Using a conversation analysis (CA) framework, this study investigated how kindergarten-aged learners took initiative during classroom interactions through multimodal communication resources. Over a thirteen-week period, data was collected from kindergarten English classroom interactions between two male native Englishspeaking teachers (NESTs) and 125 children divided into six classes. The analysis revealed that learners deployed several multimodal communication resources in teacherinitiated sequences, such as finger-folding gestures, hand-raising, and gaze direction. These multimodal resources were employed to retrieve words, acquire turns, provide answers, and impart other kinds of information. The study also showed how very young learners, with limited linguistic resources, were able to attract the teacher’s attention, draw on embodied resources to access a turn, and become active agents influencing the trajectory of both teacher talk and classroom learning. The study concludes with a discussion of learner initiative and multimodal communication resources, and the pedagogical implications carried by the results of the study for classroom interaction with very young learners.

Learner initiative and very young learner talk have not been fully investigated despite the growing recognition of their importance in English education. Therefore, the present study examined the sequential development of talk-in-interaction observed in an after-school English program in a Korean kindergarten classroom by investigating how children contributed their behaviors to class participation using the methodological framework of conversation analysis. Data was collected from one intact classroom interaction between a native teacher and 28 seven-year-old children. The analysis highlighted a noticeable interactional phenomenon, learner initiative, which was revealed through children’s turn position in the Initiation-Response-Follow-up (IRF) sequence. In particular, this study presented evidence that learner initiative could be displayed through learners’ self-selected turns: initiating repair of the teacher’s previous utterance, asking a question, and displaying knowledge of words. These findings were discussed in relation to the view of learners as active agents through the process of interaction and suggested pedagogical implications of very young learners’ classroom interaction.