Student-Initiated Use of Smartphones in Multilingual Writing Classrooms: Making Learner Agency and Multiple Involvements Visible

• In Event: Expanding the Notions of "Multilingualism" and "Multimodality" by Examining Multilingual Practice Across Various Educational Contexts

Abstract

Objectives
This study investigates multilingual students’ spontaneous, self-initiated use of smartphones for learning in English as a second language (ESL) classrooms at a U.S. university. Based on a recent estimate, 95% of undergraduate students in 11 countries worldwide, including the U.S., own either a laptop or a smartphone (Brooks & Pomerantz, 2017). These students likely often bring mobile devices, particularly smartphones, to second language (L2) classrooms and use them in those classrooms for learning and nonacademic purposes. Anecdotally, teachers might see smartphones as distracting students’ attention from lectures and classroom interactions (e.g., Kuznekoff, Munz, & Titsworth, 2015). But before drawing conclusions about the relationship between use of smartphones and L2 learning, we need empirical evidence of how multilingual students actually use such devices in L2 classrooms.

Theoretical Framework
Responding to calls for research on materials use in L2 classrooms, several researchers (e.g., Author, 2019; Guerrettaz & Johnston, 2013) have investigated the role of language learning and teaching materials—particularly textbooks—in various L2 classroom contexts. Though widespread access to smartphones among university students is ubiquitous in many educational settings, how students self-initiate use of smartphones for learning in L2 classrooms in noninterventional circumstances (cf., mobile-assisted language learning, which is often implemented for pedagogical purposes) has received little scholarly attention (Garton & Grave, 2014).

Methods and Data
The major data for this study is video-recorded interactions (approximately 47 hours total) from two intermediate-level writing classrooms taught by two different ESL instructors in English-language programs at a U.S. university. Employing multimodal conversation analysis (e.g., Mondada, 2016) along with ethnographic information (i.e., linguistic ethnography), this study examines moments when students from various linguistic and cultural backgrounds orient to and select smartphones as a relevant resource for learning in L2 classroom interactions. Particularly, sequences were selected in which students’ smartphone use is illustrative and indicative of learner agency (e.g., Larsen–Freeman, 2019)—making decisions regarding what they think is meaningful for learning.

Results and Significance
Multimodal analyses illustrate multilingual students’ multiple involvements (i.e., engaging in multiple activities and responsibilities as interlocutors simultaneously, see Greer, 2016) with smartphones in L2 classroom interactions. Furthermore, this study also demonstrates how smartphones enable multilingual students to gain access to diverse semiotic resources (e.g., a multilingual dictionary, music), gain epistemic authority/primacy with those resources, maintain long turns by gazing at the devices, and afford learners agency to select relevant information for their emergent needs and interests.
Based on the analysis, this study provides pedagogical implications on using smartphones as affordances for L2 learning. As for research implications, it urges us to consider how smartphones, as part of sociomaterial assemblages, can influence classroom interactions, including by legitimizing students’ participation in classroom interactions (e.g., Toohey et al., 2015) and creating interesting dynamics or tension between learner agency and teacher authority. In other words, this study attempts to expand the notions of multimodality and learner agency by examining multilinguals’ self-initiated use of smartphones in L2 classroom interactions.

Author

• Yumi Matsumoto, The University of Pennsylvania