Interactional features of model dialogues in Common English 1 textbooks: A conversation analytic approach

Speaking ability comprises not only utterance production but also interactional competence―the ability to jointly construct meaning with an interlocutor. In the Korean EFL context, however, speaking instruction has paid little attention to this interactional dimension, and textbook model dialogues have functioned largely as practice materials for language forms. Drawing on concepts from Conversation Analysis (CA), this study examined the interactional features of the model dialogues in high school Common English 1 textbooks developed under the 2022 Revised National Curriculum. Fifty-one dialogues from five publishers were analyzed in terms of turn constructional units, speaker selection, dispreferred organization, repair, tokens of active participation (backchannels and fillers), topic management, turn length, and lexical density. Turns were predominantly complete sentences, with self-selection prevailing; dispreferred organization was extremely rare and often unmitigated; self-repair was entirely absent; backchannels never constituted independent turns; topic management was skewed toward expansion; and lexical density (52.4% on average) was markedly higher than that of natural conversation. These findings indicate that current model dialogues are insufficient for developing interactional competence. The study suggests incorporating the interactional features of naturally occurring conversation into textbook dialogues and including CA-informed content in teacher education.