Grammar on the Fly: L1-Mediated Explanations in a Young Learner Classroom

Abstract

Research on grammar explanation in young language learner (YLL) classrooms remains limited, particularly in contexts where learners’ first language (L1) is routinely used as a medium of instruction (MI). Addressing this gap, this study examines the sequential organisation of on-the-fly grammar explanations in YLL classroom interactions, focusing on how such explanations emerge in response to locally occasioned interactional contingencies rather than as pre-planned instructional events. Adopting a conversation analytic (CA) approach, this study draws on approximately 40 hours of video-recorded classroom interactions collected from three YLL classrooms at a private language school in Ankara, Türkiye. Through a detailed single-case analysis, this study traces how a grammar explanation sequence is initiated by an explicit student request and collaboratively developed through teacher–student interaction over multiple turns. The analysis shows that the grammar explanation is accomplished through a systematically organised sequence comprising an opening, core, and closing, consistent with prior CA research on instructional activities. Distinctively, however, the sequence is student-initiated and emerges prior to any observable error, a trajectory that remains under-documented in CA studies of grammar teaching. The findings further demonstrate that learners display interactional agency not only by launching explanations but also by shaping their pedagogical unfolding, including proposing instructional resources. Throughout the sequence, L2–L1 translation is recurrently mobilised as a central interactional resource through which grammatical understanding is publicly displayed and assessed, while the teacher’s embodied conduct scaffolds meaning and manages participation, particularly in coordinating competing students’ responses. By documenting how grammar explanation is interactionally negotiated and multimodally accomplished in an L1-mediated YLL classroom, this study challenges monolingual assumptions that continue to inform dominant accounts of early language pedagogy. This highlights the need for further CA research on L1 use, learner agency, and translation practices across diverse instructional contexts to develop a more empirically grounded understanding of grammar instruction in early language learning.