“Okay, so, moving on to question two”: achieving transitions from one item to another in paired EFL speaking tasks

This multimodal conversation analytic study explores how participants transition from one item to another in paired speaking tasks based on lists. These transitions are crucial for achieving progress in the task. Based on video recordings from English as a foreign language (EFL) classes, the analysis shows that the way participants achieve transitions depends on the embodied participation framework. Within a co-operative participation framework, participants transitioned to the next item using sequences of (1) closings, (2) verbal expressions of transition, and (3) new item initiations. It is shown that the list of items plays a crucial role as participants start gazing at it already during the closings, thus flagging the relevance of an upcoming transition. In such cases, verbal expressions of transitions were not always present. Less commonly, participants remained focused on the lists, produced minimal responses and moved on to new items after question-answer sequences. The study sheds light on how transitions are achieved in institutional settings where participants’ roles are symmetric and where the talk is based on lists, which, in turn, serve as resources to maintain the progressivity of the interactional project.