of
original transcripts may well distract students and teachers from focusing on the learning target
at hand. Hence, the materials in this collection also use examples from actual interaction that
have been mildly simplified (especially with regard to transcription conventions) to present the
learning targets as clearly as possible, however (we hasten to add), without abandoning or
changing the principles at work in the original transcripts. When teachers and students work
with interactional materials in class, understanding the principles at work in a given context
seems to work best when students tease them out of the materials. Hence, brief and guided data
analysis (Who is doing what here and why?) are part of every teaching unit in this collection.
This does emphatically not turn a language class into a linguistics class, at least not any more
than discussing word formation principles (such as suffixes) would.
Once a given interaction pattern has been explored with several data examples, students
can start working on using the L2 structures (Phase 4). The materials in this collection apply the
same common principle of going from simple to complex (managing the new content in parts
before managing it in its entirety), and moving from individual turns to connected discourse.
Keeping all four skills in mind, the teaching materials guide practice both in speaking and in
writing.
Finally, each unit concludes with translingual/transcultural discussion and reflection (Phase
5). The interaction structures featured in a given unit are reviewed, L1 and L2 structures
compared and contrasted summatively, thus setting the stage for a discussion that targets how
structure in language encodes social meaning and may implicate culture: What does it mean
that similarities and differences exists in speaking practices in differentcultures? What is it that
the L1 and L2 cultures may be doing in specific interactional contexts? What are some potential
dangers in reasoning too tightly when we encounter speaking practices that arenot only differ-
ent in the target culture, but which may also feel strange or uncomfortable for students to
engage in?
BETZ/HUTH: INTERACTION 151

This is the stuff real-life encounters with native speakers are made of, and in our experience,
it regularly engages learners in lively discussions. After all, this discussion is now possible for stu-
dents, because they have briefly stepped out of their own cultural practice. We may liken this
process to trying on different „cultural clothes“, and learners now step out of the dressing room,
look at their own reflection and consider not only that such „cultural wear“ exists in interaction,
but also what it looks and feels like. This experience usually engenders vigorous in-class debate,
and the next section discusses how to direct this discussion for all thepurposes of translingual/
transcultural learning. While it is of course exactly this discussion the materials systematicallyset
up, some careful initial consideration from teachers is necessary before they plunge into it.
Caveats
How do we handle materials on language use and interaction in class, and how do we dis-
cuss their potential cultural significance? Language teachers regularly voice concerns regarding
the nature of the learning target on the one hand (e.g., How do we teach confidently about a
learning target that involves choice?) and questions regarding a workable pedagogy on the
other hand (How do I lead discussion on interaction structures once they have been intro-
duced?). The remainder of this section seeks to specify what the materials do and do not do,
what they mean and may not mean, and how such insight shapes a workable pedagogy for
these materials. Specifically, we address the fears of (a) potentially robbing our students of
agency and choice, (b) inadvertently promoting cultural essentialism, (c) potentially leading
discussion into precarious waters, and (d) making students uncomfortable by expecting them to
engage in speaking practices they may find unacceptable. We hope to allay these fears by pro-
viding useful pedagogical guidance and concrete suggestions concerning what to do and what
to avoid in the classroom.
Choice
Teaching interaction patterns and language usage is different from teaching sets of semanti-
cally coherent fields of vocabulary (e.g., items in the kitchen) or morpho-syntactic structures for
certain communicative purposes (such as the future tense for making predictions) in one central
respect:Wordmeaning and grammatical structuresdonot presentlanguage learnerswith much
choice. Either a sentence is grammatical or it is not. A given word can be used in keeping with its
meaning (or plurality of meanings) or not. However, when we approach teaching language
usage (such as giving and receiving compliments), speakers arefacing the problem of choice, as
they may initiate or react to particular actions in unpredictable ways. Clearly, when language
learners interact with one another, they negotiate their own social and cultural identity through
speaking (Antaki & Widdecombe, 1998), and individual choice affords speakers the
opportunity to position themselves according to their own preferences and experiences.
For example, while a majority of Germans may well shake hands in certain situations (body
language), so might Hans, but Gabi might not. Furthermore, even though Hans may generally
shake hands predictably with others in equally predictable contexts, just on this very day, Hans
chooses not to shake hands when/where he usually would. We note that speakers as individuals
are perfectly capable of conforming to general conventions of speaking in a given culture, but
they may also choose not to do so, eitheron a whim or on purpose to convey meaning (Hans
may, for example, wish to be rude). Similarly, we all choose to be polite or impolite, and we all
have the capacity to break convention just as much as adhere to it. With each utterance we
152 UP 47.2 (Fall 2014)

launch in our own familiar cultural context, we act at our own personal risk and inevitably affect
the social reality we create and share with others through our actions.
In cross-cultural encounters, the concept of choice becomes an even trickier matter. Once
instructed in L2 interaction patterns in the classroom with the kinds of materials we have
collected here, learners are in fact facing a double choice when talking to membersof the target
culture. They may conform to or break either L1 or L2 interaction patterns. Neither option, of
course, guarantees mutual understanding and cooperative interaction with any native speaker.
Meaning and understanding in interaction, as we said above, is co-constructed anew in each
encounter, as participants negotiate the back and forth of talk and thus constantly (re)position
themselves. However, we also note that prior instruction in L1 and L2 interaction patterns
clearly empowers L2 learners by giving them choices to begin with; for students, the alternative
(i.e., no instruction in such matters) means being fundamentally constrained to the tacit transfer
of their own cultural conventions in interaction when speaking in the target language, to
felicitous or infelicitous effect. If L2 learners are consciously aware of L1 and L2 interaction
structures as a result of prior pedagogical intervention, then the benefit of such instruction is
clear: We have effectively increased the range of interactional resources for language learners,
affording them a wider range of choice for (consciously) positioning themselves socially and
culturally in future encounters.
Hence, when we teach interaction patterns in the language classroom, we are well-advised
neither to present the materials as monolithic rules akin to syntactic structures, nor as a
fool-proof recipe for communicative success. Rather, the goal is to present the materials in such
a way as to show students what kind of interaction patterns they are likely to encounter in the
target language culture and to delineate the range of choice so that students can understand
their significance and use them appropriately. Learners are of course free in their choice of
whether or not to use target patterns. Nonetheless, they should be made aware that their
choices convey specific social-interactional meaning that will shape the social reality around
them, affecting how they construct their own social/cultural identity for themselves and others
in and through talk.
Overgeneralization and Essentialism
The perceived concern to inadvertently promote cultural essentialism is directly related to
the concern of undue overgeneralization. The danger of undue overgeneralizations looms
whenever we attempt to teach any aspect of culture in the language classroom, and it may at
worst result in conveying to students the clichés and stereotypes most teachers strive to avoid.
The same danger applies when we oversimplify and overgeneralize the very interaction pat-
terns we introduce in this collection. For example, if we were to say “All speakers of language X
always do Y in situation Z,” then we would overgeneralize in several precarious ways. We
would treat language usage as monolithic and mechanistic, we would treat speakers of a given
language as all the same, and we would neither afford speakers their agency as individuals, nor
would we afford a given language one of its most fundamental design features: its capacity for
variation (and for encoding meaning in variation). In short, if we were to follow the kind of pre-
carious reasoning suggested above, we would ignore some of the most fundamental design
features of language and therefore miss the mark.
BETZ/HUTH: INTERACTION 153

Table 5. Key Concepts of Choice
DO … AVOID …
·make learners aware of the choices they face in
their own culture when they conform to or
break (however explicit or tacit) social-inter-
actional convention.
·make learners aware of the choices available in
the target language culture.
·make learners aware of how interactional be-
havior (i.e., what we say and what we do by
saying it) affects their social standing with oth-
ers.
·make learners aware that with each turn, we
position ourselves, thus shaping the social real-
ity around us.
·portraying L2 interactional structures as mono-
lithic rules.
·portraying using L2 interaction structures as
fool-proof ways to be perceived positively by
native speakers of the L2.
·portraying choice in interaction as individual
choice and as an invitation to regard interac-
tion patterns as “anything goes.”
Variation in language usage along, say, demographic factors (such as age, gender, power,
regional background; see Gumperz, 1983), is of course always a possibility and can demonstra-
bly be an engine promoting language change over time. Hence, the potential for language vari-
ationis theoreticallyrelevantfor interactionpatterns, too.However,we may stress thatvariation
is not simply inevitable just because we may suspect it to be at work. CA-informed studies
generally describe and document a range of manifest interaction patterns for specific actions,
sequential contexts, and institutional settings, and these are produced across speaker groups.
With each teaching unit in this collection, teachers and learners explore particular structures
that have been found to occur in specific interactional contexts, and the materials contain the
manifest evidence for variation that we have. Speculating on significant variation beyond the
findings that are applied here would be methodologically problematic.
Hence, against the backdrop of potential variation in language usage, language teachers
are well-advised neither to suspect additional variation not shown in existing research nor to
overgeneralize the empirical findings from which our materials draw. That is, they should avoid
treating speakers of the target language culture as mindless, mechanistic robots and thereby
indict the entire target language culture with complete and static predictability. Rather, language
teachers should regard the findings from which our materials draw as describing a given range
of interaction patterns that is manifest in empirical research of interaction in the German-speak-
ing world. These manifest patterns (rather than learners’ or teachers’ intuition or speculation on
the matter) present themselves as viable, real-life resources to the students. Each teaching unit
in this collection lays claim to the findings from which they draw in such a way as to assert
“Members of culture X commonly do/tend to do Y in situation Z” and “When members of
culture X do YY (instead of Y) in situation Z, then they tend to do something special.” This is
done in the units to the extent that existing, empirical study has provided documentation
supporting these assertions.
154 UP 47.2 (Fall 2014)

Table 6. Key Concepts of Overgeneralization and Essentialism
DO … AVOID …
·stress that the interaction patterns of a unit pro-
vide a distinct range of possibilities.
·stress that the materials provide documented
evidence and authentic examples of what Ger-
man speakers actually do in interaction.
·stress that, while interaction is often not pre-
dictable, and while successful communication
across linguistic and cultural lines is not guar-
anteed, the materials help anticipate and inter-
pret L2 interactional patterns.
·portraying the materials as prescriptive rules.
·portraying the materials as showing random
possibilities. The studies on which our teaching
units draw do document and describe distinct
patterns of interaction for specific contexts in
the German-speaking world!
·overemphasizing potential for variation be-
yond the findings discussed in each unit.
Discussing Cultural Similarity and Difference
The programmatic goal for teaching interaction patterns is to provide language learners
with the opportunity to negotiate structure and meaning across linguistic and cultural bound-
aries, thus furthering their translingual/transcultural competencies. Accordingly, the materials
in this collection may show similarity as well as difference in interaction patterns in both the L1
and the L2. How do we make sense of these? How can we reason about how the L1 and the L2
cultures work without falling prey to the danger of conceptualor cultural bias? Unfortunately, it
is rather difficult to explain manifest linguistic difference in similar contexts across cultures in
terms of larger cultural concepts such as world view or mentality by applying intuitive social-
psychological reasoning. Explaining culture in causative terms based on linguistic structures is
an endeavor prone to cultural evaluation and bias.
Let us explore a concrete example. One intriguing empirical finding on one aspect of
German interaction is that Germans do not frequently say danke/ ‘thank you’ as a response to a
compliment (Golato, 2002, 2005).5Since saying danke constitutes a second turn in responseto
a previous first, we call these second turns compliment responses. Similar studies on American
English (Herbert & Straight, 1989; Pomerantz, 1978) indicate that, unlike German danke,
thank you is a frequent compliment response for American English speakers, if they wish to
accept a compliment. For American students of German, learning about and making sense of
this cross-cultural difference can result in the conclusion and concurrent judgment that
Germans must not be a particularly appreciative people (Huth, 2006), and that the German
people as a whole must put less stock in interpersonal politeness.
How do learners come to such a conclusion? Two lines of (erroneous) reasoning converge
here. For one, students begin their analysis from the vantage point of comparison; second,
learners evaluate a given structural element of the target language in terms of a frame of refer-
ence not suited to it. This leads to arguing thusly: “All speakers of language community X always
do Y in situation Z because—unlike my own culture!—that’s what their culture is all about.” We
can easily point out the fallacies in this line of reasoning. First, the conclusion above rests on
making a comparison in the first place. No cultures arrive at their own cultural conventions and
BETZ/HUTH: INTERACTION 155
5This finding often strikes native speakers of German as counter-intuitive. However, Golato’s research is method-
ologically sound, the empirical evidence is incontrovertible, and no systematicstudy has thus far furnished evidence to
the contrary. We may remind ourselves that it isthe primary purpose of empirical research to find out how the world re-
ally works rather than providing a convenient resource to confirm the intuitions we may harbor. Even if our native
speaker intuition appears challenged by research findings, we have no way of falsifying what we may doubt other than
by conducting a replication study (the results of which would have to complement existing insight).

verbal practices over time in (conscious, deliberate) comparison to the cultural practices of
others. In other words, Germans compliment each other in particular ways irrespective of how
other cultures do this. That notwithstanding, learners tend to observe such instances of differ-
ence in interactional phenomena and often proceed to ascribe significance to this difference in
terms of larger cultural issues such as the mentality or the particular worldview of the culture in
question. We therefore stress that L1 and L2 structures exist independently from one another,
and note that trying to extract psychological significance from an observed difference is bound
to be as precarious as the attempt to explain the difference in terms of cause and effect (“The
language is direct/rude, therefore so are the people who speak it.”).
In class, teachers are well-advised to emphasize that the “why” behind observable
interactional patterns is a notoriously contentious issue, and that asking the question may not
constitute a fruitful path to insights about a culture. In truth, we simply often do not know in
terms of cause and effect why culture A may do X interactionally in particular contexts whereas
culture B does Y or Z in similar contexts. Inasmuch as empirical evidence providesmanifest and
reliable documentation and analysis, we simply note that specific social and cultural conven-
tions underlying language use are not universal. Some patterns and conventions differ across
languages and cultures. The materials in this collection illustrate this; specifically, they show that
(a) similarities and differences exist and what they are, and (b) similarity and difference are
consequential in how cultures perceive and evaluate each other.
A second major flaw in reasoning about culture is that learners often draw conclusions by
applying a frame of reference to L2 interaction structures that is not suited to the task. Learners
tend to bring the social and cultural conventions from their own culture(s) to bear on the task of
evaluating L2 patterns. Interaction structures, like any other linguistic or cultural aspect of the
L2, is best evaluated in its own terms, whatever they may be.6Any learner who applies only
their own culture’s terms to the analysis of linguistic or cultural elements in the L2 culture will not
be able to think outside the proverbial box, though it is exactly this ability that is at the heart of
transcultural learning: the ability to explore otherness in the terms of the other.
It is therefore a long way from establishing empirically what speakers are doing in particular
interactional contexts to reaching an informed understanding of the possible and likely cultural
implications of such findings. Whenever we attempt to bridge this gap, cultural clichés and
stereotypes both accurate and inaccurate, both positive and negative (e.g., culture X is rude,
culture Y is welcoming, culture Z is shallow), loom large. Outside of the classroom, such cultural
imaginations and myths are of course widespread and frequently the result of real-life cross-cul-
tural encounters which were negotiated by face-to-face interaction to begin with. These may
then perpetuate themselves as they are imposed on a particular language community from the
outside, or they may develop from within a culture, since native speakers also build their
(cultural) self-image based on their own perceived language behavior.
As educators who aim at fostering translingual/transcultural competencies, we are well
advised to stress that both L1 and L2 interactional patterns pertain to largely autonomous
frames of reference, that L1 and L2 interaction patterns may well be similar or different, and
that, finally, these differences often defy simplistic causative, social-psychological reasoning.
156 UP 47.2 (Fall 2014)
6It is worth noting that learners not only evaluate L2 utterances based on L1 values, but they also tend to evaluate
them in isolation. In other words, without explicit instruction to do so, learners do not evaluate how one utterance type
might be related to the overall action or an entire value system. If we return to our earlier example of German compli-
ment responses, we can note that the shape of the compliment response is tied to the construction of the compliment
turn to which it responds (see Golato, 2005, for adiscussion). In German, compliment turns are not phrased in terms of
the likes/dislikes of the observer (I love/like…), as is typical in American English. Instead, they deliver general assess-
ments (that is…) or simply the proposition itself. This makes adifferent type of response relevant in German. We thank
one of our reviewers for adding this observation, which further illustrates the need to teach the complex and interwo-
ven structures of talk-in-interaction in foreign language classrooms (see also Bose & Schwarze, 2007).

Languages and cultures are best understood in terms relevant for them, and the process of
understanding a different language and the culture of its speakers rarely proves productive from
(only) the vantage point of one’s own linguistic and cultural frameworks. We therefore argue
that it is central to transcultural/translingual teaching to encourage language learners not just to
ask questions, but to ask what types of questions can and cannot be answered analytically. This
is crucial in helping students understand how the questions we ask tacitly convey our back-
ground and expectations and thus frame (and often limit) the answers we can uncover. In fact,
we consider it a significant success of the teaching materials we introduce here if our learners
develop an awareness of (a) how to reason about cultural andlinguistic difference and (b) what
one may in fact conclude based on a given set of linguistic information and how one delineates
what may be outside of one’s analytic grasp.
Perhaps we may encourage learners to wonder why linguistic similarities and differences ex-
ist across cultures and what they may mean, without assuming an answer. This process of rea-
soning may then lead to viewing particular interaction structures (language) as unique to the
particular frame of reference by which it is surrounded (culture), as an item not approachable in
terms of one’s own background, but one to be understood in its own terms, whatever those may
be. Perhaps it is this realization and overall mindset that the study of translingual/transcultural
teaching may hope for, as it is one that leads to expend one’s efforts on formulating informed
questions first rather than uncritically attempting to answer unanswerable ones.
Table 7. Key Concepts of Discussing Cultural Similarity and Difference
DO … AVOID …
·encourage critical reflection on how one’s own
questions may reflect one’s own social and cul-
tural background.
·encourage reflections on what kind of criti-
cal/informed questions to ask.
·encourage reflection on what issues are within
and outside of one’s analytic grasp in light of a
specific data set.
·stress that L2 interactional structures are best
approached in terms relevant and suited for
target language culture, whatever these may
be.
·taking observable differences in L1 and L2 pat-
terns as inherently related.
·discussing the cultural import of similarity and
difference of interactional patterns in compara-
tive terms.
·reasoning about L2 interaction patterns in
terms of L1 social and cultural conventions.
Student Agency, Comfort, and Ethics
Some teachers may fear they are unduly forcing cultural paradigms upon students when
teachingL2 interactionpatterns and language usage. Language teachers feel—andwe agree—
that students should not be forced into how to behave in class, particularly if they feel uncom-
fortable or disagree with L2 verbal practices (which they should be free to do). Dictating how
students should behave (in and outside of class) in cultural terms is of course not what is in-
tended with our materials. In fact, we do not believe teachers have this power to begin with, and
we thus believe that the point deserves reframing. To draw an analogy, no student in a science
class can be forced to believe in one scientific theory or another. The subject matter in an institu-
tional setting, first and foremost, exists to be understood, not to be believed in or to prescribe
one’s personal habits. Rather, and relevantly so, learners are required to learn about a given
subject matter, analyze and understand it in terms of its own parameters, and eventually furnish
BETZ/HUTH: INTERACTION 157

assessable tokens of their understanding. The same applies to learning about language use and
interaction patterns which may be specific to a given L2: The learning experience lies in at-
temptingto understand/interpretthetarget culturethrough parameters specific and suited to it.
Of course there is the possibility that students may not wish to use the L2 interaction patterns
in their own talk after having learned about them. However, this does not preclude us from ex-
posing students to such L2 patterns and cultural difference, as it is the driving factor behind the
kind of learning that has been put at the heart of the programmatic agenda in our profession.
We posit that learning is change, and learning across cultural and linguistic lines as a gateway to
translingual/transculturallearning competencecan bea challengingchange. Learners maywell
feel uncomfortable in the classroom when exploring speaking practices they initially cannot
help evaluating and may not approve of. However, without first experiencing difference, we
cannot think critically about our own culture(s) and we cannot learn about ourselves. As long as
we do not expect students to behave in keeping with L2 speaking practices and assess their oral
performance in class accordingly, we believe we provide a powerful learning tool for students.
We can reasonably expect them to engage with the materials,analyze them, practice the linguis-
tic materials as culturally relevant data, and provide suitable tokens of understanding in
assessment contexts such as tests or exams.
Table 8. Key Concepts of Student Agency, Comfort, Ethics
DO … AVOID …
·expect learners to engage with the materials,
understand and practice them.
·assess student learning accordingly.
·expecting students to behave in terms of L2 so-
cial and cultural conventions after a given
teaching unit is concluded.
Conclusion
We conclude by returning to the beginning. This collection intends to provide teaching
materials that facilitate transcultural/translingual teaching and learning. We approach this
concept by locating both language and culture in everyday-life interaction, in somewhat
predictable and always meaningful patterns in talk as speakers take turns. Based on an under-
standing of language as action, we provide useful language materials as well as a gateway to
discussing similarities and differences across linguistic and cultural boundaries. We do not take
these materials to constitute the only way to pursue the recommendations of the 2007 MLA
report, but we see our materials as a powerful and useful approach to doing so.
Overall, we argue that teaching culture through interaction is useful for various reasons. The
study of specific aspects of language is part and parcel of any German language and culture
course; interaction in the target language is a central principle of the contemporary language
classroom; many of the phenomena CA research describes are part of the grammatical curricu-
lum in language classes to begin with, thus providing natural contact points between teaching
words and grammar and teaching what to do with them in interaction.
Therefore, we believe the materials in this collection can be integrated easily into the
contemporary foreign language classroom, as even beginners are capable of going beyond
grammar (and certainly desire to do so) when using the L2 to pursue their social and
interactional goals. Given that it is a common technique in many elementary German text-
books to use the back and forth of brief conversations to introduce or practice new vocabulary
and grammar, we note that our materials offer the opportunity to make this vehicle itself the
object of cultural instruction. With the rapid advancement of audio-visual technology and the
158 UP 47.2 (Fall 2014)

ease of delivering authentic materials, it should not be difficult for textbook designers and
publishers to produce the kind of teaching materials presented here in such a way as to integrate
audio and visual information as well.
Structure of Contributions
The practical guidance offered in this introduction and in the individual teaching units to
follow in this series reflects the authors’ varied experience with teaching and observing the
teaching of interaction in language classes, with training teaching assistants, and with present-
ing and discussing the approach and specific teaching materials with colleagues at professional
workshops.
The individual articles in this series offer teaching materials for a wide array of interactional
phenomena. Learning targets are grouped according to social-interactional functions into the
following categories: Managing transitions (e.g., into and out of a conversation), managing turn
taking & knowledge (through, e.g., modal particles), syntactic variation for communicative
purposes (e.g., the use of obwohl with different verb positions), and managing understanding
(with, e.g., response tokens). Each individual unit strives to give teachers hands-on materials
that they can take directly into their classrooms, and each chapter orients to the same recogniz-
able structure, featuring the specific components outlined below in Table 9.
Table 9. Components & Structure of Teaching Units
Each teaching unit provides
·an introduction to the learning target and easily accessible overview of relevant research findings
from conversation analytic and interactional linguistic literature,
·a description of the learning target for beginning adult learners (usually first year of instruction), a ra-
tionale for the selection of the specific target and instructional sequence, an outline of the sequenc-
ing (based on Barraja-Rohan’s 1997 instructional phases), and a teacher’s guide,
·the teaching unit itself: a complete set of teaching materials for one or two 50-minute teaching units
(instructions, ready-to use worksheets, visual materials, transcripts, detailed guidance for the dis-
cussion and reflection phase, in some cases also suggested homework and assessment tasks, direc-
tions and considerations for expanding the unit),
·a brief conclusion that addresses potential challenges and/or teaching experiences and that makes
suggestions for integrating the unit into the curriculum.
To further ease readers into the approach taken here and facilitate the use of the teaching
materials, each individual teaching unit includes practical guidance focused on the specific re-
quirements of the individual learning targets in question. The contributors address common
obstacles and misconceptions (for teachers and students), review, where necessary, goals of an
interaction pedagogy and its reflection in the choice of specific learning targets and discussion
foci, give concrete suggestions for guiding students through the teaching units, and summarize
the potential contribution of the specific teaching unit to students’ development of translingual/
transcultural competence.
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Appendix. Transcription Conventions, Category Abbreviations
Transcription conventions, based on the Jeffersonian transcription system (Hepburn & Bolden, 2013; Jefferson,
2004; Schegloff, 2007, pp. 265–269):
[ start of overlap (= simultaneous talk by two or more speakers)
] end of overlap
= latching (no intervening beat of silence) between turns by different speakers;
or: continuation of a speaker’s turn across transcript lines
(0.5) silence; length of silence timed relative to the delivery of the surrounding talk
(.) micro-pause (less than 1/10 of a second)
.h .hh audible inbreath; longer aspiration is expressed with double/triple letters
h hh audible outbreath; longer aspiration is expressed with double/triple letters
haha laughter; different vowels (i.e., e, i, a) indicate the quality of laugh tokens
(h) (hh) laughter within a word
word underlining indicates emphasis, usually higher amplitude and/or pitch, on the syllable
WORD capitalization indicates higher volume relative to the surrounding talk
°word° degree signs indicate that the enclosed passage is quieter in delivery than the surrounding talk
°°word°° double degree signs indicate a particularly quiet voice (e.g., in whispering)
? (or ^) (sharply) rising pitch / pitch peak on following syllable
? (sharply) falling pitch on following syllable
8word 8if a word or passage is enclosed by arrows/sets of arrows: the word or passage is higher/much
higher in pitch than surrounding talk
(word) transcriber’s uncertain hearing
( ) unintelligible stretch of talk
(( )) transcriber’s additional comments/ transcription of events
>word< rushed/compressed talk: increase in tempo relative to surrounding talk
<word> stretched-out talk: slowing down in tempo relative to surrounding talk
: lengthening of the sound before the colon
- abrupt ending or cut-off (glottal closure)
. unit-final falling intonation
, unit-final continuing, slightly rising intonation
? unit-final rising (‘question’) intonation
wo*rd, asterisks mark location of or the beginnings and ends of non-verbal
*words* or embodied actions (described above speech)
BETZ/HUTH: INTERACTION 163