Multimodal analysis of Italian L2 teacher/students classroom interaction at university: the role of non-verbal communication in building knowledge

Classroom observation is an important part of language teacher education (Kelly & Grenfell 2004) but its effects could be enhanced through observation and guided analysis of video-recorded lessons. As a Matter of fact, focus on teacher talk and on its specific conversational patterns (Sinclair 1982, Sinclair & Brazil 1982) could be of great benefit on teacher education. Moreover, digital data (audio, video and text) presenting natural speech in context would be a relevant tool for teacher trainers, in order to help their trainees to develop teaching awareness and interaction ability, especially if such data are easily and freely accessible and properly treated through new methods of computer-based multimodal analysis. In this study we have analysed, through a multimodal approach, teacher talk questioning in several L2 and LS Italian classrooms. Questioning is one of the most common techniques used by teachers (Richards, 1996) and serves as the principal way in which teachers control the classroom interaction. In some classrooms over half of class time is taken up by question-and-answer exchanges (Richards, 1996). We have focused on two main types of questions: display questions and referential questions. Through the usage of some video-recorded lessons, transcribed and subtitled, we have investigated the presence and relevance of non-linguistic patterns, that match with regularity with these linguistic phenomena. Particularly, we have examined specific non-verbal and para-verbal activities made by the speakers, tightly linked to the various types of questions, and we have noted that there are recurring behaviours used together with the over mentioned linguistic structures, to express specific communicative and didactic scopes and functions, that is to say to build and spread knowledge in a L2/LS Italian classroom.