Going beyond the Text: Interactional Competence in Reading Comprehension Class

Drawing on the principles underlying conversation analysis (CA), this paper is a single case analysis of interaction in an English as a foreign language (EFL) reading comprehension classroom in Saudi Arabia. It looks at learning from a sociocultural perspective and uses constructs from this theoretical perspective. It focuses on Classroom Interactional Competence (CIC) (Walsh, 2013), showing classroom interaction features that are considered CIC. The paper reflects how an understanding of the concept can lead to more dialogic, engaged learning environments. The paper also connects CIC to teachers’ ability to manipulate simple classroom interactional resources to make the teaching process more effective. The paper demonstrates how teachers can induce CIC by utilizing interactional techniques, such as relaxing the mechanism and speed through which turns are taken or given, use of active listenership devices, extending wait time, and use of open-ended questions to expand topics under development. The paper argues that those techniques will help teachers, as evidenced from the cited examples, further enhance classroom participation so that it is convergent with their pedagogical goals. Finally, the paper has pedagogical implementations as it sheds light on techniques that help promote classroom interaction as an indication of learning among students with limited linguistic resources.