Chinese Language Instructors’ Approaches to Repair in the Context of Hybridized Secondary-Language Education: Implications for Pedagogy

Undergraduate Honors Thesis

Citations

Citeable URL: https://scholar.colorado.edu/concern/undergraduate_honors_theses/d791sh61r

Abstract

Hybridized education that draws on a range of both online and in-person formats within a class, is an increasingly common educational practice following the COVID-19 pandemic. This widespread adaptation poses the question of how foreign language teachers and students can use the features on platforms such as Zoom to orient to repair sequences, face-needs and code-switching. Based on previous research done on these facets of language learning, this study examines Chinese teachers’ and students’ application of repair strategies, use of code-switching, and orientation to face-needs during one-on-one speaking ‘tutorials’ over Zoom by means of discourse analysis. This study presents an image of how these teachers have utilized the Zoom interface to approach repair sequences and prevent face-threatening repairs in order to keep students speaking through the corrections; how these adaptations positively alter the way students respond to repair, and how code-switching presents students as active participants in repair sequences rather than outsiders to it. The analysis of this study concludes that repair sequences are an inevitable aspect of language learning that can and should be reframed as a positive thing, and online environments such as Zoom provide valuable resources for teachers to enact repair in a way that demonstrates student competence rather than challenge their capabilities.

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