Interaction Management Skills: Turn Taking

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Introduction
Many students of English say they are interested in improving their speaking. However, an often overlooked subskill of speaking is interaction management. 
Interaction management is particularly important for learners.  As Goh and Burns state, “As communication is a two-way process, it is not enough for learners merely to know how to express their basic wants and intentions.  They also need to develop speech skills that enable them to manage interactions…” (2012, p.61).
In my own teaching experience, I have noticed that this is a weak point with many learners I have taught, including the group of upper intermediate Thai learners I am currently teaching. They often lack many of the linguistic resources necessary to open, close, and maintain turns.

1. Analysis
1.1 Interaction Management: Turn Taking
Interaction management is the ability to control the discussion when talking in real time to other people.  It includes such things as initiating, maintaining, and ending speaking turns, offering turns to other speaking partners, directing the conversation, changing topics, clarifying meaning, and recognizing the verbal and non-verbal cues put out by conversation partners.  (Goh, Burns, 2012, p.59). 
An important subskill of interaction management is turn-taking.
Although every language involves turn-taking, conversational conventions can be culturally specific.  One of the conventions in English that speakers like to avoid both silences and two people speaking at the same time (Sayer, 2005, p.15).  In normal conversation, this is usually accomplished. Despite all the seeming chaos of real-life conversation, English conversation participants do have an ordered way of deciding allocating speaking turns.  Although interruptions can be frequent, long overlaps between speakers, long silences, or other communication breakdowns rarely occur (Thornbury and Slade, 2006, p.123).
However the rules are not the same in all situations.  Turn taking in English depends a lot on the degree of formality in the situation, as well as the relationship between participants.  In formal situations (classrooms, business meetings) the turns are formally signalled by moves like the raising of hands (Thornbury, 2005, p.9).  In situations where the power relationship between the participants is different, such as a job interview or a doctor’s appointment, the person with the higher status usually assigns the turns (Thornbury, Slade, 2006, p.124).
However, in casual conversation between social equals, there is no one person who is solely responsible for assigning turns, and so this needs to be jointly negotiated by the participants (Thornbury and Slade, 2006, p.125)  Even within the domain of casual conversation, there are different conventions for different social groups.  Slade noticed that in work place conversations, turn taking was very different between men and women. Men frequently changed turns by interrupting each other. Women, instead, asked questions to indicate an interest in what the speaker was saying (Slade, 1996, as quoted in Thornbury, Slade, 2006).
Thornbury summarized the rules of turn taking that a proficient speaker must learn as:
* recognizing the appropriate moment to get a turn.
* signalling the fact that you want to speak.
* holding the floor while you have your turn.
* recognizing when other speakers are signalling their wish to speak.
* yielding the turn.
* signalling the fact that you are listening (Thornbury, 2005, p.9)

1.2 Getting a Turn
There are various discourse markers that speakers can use to signal their intention to speak.  Thornbury lists several of them, including “that reminds me”, “by the way”, “yes but” etc. (2005, p.9)
In addition to these linguistic features, there were also many paralinguistic features.  When indicating a wish to speak, speakers typically breathe in sharply and raise their shoulders, while at the same time glancing away from the current speaker. (Thornbury, 2005, p.9)
Another way to take a turn is to interrupt.  Unlike in some cultures, in English a certain amount of interrupting is tolerated, especially when the reason is to sort out a misunderstanding.  Usually set phrases (e.g. sorry to interrupt, but…) are used. (Dornyei, Thurrell, 1994, p. 42)

1.3 Floor Holding
As noted above, interruption is a frequent tactic of changing turns, especially in male dominated conversations.  Coulthard claims that cutting in is the most common way of turn taking in English, and notes that: “a speaker is vulnerable at every sentence completion” (1977, quoted in Sayer, ibid).
It is therefore necessary for speakers to indicate their desire to continue speaking if they wish to hold their turn.  One of the most common ways to do this is through pitch.  A low pitch often indicates a completion of a turn, but a non-low pitch indicates that the speaker is not done talking.  Using a non-low pitch, speakers can hold their turns even after syntactic completion or short pauses. (McCarthy, 2011, p.104)
Another way to hold the floor is to use “pause fillers” to fill any silences while the speaker prepares their next utterance.  Pause fillers are words like: uh, um, you know, I mean, et cetera.  They do not convey any meaning, but they indicate the speaker’s desire to keep the floor.  This can also be accomplished by repetition—e.g. It’s, it’s it’s tropical. (Thornbury, 2006, p.158).

1.4 Ending the Turn
There are also many ways of ending a turn.  Speakers often indicate their turn is over by a downturn in pitch (McCarthy, 2011, p.104).  Linguistically, speakers can nominate the next speaker by either naming them directly or by asking them a question (Goh, Burns, 2012, p.106).  The speakers can also use lexical phrases to signal the end of an utterance, such as: And that’s it.  Or they can preface their last utterance with a closing move, such as: one last thing (McCarthy, 2011 p.129).  Paralinguistically, speakers typically let their shoulders fall, and re-direct their gaze back at their interlocutors (Thornbury, 2005, p.9).

1.5 BackChannel
Another important feature of interaction management is backchanneling.  Backchanneling is when the listener provides signals to the speaker that they understand, and are interested (Thornbury, 2005, p.124)

2. Issues 
2.1 Turn-Taking and Cultural Conventions.
Conversation in all languages involves taking turns (McCarthy, 2011, p.128).  But the cultural conventions are not true of all languages. As noted above, English speakers prefer to avoid either silences or two people speaking at once.  But both of these conventions can differ in other cultures.  In some cultures, such as Finnish, longer silences are tolerated in conversation, or in cultures like Japanese, speakers have more thinking time before their response (McCarthy, 2011, p.129).  In other cultures, overlap is tolerated more than in English (Cook, 1989, p.53).  As a consequence of this, students from different cultures typically have trouble participating in English conversation. For example, Japanese learners may not get as many turns speaking due to their longer response time. It has been claimed that these different styles of conversation are a common cause of cross-cultural conversational breakdowns. (McCarthy, 2011, p.129). Cook notes that this is true even with advanced learners who have no grammar or vocabulary processing problems (1989, p.53).

2.2 Holding the Floor 
Given the fact that turn-taking in English is often gained by “cutting in”, Sayer notes that English learners can have particular difficulties with this, and are vulnerable to losing their turn prematurely (Sayer, 2005, p.20-21).  In Sayer’s particular case, he was referring to advanced level students studying English in Mexico, but in my own experience I have also noticed it at all levels in Japan, Cambodia, and Vietnam.

2.3 Real Time Processing Conditions
As with any speaking sub-skill, interaction management is made more challenging for the participants because they have to do it in real time.  Human attention is limited, and so while the learner’s attention is focused on the message, any processes that are not yet automated (including interaction management) will be difficult to consciously control in real time.  This is particularly true with beginning students, but may also be true of intermediate students if the task is challenging.

2.4 Inauthentic Conversation Models from Classroom English and Coursebooks
Another problem is that learners are seldom exposed to natural English conversations in the classroom. Classroom discussions are usually controlled by the teacher and thus have very ordered turn taking (McCarthy, 2011, p.128).  Coursebook dialogues are based in a perfect world where everyone is polite, everyone finishes their sentences, and no interruption occurs (Thomas, 2013).  I have noticed this repeatedly myself when teaching out of common textbooks in Japan, Cambodia, and Vietnam.  Commenting on this very phenomenon, Dornyei and Thurrell write, “This is unfortunate… turn-taking ability does not come automatically, and needs to be developed consciously through awareness-raising observation” (1994, p.42)

2.5 Conscious Learning versus Unconscious Acquisition
Despite Dornyei and Thurrell’s assertion that turn taking ability must be developed consciously, there is actually a long debate about whether conversation pragmatics can be explicitly taught, or whether they must be unconsciously acquired through interaction. Thornbury and Slade (2006) summarize the research (p.230-238), and come to the conclusion that explicit teaching of conversational strategies is needed.  However, they also concluded that this needs to be supplemented with actual conversation practice, since participants who only received explicit instruction did not acquire the features.  They also note that this is particularly a danger when studying English as a foreign language in a mono-lingual context.
My own view is that explicit teaching of these strategies can help learners, but that it should be supplemented with lots of input of real conversation.

2.6 Teaching Intonation
It was noted above that intonation does seem to have a place in turn-taking.  However some authors, like Peter Roach, are cautious about making explicit rules about intonation and discourse just yet.  Management of conversation is just one function that intonation serves, and we do not yet have enough information to state with any certainty what the grammatical or discourse rules of intonation are.  We certainly cannot map any sort of one-to-one meaning on to intonation patterns, and attempts to teach learners how to use intonation in this way usually result in unnatural and affected speech (1998).
Cook also notes that the paralinguistic and intonational means of turn-taking are difficult to teach explicitly, and learners often do not use them accurately after explicit instruction. (1989, p. 118).

3. Suggestions
3.1 Obtaining Authentic Conversations for Classroom Use
Aim: Obtain authentic conversation to use in the classroom.  This is in regards to the issue of inauthentic conversation models being used in textbooks.
Procedure: Thornbury suggests several ways to obtain natural conversation.  Teachers can get authentic conversations from reality shows or talk shows.  Scripted shows are also an alternative—even though they are scripted.  “Some script writers are better than others at capturing the characteristics of natural speech” (p. 46).  Another option is for teachers to make their own recordings using their colleagues. (2005, p.43-47).
Evaluation: There are some problems with all of these sources.  Thornbury notes copyright issues and insider culture knowledge are a problem with TV talk shows (2005, p.4) Cook notes that recorded conversations are inherently unnatural Once the participants are aware that they are being recorded, they are no longer purely interacting with each other, but are also thinking about the outside audience (1989, p. 120). Nevertheless, all of the authors consulted on this issue (Thornbury, Cook, Brown & Yule) agreed that teachers should still try to use authentic conversation models, while being aware of the limitations and difficulties.  It is essential that learners get exposed to some semblance of natural conversation to supplement the scripted dialogues in the textbook. 
Natural conversations would work best with higher levels.

3.2 Using Authentic Conversation Models for Awareness Raising Activities
Aim: Raise awareness of intonation using authentic conversation models.  This is in regards to the issue of intonation being difficult to teach explicitly.
Procedure: Learners can be asked to notice different intonation patterns as an awareness raising activity. Another suggestion is to pause the video or recording at several points, and ask the students questions like: “Is the speaker probably going to continue speaking or not? How do you know? Who is going to speak next?” (Ryan, Forest, 2015)
Evaluation: Cook notes that it is possible to raise learner awareness of these issues even if they cannot yet use them accurately.  (1989, p. 118).  This can be used at all levels.

3.3 Practice with Intonation
Aim: Provide controlled practice with intonation.  This is in regards to the issue of intonation being difficult to teach.
Procedure: Students count numbers with rising intonation.  The students end their turn by producing the final number with a falling intonation.  The classmates must listen for the falling intonation in order to realize that the turn is completed. (Ryan, Forest, 2015)
Evaluation: I think this is useful controlled practice, but it could be more purposeful if learners listed real events instead of numbers. For example it could be used to practice recounting things they did yesterday.  It is controlled enough that it could be used at lower levels, but also would benefit intermediate students.

3.4 Teaching Lexical Phrases for Turn Taking
Aim: To teach students lexical phrases which they can use for turn-taking and holding the floor.  This is in response to the issue of the pressures of real time processing conditions, and also the issue of learners having problems holding the floor.
Procedure:  Lexical phrases for turn taking and holding the floor are presented by the teacher, or elicited by the students.  They are drilled for pronunciation practice.
Evaluation:  Almost all of the sources consulted advocated teaching learners useful phrases to perform interaction management functions such as taking a turn, holding a turn, and passing a turn, e.g taking a turn “Well yes but…” passing a turn “What do you think?” (Cook, 1989, p. 120/ McCarthy, 2011, p.129 / Thornbury, 2005, p. 9/ Goh, Burns, 2012, p.108). 
Not all of these phrases need to come from the teacher.  Upper-level students should already have had some exposure to these phrases, and lists of expressions can be elicited by a brainstorming activity (as suggested in Sayer, 2005, p.18)
There is some debate about whether or not learners benefit from using prescribed model phrases.  The danger is that they will either sound overly formulaic, or that they will be hampered by the need to use prescribed formulae before they are naturally ready (Pattison, 1987, quoted in Cook, ibid).  Nevertheless, several authors argue that the unnatural and stilted use of these formulaic phrases is a necessary intermediate stage before fluent and natural use can be achieved.  (Cook, 1989, p.117-118).
Thornbury suggests drilling these lexical phrases before the practice, so that learners can get used to the articulation and intonation, and also possibly help to move these phrases to long-term memory (2005, p.64-65).  Automating these phrases will help with the real-time demands of speech production.
Depending on the complexity of the phrases, this can be used at all levels.  Elementary students would benefit from simpler phrases, but more advanced students could study more complex phrases.

Bibliography 
Brown, Gillian and George Yule. Teaching the Spoken Language. 1983. Cambridge Language Teaching Library.

Cook, Guy. Discourse. 1989. Oxford University Press.

Dornyei, Zoltan and Sarah Thurrell. Teaching Conversation Skills Intensively: Course Content and Rationale. 1994. ELT Journal Volume 48 Issue 1, p.40-49

Goh, Christine and Anne Burns. Teaching Speaking: A Holistic Approach. 2012. Cambridge University Press.

McCarthy, Michael. Discourse Analysis for Language Teachers. 2011. Cambridge Language Teaching Library.

Roach, Peter English Phonetics and Phonology Second Edition. 1998. Cambridge University Press.

Ryan, Jonathon & Leslie Forest. Teaching Turn-Taking. 2015. Modern English Teacher Volume 24 Issue 4. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jonathon_Ryan/publication/282606082_Teaching_turn-taking/links/59ae606ba6fdcce55a478793/Teaching-turn-taking.pdf

Sayer, Peter. An intensive Approach to Building Conversation Skills. 2005. ELT Journal Volume 59, Issue 1, p.14-22

Thomas, Desmond. Authenticity in TESOL. 2013. University of Essex. https://youtu.be/cDR8HNQdIVc

Thornbury, Scott. An A-Z of ELT. 2006. Macmillan Publishers.

Thornbury, Scott. How to Teach Speaking. 2006. Pearson Education Limited.

Thornbury, Scott and Diana Slade. Conversation: From Description to Pedagogy. 2006. Cambridge University Press.