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Material Use in Collaborative Dialogue by Japanese University Students
Learning Future Tenses in French as a Foreign Language: A Discourse
and Interaction Analysis
Loïc Renoud
Okayama University
Abstract
This article reports on the use of an experimental material to enable discrimination between
the periphrastic future (PF) and simple future (SF) intended for initial level university
students in Japan studying French as a Foreign Language. A dyad was filmed using thematerial in a task on tense choice in short dialogues modelled on Galperin’s procedure. A
discourse and interaction analysis were then performed on excerpts of the videoed session
where the participants interacted with the material. It was found that the material enabled the
dyad to complete the task. Moreover, if the pragmatic effect of the SF was not fully grasped,
the analysis nonetheless showed that the participants transformed the linguistic knowledge
from the material into metalinguistic resources of their own, and that internalization of thetargeted concepts occurred to some extent.

Résumé
Cet article rend compte de l’utilisation d’un matériel expérimental pour la discrimination
entre le futur périphrastique (FP) et le futur simple (FS) destiné à des étudiants de niveau
initial en Français Langue Étrangère à l’université au Japon. Un binôme d’apprenants a été
filmé utilisant le matériel au cours d’une tâche sur le choix du temps dans de courts dialogues
inspirée de la procédure de Galperin. Ensuite, pour les séquences de la session durant
lesquelles les participants ont interagi avec le matériel, une analyse du discours et desinteractions a été réalisée. On a constaté que le matériel a permis au binôme de terminer latâche. En outre, si l’effet pragmatique du FS n’a pas été pleinement intégré, l’analyse a
cependant montré que les participants transformaient les connaissances linguistiques dumatériel en ressources métalinguistiques qui leur étaient propres, et que l’intériorisation desconcepts cibles se produisait dans une certaine mesure.

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Material Use in Collaborative Dialogue by Japanese University Students Learning
Future Tenses in French as a Foreign Language: A Discourse and Interaction
Analysis
Introduction
The present article reports on the analysis of the use by first-year university
students in Japan of original material for Future tenses in French. This study seeks toanswer two needs: reconciling a crucial domain of grammar—tenses—with language use
and documenting how the material designed for this very purpose was used.
For students studying French at university in Japan, grammar is, indeed, essentiallya set of explicit rules unconnected with any situation of language use. In the first-year
students’ schedule, grammar and communication are, significantly, split into two courses
without any coordination most of the time: a grammar course and a conversation course, of
90 minutes each, over 15 weeks, resulting in a total course time of 90 hours over the year.
In the textbooks for the grammar course, contents are presented from simple to complex, in
isolation, and through guidance of metalinguistic descriptions in Japanese based ongrammatical terminology from first-language education in France (Delbarre, 2014). Next
to the grammatical presentations, the exercises focus exclusively on morphologicalfeatures. The two main Future tenses are no exception. For instance, students will not learn
about the rationale of choice between “votre valise (your suitcase) va tomber” (go-PRS.3SG
fall) and “votre valise tombera” (fall-FUT.3SG). Let us think of a simple task involving thischoice, as in the following:
Vous êtes monté(e) dans le train:- Attention, votre valise va tomber !

tombera !

You have boarded the train:- Watch out, your suitcase go-PRS.3SG fall!

fall-FUT.3SG!

In the example above, the so-called Go-Future “va tomber”, known as periphrastic
future, is the only possible choice, because, as we will see, only this tense fits with theunderstanding the speaker has of the situation. This is an example of what the material forthis study was designed for: enabling learners to choose the appropriate tense in various
contexts.
The second need we seek to answer is to report on the actual use of such material
during an experimental task, which is made of four others of these dialogues with tense
choice. Indeed, as Tomlinson and Masuhara (2018) note, “we can still find very little
literature on what students actually do with materials” (p. 360). In any case, no example
was found of any qualitative analysis of experimental materials that assessed the materials’
efficiency within a task in real time. The goal of the present study is therefore twofold:
Determining whether our experimental material enables students to discriminate between
the periphrastic future (PF) and simple future (SF) and documenting how learners actually
use it during the task.
The conception of the material, the implementation of the task—a “collaborative
dialogue”—as well as the analysis of the discourse arising when the learners use thematerial during the task draw on a Vygotskian approach to second language learning.
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Moreover, for documenting how learners adapt to their continuously evolving environment
during the task, we will further support our analysis with elements from the sociocognitive
approach (inter alia Atkinson, 2011). This framework is introduced in the next section
before presenting the study itself.
Analyzing Discourse and Interaction with the Material: Theory and Method
This study is anchored on the sociocultural theory (SCT) for second language (L2)
(Lantolf, 2006; Lantolf & Thorne, 2006). It adapts, on the one hand, the Concept-Based
Instruction for L2 acquisition (see Lantolf, 2011), based on Galperin’s teaching procedure(1967, 1989, 1992) and integrates, on the other hand, the format of the “collaborative
dialogue” (Swain, 2000; Swain, Brooks & Tocalli-Beller, 2002).
SCT considers learning from the perspective of Vygotsky’s theory of mental
development (2012 [1934]). Two key elements of Vygotsky's theory are of interest in ourcase: 1) the internalization of concepts – which, in speech, are the meaning of words – andtheir conscious use by the individual to control her mental activity (concepts “mediate”
thinking), 2) the development of concepts in the course of an activity with a moreexperienced individual, this development covering a zone (“zone of proximal
development” in Vygotsky’s terms) which varies, in particular, according to the age of theindividual and to the domain of the activity.
Some scholars in SCT have brought up to date Galperin’s teaching procedure,
which specifically draws on these two key elements. In Vygotsky’s footsteps, himself alsoa specialist in mental development, Galperin was specifically interested in improving
teaching methods and materials (Haenen, 2001).
Galperin was the promoter of a teaching procedure that aims to guide learners intheir problem-solving activity by providing them with a schema detailing the concept thatwould be useful for carrying out the activity. This orienting schema can be a chart, adiagram, or a visual where the action that the concept achieves is broken down into its
parts. Then, the action represented on the card generates oral exchanges during practice –the verbalization phase – and is eventually abbreviated into an action on the mental plane(Galperin,1967, 1989, 1992; see also Arievitch & Haenen, 2005; Haenen, 2001). In
Galperin’s procedure, conditions for internalization to occur are specifically recreated for
educational purposes. According to Gaperin (1989), an advantage of his procedure is thatlearners avoid the “trial and error” phase, which is costly in time. Another advantage is thatthe orientating schema avoids the effort of initial memorization: learners unintentionallymemorize concepts using the schema in the course of the activity (Galperin, 1989: 70-71).
In L2 acquisition, Galperin's procedure is known as Concept-Based Approach(Lantolf, 2011) or Concept-Based Instruction. The target concepts of the L2—for example,
tense-aspect (Gánem-Gutiérrez & Harun, 2011; Negueruela and Lantolf, 2006), phrasal
verbs (Lee, 2016), irony and sarcasm (Kim, 2013), tu vs. vous in French (van Compernolle,2011)—are represented in diagrams or schemas, then explained and used incommunicative activities. The experimental task for testing our material is based on theseprinciples, although Lantolf (2006, 2011)’s proposal to rely on Cognitive Linguistics will
not be followed.
Our analysis will focus on the verbalization phase, i.e. the immediate circumstancesof the use of the pedagogical material and on the discourse and actions it arouses. Swain(2000) rightly approaches the verbalization phase of Galperin’s procedure with her own
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notion of “collaborative dialogue” (pp. 104 et sq.), which she defines as “linguistic
problem solving through social interaction” (p. 104). In collaborative dialogue, language is
a communicative tool at the service of achieving a goal. However, when language takes as
its object the language used for a communicative purpose, it also becomes a cognitive tool
(Swain et al., 2002). Later, Swain (2010) will call “languaging” the activity in the course ofproblem-solving which consists in discovering elements of understanding by the mere factof putting the problem into words. Finally, Swain and Lapkin (2013) report several studies
on how L1 mediates L2 tasks. When the L1 serves to focus attention when the task
becomes cognitively challenging, these authors envisage the L1 as scaffolding.
In Vygotskian research in L2 acquisition, the analysis of verbalizations follows
Vygotsky's genetic method. This method aims to document the integration of new concepts
into the individual’s thinking process (Lantolf & Thorne, 2006). Since the analyst seeks todescribe changes on short time scales and which occur in real time, this method is also
referred to as microgenetic (Ortega, 2008: 224). However, in the literature on ConceptBased Instruction, collaborative dialogue or L2 gesture research (McCafferty & Stam,2008 for instance), emphasis is not put on local interactions with the material environmentof the task, particularly with the pedagogical material. While pedagogical materials arecertainly not the main focus of collaborative dialogue analysis, it is of decisive importancein Galperin’s procedure as well as in the Concept-Based Instruction. A discourse analysisof the verbalization phase – a collaborative dialogue in Swain's sense – must account forany phenomena relating to the use of the concepts explained in the material (theirintegration, in the best-case scenario). In L2 acquisition, Atkinson (2011, 2013, 2019) andcolleagues (Atkinson et al., 2007; Churchill et al., 2010) propose a holistic framework,
named “sociocognitive”, which aims to account for the creation of meaning through thecourse of action.
The participation framework (Goodwin, 2003) is a tool in this approach which we
believe is essential to complete the analysis of a collaborative dialogue. Goodwin defines“participation framework” as the participants’ joint engagement in an action. When they
focus their attention to build an action, the participants mobilize in addition to speechdifferent semiotic resources such as gesture, gaze, and bodily orientation, in combination,
in some cases, with material artifacts in their environment. Atkinson (2011) further argues
that, during its use, pedagogical material functions as “extended cognition”, as defined by
Clark and Chalmers (1998). Clark and Chalmers’ thesis is that most of the time cognitive
processes take place by delegating tasks to artifacts specially designed for this in ourenvironment.
Since they focus on the moment-to-moment organization of interaction, as does thegenetic method, these elements from the sociocognitive approach will be integrated toaccount for the use of the material and the analysis of the discourse it triggers.
The Study
Objectives
In light of these theoretical and methodological principles, an experimental task
consisting of five short dialogues was carried out by two dyads of learners at the initial level.
In addition to the dialogues, each pair had the material (a worksheet, presented below) that
we wanted to test, developed according to the principle of the “orientating schema” inCanadian Journal of Applied Linguistics: 25, 2 (2022) 71-102

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Galperin's procedure and in the Concept-Based Instruction. The sessions were videoed foranalysis. Our goal is to answer the following two questions:
1. Does our experimental material enable students to discriminate between the
Periphrastic Future (PF) and Simple Future (SF) in those dialogues?
2. How do learners use it during the task?
This section will provide the details of the study, starting with the linguistic aspect of thematerial.
The Contrasting use of the periphrastic future and the simple futureFirst, three theoretical accounts of the contrasting use of the PF and SF are provided
below. These descriptions were selected primarily for the value they have in terms of theiradaptation to the Foreign Language classroom.
Process in the possible (PF) vs. the irrevocable (SF)
Gosselin (2005) suggests that a verb in the indicative mood draws a division
between the irrevocable and the possible, which he terms “modal cut” (“coupe modale”).
Gosselin explains that the living present is characterized by a conversion of the possible
into the irrevocable, and the main property of the tense system is to sustain the simulationof this conversion at another point in time (2005: 102). In Gosselin’s terminology, thismodal cut corresponds to a reference interval I–II and is more precisely operated at boundII (2005: 91). Table 1 below represents the PF and SF in the Reischenbachian stylization
used by this author.
Table 1
Reischenbachian models for the periphrastic future and simple future, adapted from
Gosselin (2005)
PF (periphrastic future)
SF (simple future)“je vais attendre”“j’attendrai”

Note: “01-02” refers to the speech interval, when the speaker uses the language; “B1-B2” is theprocess interval, which refers to the time of the situation being evoked; the reference interval “III” is the moment at which the process is seen/imagined.

The distinction between the PF and SF becomes clear: with the PF, the process B1-B2 is in
the possible, to the right of bound II, but with the SF, the process B1-B2 remains in theirrevocable, to the left of bound II.1
Related to (PF) vs. detached from (SF) the situation of uttering
The analysis provided by Camussi-Ni (2018) is slightly different, as it is based on
the situation of uttering.2 First, this author observes that in French, both the non-finite verb
and the SF refer to a “potential” process (as opposed to a “confirmed” process). The
potential value of the non-finite verb is due to its absence of actual reference to the

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situation of uttering. In contrast, the SF draws this value from its reference to this very
situation of uttering. Hence, both the PF and SF carry on a potential value in the non-finite
verb and in the verb predicated on a grammatical subject, respectively (Camussi-Ni, 2018:
para. 7- 17). However, the distinction between the two is based on the following:
PF: The auxiliary verb is in the present tense. For Camussi-Ni, the present tense construes
a coincidence between the process and the situation of uttering. The basic meaning of the
PF in, for example, “ils vont partir [they go-PRS.3PL leave]”, is that “a potential situation(partir [leave]) is related to a situation that coincides with the situation of uttering (ils vont[they go-PRS.3PL]), itself constructed by the speaker.” (2018, para. 22, our translation)3
SF: Camussi-Ni argues that the SF has undergone a repositioning within the tense system.
Considering that it shares with the simple past (“passé simple”) the same morpheme [a],Camussi-Ni claims that similar to the simple past, it is also detached from the situation ofuttering (2018, para. 23–30).
Predicting from a shared ground (PF) or authoritatively (SF)
Bottineau (2014) focuses more directly on the material scene of linguistic
interaction and aims at accounting for how participants coordinate their thoughts throughtheir speaking. Bottineau argues that the relevance of the so-called enactive approach inforeign grammar instruction is to familiarize learners with the fact that grammaticalchoices shift the participants’ position within the environment of the interaction. Hence,the contrast between the PF and SF touches on the attitude of the speaker toward the otherparticipants in relation to the event that is being evoked. With the PF, the speaker invites
the listener to share the ground from which the future event is contemplated. On thecontrary, the SF excludes the imaginable futures of the other speakers, by authoritatively
and performatively deciding on one unique future for all (Bottineau, 2014: 197).
Material
Our material is designed to function as does the “orienting schema” in Galperin’s
procedure. It must not be based on translation in equivalent verb forms in the L1. On thecontrary, it must provide a class-friendly and theoretically coherent instruction of use, so as
to promote the internalization of the rationale of choice between the two tenses.
The oppositions between possible/irrevocable (Gosselin) and related to / detached from thesituation of uttering (Camussi-Ni) appear transposable in an opposition between theinternal and external space. The internal space would be the speaker’s bodily space (or of
the subject to which the verb is predicated), which would correspond to the speech interval
and the situation of uttering, respectively. Bottineau’s approach adds an essential
dimension to these distinctions by considering how the choice affects the interactional
configuration. This differentiation would be mapped onto the opposition between the
speaker’s bodily space and an external space.
The material—a worksheet—created out of these accounts is reproduced in Figure 1 below.

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Figure 1
Material for discriminating the periphrastic future and simple future.

The title of this worksheet, “近接未来形 / 単純未来形” “kinsetsu miraikei / tanjun
miraikei” (“close future form / simple future form”), uses the conventional terms found ingrammar textbooks.4 Then, both tenses are illustrated with the visual of a woman standing
within a circular space that represents her perceptual present. For the SF, the word “figé”(“frozen”) is superimposed, as if it were stamped, onto the space of the present, and anarrow points toward a zone marked as the future. The space ahead is indeed a conventional
representation of the future in French speakers’ gestures (Calbris, 1990: 88).
Below the visual for the PF, a sentence reads: “L’action future est dans le présent.”(“The future action is in the present”). For the SF, the first sentence reads: “La situation ici
et maintenant est figée (フリーズされた、固まらせた).”5 (“The situation here and now
is frozen ((has been) frozen, hardened.”) Below, examples of use are provided: “annonces
dans les gares, prévisions météorologiques (天気予報), divinations (占い)” (“station
announcements, weather forecasts, divinations”).
The visual elements and the explanations are the results of our effort in tailoring thetheoretical accounts to the context of use. The circle that stakes out the present around thewoman is meant to match the notions of speech interval in Gosselin’s (2005) analysis andthat of the situation of uttering in Camussi-Ni’s (2018) work. The notion that with the PF,
the potential action occurs within the situation of uttering is taken over nearly word-forword (“L’action future est dans le présent.”).
To highlight that the tenses differ in the way they sustain the emerging stance of the
speaker and listeners, we opted to emphasize the peculiar pragmatic effect of the SF withthe metaphor of freezing. This metaphor is meant to suggest that the authoritative choice
the speaker is making in predicting one unique future, as Bottineau (2014) argues, is aconstraint which limits every participant’s movements. In our view, it seemed important to
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stress the fact that this constraint is felt in the present. The present is frozen, as it must
conform to a unilateral future. Finally, the notion that “L’action future est après” (“Thefuture action is after”) refers to the detachment of the event from the situation of uttering,as described by Camussi-Ni (2018).
Participants
At the start of 2020, the four participants of this study were recruited in the author’s
institution via announcements in classes. They were explained the goal and design of theexperiment. They provided their written and informed consent for the use of theiranonymized audio-video recordings and written data, collected during the experiment, forresearch purposes. In full accordance with the standards of my institution, they received
financial compensation for their participation in the three experimental testing sessions.
Among the participants, three were Japanese, and at the end of their first university year.
They have been named Mika, Hiroki, and Ryōta for the purpose of reporting in this paper.
The fourth participant, who was Burmese, and at the end of her second university year in afour-year bachelor’s program in English, has been named Kyaw. Table 2 below provides
information on the participants’ background in French language study, including theestimated rate of grammar courses taken by them.
Table 1
Participants’ background in French language study at the beginning of the experiment.
Year of Learning of French (as of February 17, 2020)
Name
AgeStudy (in hours)
Hiroki19
1~120 h (80 % grammar)
Kyaw
20
2
~150 h (60 % grammar) + self-study
Mika
19
1
~180 h (65 % grammar)
Ryōta
19
1
~60 h6 (100 % grammar) + self-study
At the beginning of the first session, we conducted individual interviews with eachparticipant to assess their acquisition stage (Bartning & Schlyter, 2004) in spontaneous oral
production. I asked them to introduce themselves, to report on what they had done the day
before, what they had planned for the day after, etc. A short picture-based narrative task
was also used to elicit the use of past tenses. Measurements indicated that all participants
were at stage 2 (post-initial), marked by the emergence of grammatical phenomena and anincreasing number of finite forms (Bartning & Schlyter, 2004: 295). Individual differences
seemed to be influenced by the number of study hours. Notably, Ryōta demonstrated lesser
control over utterance structure and genre agreement. The four participants used the PF forbasic reference to the future.
Corpus
The experimentation was implemented in four stages (approximate time in minutesin parentheses: 1) presentation (5), 2) pair-work (12), 3) sharing with the other pair (7), and4) synthesis with the instructor (the author) (5). The four stages were videoed with twocameras. For constituting our corpus, the following inductive procedure was applied.

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The videoed sessions were first browsed through, without preconception. At stage
2, the dyad with Ryōta and Hiroki proved to have a larger volume of exchanges andinteraction with the material than the other dyad and was then selected. For each of the five
dialogues, we further selected every sequence where the dyad interacted with the material.
For the 10 excerpts constituted this way, speech, gesture and interaction with the material
will be described in line with our objectives. “Interaction with the material” includes
pointing or gazing at the worksheet (represented above in Figure 1), and every
manipulation of it. “Gesture” is defined following Kendon (2004) as any visible bodily
action that has “the features of manifest deliberate expressiveness” (p. 15).
The transcription conventions are as follows: \: falling intonation; /: risingintonation; ____: overlapped words; wo-: unfinished word; (()): transcriber’s description;(n s): measured pause of n seconds; xxx: incomprehensible (“x” the number of syllables).
In the body of the transcription, the numbers inserted refer to the screen captures—shown
below the transcription—taken from the video footage at this very moment in the
discourse. A translation of each excerpt is added in the right-hand column.
Results
Situation 1(vous êtes monté(e) dans le train)- Attention, votre valiseva tomber !
tombera !

valise : ス ー ツ ケ ー ス
tomber : 落ちる(you have boarded the train)- Watch out, yourgo-PRS.3SG fall !
suitcasefall-FUT.3SG !
We will first comment on the dialogue above to explain the choice of tense, so we
can better judge the work achieved by the dyad. In situation 1, the speaker is spurred on by
spontaneous empathy and warns the passenger. The falling of the suitcase is certainly not
irrevocable (Gosselin, 2005); the potential action (Camussi-Ni, 2018) is in the speaker’spresent, and the suitcase’s instability becomes an observation shared (in the sense of
Bottineau’s (2014) characterization) with its owner. Consequently, “tomber” in the PF, “vatomber”, is the correct choice.
Excerpt 1
1

H 0’04 attention\ votre valise

2

(1s)

3

0’09 tombera\(1)4
5

R 0’10 tombera\“Attention, votre valise…
tombera !”tombera !”(1,4s)

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6

H 0’13 ochiru darō\ (2)It will probably fall !

7

R 0’14 ki ki o tsukenasai/(3)Watch, watch out…

8
9

(1,4s)
0’18 votre valise/ tombera\

10(1,3s)

11

a kore ē kocchi(4) janē/“Votre valise tombera !”Ah, this, uh, not this one here?

12 H 0’22 ((laughter))13

sō\Really?

21Note: Ryōta is on the left, Hiroki is on the right.

3

4

Ryōta and Hiroki have put the worksheet7 with the dialogues between them within
their immediate field of vision. The worksheet of the material is placed just above it(Photos above). These two documents are the two foci of the “participation framework”(Goodwin, 2003). Ryōta and Hiroki's engagement in this participation framework can vary
but will remain stable until the end of the task.
Here, Hiroki immediately chooses “tombera” and translates it with “ochiru darō” (l.
6). At this moment, Ryōta raises his head towards the material (Photos 2 to 3). In line 7, heengages again in the reading of the dialogue (Photos 3 to 4), then contests his partner’s
choice.
Hiroki’s preference for direct translation illustrates well what can be termed the“think in L1 to speak in L2” effect, characteristic of students at initial levels (Pavlenko,
2014: 303). In Japanese, the future is the default reading of the -RU form of eventive
predicates (Jacobsen, 2018); for example, “ochiru” (“to fall”). Hiroki adds the epistemic
modal “darō”, which can be loosely translated here as “will”. However, Hiroki has
obviously misunderstood the situation of the dialogue. Indeed, the speaker cannot establish
the certainty of the fall of the suitcase.
In any case, the sequence of actions shows that Ryōta relied on the material to makehis choice. In Excerpt 2 (immediately following), Ryōta repeats his claim, pointing to “vatomber” (Photo 1). Hiroki acknowledges his mistake, but with the slightest concession,
observing that “it’s not a divination” (l. 4)—he refers to one of the examples of use for the
SF on the material. Sensing that his partner does not understand, from line 5 onward Ryōta
further explains his choice:

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Excerpt 2
1

R

0’26 are/ (for himself)

2

Hey?

(1,9s)

3

0’27 ya e ko(1)cchi da to omō

No, uh, it’s there I think!

4Hkocchi/ kore uranai ja nai ka\ a0’28
sokka uranai ja nai

There? Because it’s not a
divination, I see, it’s not a
divination

5R

0’32 datte a chi(2)gau eto kō

Well, uh, no this, uh, this.

6H

0’35 mmh

Mmh.

7

R

0’36 koko(3)

Here.

8

(0,7s)

90’37 datte kore/(4)10(0,8s)

Well, this…
Watch out, it’s going to fall, it says,
and there’s an exclamation mark,uh…

11

ki o tsukete ochiru de tte iu\ bikkuri
0’38māku ga tsuiteiru shi\ ano\(5)

12 H

0’42

13 R

yabai o(6)chiru yo mitaina\ ima(7)0’42 okiteiru(8) kono l’action future est
dans

Something like, hey, it’s falling, it’shappening now, this “L’action
future est dans…

14 H

0’48 ē kore tte sa

Uh, this, actually…

15

0’49 le présente

le présent.”

16(2,1s)

mmh

Hum.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

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In line 5 (Photo 2), Ryōta reorients the worksheet of the material in his direction: heseems to adjust the means that his explanation requires, but these means are that which
need to be explained, hence the hesitations. These hesitations from lines 5 to 10 show that
he is looking for ways to reformulate the problem for the benefit of Hiroki. Ryōta firstconsidered the use of the material and pointed to the SF column (Photo 3). However, hechanges his mind and points again to the dialogue (Photo 4, l. 9). In line 11, he literally
proceeds to an analysis of the utterance, resorting to reported speech, with the Japanesemarker “tte iu”, and noticing the punctuation. By focusing on the situation of uttering, he isable to—correctly—demonstrate how the utterance is anchored in the present.
However, in line 13, Ryōta goes further and impersonates the speaker, using again amarker for quoting, “mitai na” (“like”). The segment from Photo 5 to 6 corresponds towhat Kendon (2004) calls the “preparation”, preceding the stroke of a gesture. The stroke
achieves the gesture’s expressiveness (p. 112). Kendon's thesis (2004) is that gesture is an
integral component in the construction of the utterance. Here, the stroke coincides with theverb “ochiru”, and determines its spatial reference: the place of the object about to fall.
Ryōta's gesture then accomplishes an “abstract deixis” (McNeil, 2005: 40) as the gesturebuilds up the target and surrounding environment in the absence of tangible objects. For
McNeill (2005), gesture and speech develop the same underlying idea in two different
semiotic modes: continuous and synthetic, discontinuous and analytic, respectively. Thisauthor envisages this underlying idea as a “growth point”, the minimal psychological unit
simultaneously unfolding its content in speech and gesture. However, beyond thecomplementarity between gesture and speech, a more holistic analysis of interactions mustemphasize that Ryōta and Hiroki’s environment has changed as the suitcase is imagined init. For instance, Nevile et al. (2014) counts in the “interactional ecology of objects”, the setof affordances—in the Gibsonian sense—of the objects in the environment in which one
engages, the abstract objects created as supports of thought in discourse. Here, the suitcase
is now present and mobilizable in thought, and its observation is shareable—the very valueof the PF that Ryōta strives to illustrate.
Ryōta’s next gesture makes sense in the “ecology” of this environment: He does not
rest his hand but goes on with another gesture composed of two rapid strokes of the hand
towards his bust (Photo 7). The sequence of the two gestures (Photos 6 to 7) demonstrates
that the suitcase is in the same time as that of the body: this gesture towards the bodyintervenes on “ima” (“now”). Interestingly, only then does Hiroki turn his head towards his
partner (Photo 7). Finally, Ryōta concludes his explanation with his hand now shaping intoa pointing gesture on the column of the PF on the worksheet (Photo 8).
This rapid succession of pointing gestures in this excerpt performs a specificfunction. Indeed, the expressiveness of a pointing gesture is specific. Pointing is “a deictic
gesture used to reorient the attention of another person so that an object becomes theshared focus for attention” (Butterworth, 2003: 9). Here, in the same participation
framework—in Goodwin (2003)’s sense—, the consequentiality of Ryōta’s gestures
concretely builds up relationships between the words of the dialogue, the concepts from thematerial, the imaginary suitcase, the body of the speaker, and the tense of the Foreign
Language, relationships that would otherwise remain abstract.
Situation 1 represents the first concrete use of the material. In the four next
excerpts, Ryōta and Hiroki turn their attention to it, temporarily setting the dialogues aside.

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Excerpt 3
1

0’52

ē kore dō iu kotoUh, this, what is this about?

2

0’54

kono imi yoku wakannai\(1)I don’t understand it well.

3

0’55

l’action future(2)“L’action future …”

0’56ē kore/ wa are janai no\ ano

Uh, this, uh, it’s not, uh…

l’action future est dans le présent
to iu no wa\mō ima masani oki yō to shite iru
yō na kanji janai“L’action future est dans le présent”,
that is to say…
It’s like right now already it’s about
to happen, no?

4

H

R

5

1’00

6

1’05

7
8
9

1

(1,8s)
H

1’09

a

Ah.

(2,5s)(3)2

3

The key passage of this excerpt is the paraphrase of the PF by Ryōta in line 6.
Although Ryōta just illustrated the specific anchoring in the present of this tense byimpersonating the speaker, Hiroki points to some terms of the material still problematic forhim and read them (Photo 1). After Hiroki, Ryōta points to the same terms, reads, andcomments on them (l. 4 to 6. Photos 2 to 3). Ryōta’s paraphrase uses the grammaticalmeans of the Japanese language to render the aspectual value, first with the adverbial“masani” (“right now”) and then with the complex form “-yō to shite iru”, which expresses
imminence (as in the periphrastic phrase “to be about to”).
What occurs here is, we argue, what Swain (2010) calls “languaging”, the fact tobring about new understanding by talking through a problem. Indeed, talking entails theexternalization of ideas into words, which in the process brings up associations that one did
not think of before. In our case, the material does not provide a translation. Then, when
Hiroki asks for an explanation, Ryōta answers but his search for equivalence in L1 is new
to him as well (l. 6 is a question).
The exploration of the material continues in Excerpt 4.

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Excerpt 4
1

H

1’13

2

kore ga/(1)

This…

(1s)

3

1’14

4

mmh

Mmh.

(2,4s)

5

1’17

kore dō iu koto/(laughter)(2)This, what is this about?

6

R

1’19

kore

This

7

H

1’19

furīzusareta“frozen“

1’20

situation ga

R

1’22

la situation ici et maintenant est

10 H

1’24

maintenant ga

The “situation”…
“La situation ici et maintenant
est…”“…maintenant” is…

11 R

1’25

figée

“figée.”12

1’26

It’s something nearly, well, alreadyset to happen, no?

13
14

1’30

mō nanka hobo kakutei de okiru
koto ja nai(1,5s)
ko tei sa(3)re- ē/

15

1’32

et maintenant est figée“… and now is frozen.”

16 H

1’34

a tashikani kakutei shita mitai na\

Ah, I see, something that’s been
decided, sort of.

17 R

1’37

ima nanka sore ga mirai ni okiru
kōi no jōken ga sorotteru tte iu kotoka\(4)

Somehow the condition for theaction to happen in the future isfulfilled with this now, something
like this.

18 H

1’41

mmh

Mmh.

19 R

1’42

tsumari

In short.

20

1’42

a sō iu koto da\

Ok, this kind of thing.

8
9

21

… fixed.

(6,1s)

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2

3

4

5

In excerpt 4, Hiroki asks the same question, this time about the SF (Photos 1 to 2, l.
1 to 5). Photo 2 shows him reorienting the worksheet. In lines 9 and 11, Ryōta also reads
the description of the SF. The metaphor of freezing stands for a present limited by the
speaker’s unilateral decision. In Lines 12 to 14, in “languaging”, Ryōta paraphrases the
explanation written on the worksheet. As he does so, he reuses a kanji that first was used in
the material, “kata-” in “katamaraseta” (“hardened”, see section 3.3.), and incorporates itwith its Chinese reading “ko” into the term “kotei” (“fixation”, l. 14). This kanji is framedin green in the transcription and in Photo 5, which is the worksheet that was on the table.
However, it is the metalinguistic commentary line 12 that inspires Hiroki. Indeed, a few
seconds later, Hiroki exclaims, “Ah, I see, something that’s been decided, sort of”, using
the term “kakutei” (“decision, determination”) provided by his partner. At line 17, Hiroki
starts writing down “hobo kakutei shita koto” (“the fact of being nearly decided”) onto thematerial next to the grammatical description (Photo 5, in red). The last link in this
spontaneous web of signs is “tei”, for the idea of “regularity”, which appears both in“kakutei” and “kotei” (in yellow). This sequence will prove crucial for the remainder of thetask: through interaction with the material, new signs—which, in Vygotskian terminology,
mediate concepts—emerge, are recombined in discourse, and, in the case of “kakutei”,
hand-written back onto the material.
However, if this term, “kakutei”, Hiroki’s choice for “decision, determination”, as acharacterization for the SF is compatible with Gosselin (2005)’s value of irrevocability, it
is less so with the negation of the choice of others, as in Bottineau (2014)’s description (seesection 3.2.). Eventually, in line 17, Ryōta’s commentary, tends to approach thisCanadian Journal of Applied Linguistics: 25, 2 (2022) 71-102

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dimension, although it is the reverse that would be correct: it is the speaker’s unilateraldecision that conditions (constrains) the present.
The dyad continues reading the grammatical description of the SF (Excerpt 5
below):
Excerpt 5
1

R

1’49

de l’action

And “L’action…”

2

H

1’49

l’action future(1)“L’action future…”

3

R

1’50

future est“future est…”

4

H

1’53

après

“après.”

5

R

1’53

après

“après”

6(2,5s)

7

1’56

8

Uh…

e
((laughter))(2)

9

1’58

a après te demo

Ah, “après”, it says, but…

10

H

1’59

mmh/

Yes?

11

R

2’00

tukiru tte koto wa

The fact that it runs out…

12

2’04

are

Uh?

13

2’05

(3)kankaku(4) kankaku((laughter)A sensation, a sensation.

1

2

3

4

This description, “L’action future est après” (“The future action is after”), is correctfrom a formal point of view, but puzzles the dyad, hence the laughter (l. 8). From Photo 2
to 3, Ryōta wonders about “after”, and then he points to the words on the worksheet with acomment whose meaning, unfortunately, escapes us. It is true that the effect of the SF is
more abstract than that of the PF, which is anchored in the present experienced by the
speaker. However, “the fact that it runs out” (l. 11) and “a sensation” (l. 13) remain vague
from the analyst’s point of view. The characteristics Ryōta sought to describe cannot beknown.
Hiroki cuts short these speculations and concludes the first dialogue:
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Excerpt 6
1H

2’07 ja kore ga/(1)Anyway, this one it is.

2R

2’08 hai

Yes.

3

(4s)

4

2’12 kore

This one.
Indeed.

5H

2’13 sō ne\

6

R

2’14

7

H

2’19 mmh ue ka\

Well, up.

8R

2’19 ue da to omou\

Up I think.

9

H

2’22

10
11

1

ima masa ni ochiru yo tte
keikokushiteiru kara

tashika ni zenzen kakutei(2)shitenai
mon na\2’23 tomeyō ga aru\(3)Because I'm warning you, “Hey,it's about to fall, right now…”

It’s certainly not sure at all…
There’s still a way to stop it.

(2,3s)

2
1

3
1

Slightly replacing the worksheet, Hiroki redirects the discussion to the solution thatwas chosen, the PF (Photo 1). In line 6, Ryōta reuses the terms he previously used in
excerpt 3, “it’s about to fall”. Similarly, as he points to the column of the SF (Photo 2),
Hiroki reuses the metalinguistic term he appropriated: The fall of the suitcase is notconfirmed or decided indeed (“kakutei shitenai”, l. 9). The following comment is indicativeof a good understanding of the value of the tense: “There’s still a way to stop it”
corresponds to the modal value of the PF—process envisaged as possible—as described byGosselin (2005, see section 3.2.).
Taking Excerpt 1 as a point of comparison, the understanding achieved by Hiroki isnoteworthy: He now has metalinguistic terms adapted from the material and provided by
Ryōta, sufficient—from his point of view—to discriminate between the two tenses. We
argue that the dyad is indeed building up “cognitive tools”, that is, means to orient the

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thinking process involved in L2 use (see Swain, 2000; Swain et al. 2002; Swain andLapkin, 2013).
Situation 2(vous fixez un rendez-vous)
Votre ami(e) : On se retrouve où ?
Vous : Jevais être au Starbucks.
serai
Votre ami(e) : Ok.

On se retrouve où ?:待ち合わせはどうする？

(you settle an appointment)
Your friend: Where do we meet?
You: I
go-PRS.1SG be at Starbucks.
be-FUT.1SGYour friend: Ok.
Here, the moment of the appointment is in no way related to the situation ofuttering: I am already with my friend. Moreover, the irrevocable quality of the future
situation comes from the fact that my information limits to one place the possibility for myfriend to find me. The SF, “serai”, is the most appropriate tense.
Excerpt 7
1

R

2’53

je serai ka je vais(1) être ka\“je serai” or “je vais être”

2

H

2’58

mmh

Mmh.

3

(1,9s)(2)(3)

4

R

3’02

je

“je”

5

H

3’04

shita ka na/

Below, I think.
Below indeed, this, somehow
it’s something like ‘will’, there
is a lot of

6

R

3’05

sō yo ne sore de nanka will mitai no
monyaru nanka kō kekkō

7

H

3’10

ah

Ah ok!

8R

3’11

kakushin ga aru will mitaina\

There is certainty, like ‘will’.

9

H

3’13

nanka (?) xx kioku ga aru

Somehow (?) xx there is amemory.

10(1,5s)

11

R

3’17

xxx

xxx

12

H

3’17

ha

Well…

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13

R

3’18

shita no je serai de atteru ne

Below, “je serai” fits well.

14

H

3’20

mmh

Mmh

1

2
1

3
1

The dyad quickly finds out the solution. The sequence of the three photos shows
how Hiroki proceeds after Ryōta poses the alternative between “serai” and “vais être”(Photo 1). Hiroki glances at the column of the SF (Photo 2) and of the PF (Photo3) andthen offers the correct answer. As a justification, Ryōta puts forward a comparison withEnglish. This point will be discussed later because comparison with English is not anadequate means. In any case, Ryōta refers to the assumed epistemic value of “will” tochoose the SF, using the term “kakushin” (“conviction, certainty”) close to “kakutei” (l. 8)
The dyad then engages in an exchange which we have not been able to transcribe in full.
The comparison with a “memory” (l. 9) can only be understood from Hiroki’s point ofview. However, there is indeed with the SF a detachment, in the sense of Camussi-Ni(2018), of the future situation from the situation of uttering, as there is in the direction of
the past with a memory.
Situation 3- Demain, on

va être le combien?
sera- Le 15.
- Tomorrow, oneon est le combien ?:今⽇は何⽇？

go-PRS.3SG be what date?
be-FUT.3SG- The 15.
When one consults the calendar, it is not its cultural artifactuality which is looked
at. The time that is measured seems that of a natural order. Here, the person who asks thequestion puts himself or herself in a position to be reminded of this order, by definition
non-negotiable: the SF, “sera”, is the most appropriate choice.

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Excerpt 8
1

R

3’58

2

demain“demain…”

(1s)

3

3’59

ashita wa nan nichi ni naru

What is the date tomorrow?
It’s sure. It’s sure, although if you
don’t know the date of today, you
can’t say.

H

4’00

R

4’11

H

4’14

kakutei(1) kakuteishiteiru(2)keredomo kyō ga wakaranakereba
wakannnai\(5s)kore wa shita/(1,4s)
ētto dōnarō na

R

4’16

kore wa shitana ki ga suru\

It looks below-ish to me…

10 H
11
12 R
13

4’18

shita ka\(3)(1,3s)
datte(4)(1,3)

Below?

14

4’22

4
5
6
7
8
9

4’20

15
16
17 H

4’28

18

This one is below.
Well, how is that…

Look…

yohō da mon yohō yohō to iu ka

There’s this forecast thing, forecast
if you can say that.

kore(5) kakutei suru shi(1,6s)

And it’s sure.

mmh

Mmh.

19

4’30

20
21

4’33

(1,3s)
sō ne kae yō ga nai monda\((writing))(6)(1s)
shita\

22 R

4’34

furi- figée figée ga dakke

Fro-, “figée”, “figée”, was it?

23 H

4’37

mmh

Mmh.

Indeed, something that can’t bechanged.
Below.

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1

4

2

5

3

6

The sequence of Photos 1 to 2 shows what Hiroki accomplishes: In line 4, he first
responds with the term he gave himself to characterize the SF, “kakutei”, and only thendoes he look on the worksheet at the column which matches with the tense (Photo 2). Thismeans that the concept, in the Vygotskyan sense, becomes functional. The concept of“kakutei”—idiosyncratic, which raises other questions—is being internalized: Hiroki ismaking of it a mental tool for choosing the tense.
The dyad continues along the path of the SF. Photo 3 shows Hiroki reorienting theworksheet, readjusting the participation framework by doing so. In Photos 5 and 6, bothhave a hand on the worksheet of the material, which becomes a shared focus of attention.
Ryōta exploits an analogy—which is correct—between the calendar and the example of theweather forecasts on the material, while also showing its limit (“if you can say that”, l. 14).
In line 15, he uses, “kakutei”, the term used by his partner, but that he created (see Excerpt4). While ticking “sera” (Photo 6), Hiroki adds a comment: “something that can’t bechanged”. In the next dialogue, he will make the distinction of “can / can not be changed” a
new cognitive tool. Finally, Ryōta uses the original term for the SF from the worksheet.
Situation 4(vous marchez vers la gare)
Votre ami(e) : Il est quelle heure ?
Vous : 17h15.
Votre ami(e) : Onva rater notre train !
raterarater le train :電⾞に乗り遅れる(you are walking to the station)
Your friend: What time is it?
You: 17h15.
Your friend: One
go-PRS.3SG miss our train!
miss-FUT.3SG

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Contrary to the relentless order of the days on a calendar, the future presence of the two
persons on the train depends on their present behaviour. Since missing the train is only apossibility, only the PF is suitable here: “on va rater”.
Excerpt 9
1

H

4’39

il est quelle heure\“Il est quelle heure?”

2

R

4’42

il est quelle heure\“Il est quelle heure?”

3

H

4’44

17 heures\

17h…

4

(4s)

5
6

R

4’48

15

15

4’48

nan jiWhat time…

7

(5s)

8

4’53

yabē densha ni noriokureru yo nan
ji ni kite go ji jugo fun to iwarete/‘Hey, we’ll miss the train,’ it says,‘what time does the train arrive…’

9

H

4’57

mmh

Mmh.

10

R

4’58

yabē densha ni okureru‘Hey, we’ll miss the train…’

11

H

5’00

kō(1) uena ki(2) ga suru(3)This looks like up to me.

12

R

5’00

kore o e

This, I, uh…

13

H

5’03

on va rater/ notre train\“On va rater notre train!”

14

R

5’07

kore ore shita shitana ki(4) ga suru

For this one, below, I’d go below.

15

H

5’09

maji(5) ka\ ((laughter))(6)

Seriously?

5’11

kore ma(7)da(8) ka-(9) amari
kakuteishitenai\(10)(11)kakutei\(12) sō\

It’s not su-, not really sure yet, likea decision…

16
17

R

5’15

mmh

Mmh.

18

H

5’17

kaeyō to omoeba kaereru

If you think you will change it, it
can be changed.

5’20

hashireba maau to iu imida(13)kara\

Because if you run, you can make
it.

19
20

R

5’22

mmh(14)

Mmh.

21

H

5’22

ue ka na to omou\

So, that’s up, I think.

22

R

5’24

on va(15) rater notre train“We’ll miss our train!”

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1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

The dyad reads the dialogue by translating it (l. 1 to 10). Here, a mistake is made:17:15 is understood as the time of arrival of the train. This does not change the stakes: The
two persons must hurry to be on time.
Hiroki immediately proposes the correct solution, but Ryōta opts for the SF. The
whole sequence shows a series of five almost identical visual interactions during which
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Hiroki is turned towards the worksheet of the material (Photos 2 to 3, 5 to 6, 8 to 9, 11 to
12 and 14 to 15), whilst arguing for the PF. If it is not easy to determine which part of thematerial he is looking at, the sequence is nonetheless evidence that Hiroki relies on thematerial to produce his speech. Galperin (1989) writes about the advantage of using“orienting schemas” (or just “cards” in the following quote) to lessen the burden of priormemorization: “The cumbersome content of the cards is learned unexpectedly easily inaction in the process problem-solving. The capacity of involuntary memory is much greaterthan the capacity of voluntary memory [...]. Furthermore, [...] this involuntary memory canbe guided quite reliably and even accelerated considerably” (p. 70). We argue that this iswhat we are witnessing here, at least in the case of Hiroki. The worksheet of the material
becomes a landmark for regulating his thinking process and speech (for instance l. 16) andfunctions, we argue, as an external memory, drawing on Galperin’s (1967, 1989, 1992)
own accounts of his procedure, but also as a “cognitive extension” (Clark & Chalmer,
1998: 12). Indeed, the ambition of developing material in Concept-Based Instruction is, in
our view, that the design is based on an assumed continuity of cognition within theenvironment, as argued by the proponents of the extended mind thesis.8
Finally, Hiroki concretely illustrates the modal value of possibility of the PF with afurther comment in the form of an if-clause, “if you run, you can make it” (l. 19).
A fundamental point is the absence of a pointing gesture—but not of interactions.
We interpret it as a tendency to “the abbreviation of action” in the sense of Galperin (1967,
1989, 1989). Hiroki is, it seems, able to recognize in the different configurations (settling
an appointment, checking the date, deciding to hurry...) attributes pertaining to the relation
with the present particular to the PF or the SF.9
Situation 5(à une petite fille)
Vous : Quand tu

vas être grande, qu’est-ce que tu veux être ?
seras
L’enfant : Je veux être actrice !
(to a little girl)
You: When you

go-PRS.2SG be grown up, what do you want to be?
be-FUT.2SG
The child: I want to be an actress!
The notion of a situation of uttering detached from the present captures well the
stakes of the choice here. The little girl and I both know that, for a child, growing is an
implacable destiny: “seras” should be preferably used.

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Excerpt 10“… grande”, when you growup, what do-, what would you
like to do, kind of thing.

1

R

6’55

grande / ōkiku nattara nani ga sushitai gatteiutekina koto ka

2

H

7’00

mmh

Mmh

7’01

deshitara

And if so…

3
4

R

7’02

kore wa shita ka

This is below, no?

5

H

7’03

haiyū haiyū ka kore

Actress, actress… this…

6

(1,6)

7

R

7’06

je veux être actrice joyū

“Je veux être actrice!”,actress…

8

H

7’10

mmh

Mmh

9

(1,5s) (1)

10

7’13

e(2) a(3)Well, uh...

11

7’14

ōkiku nattara(4)When you grow up…

7’15

haiyū/…an actress.

12

R

13

(2s)(5)(3s)(6)

14

7’20

ōkiku naru no wa kaku(7)tei yō na(8)s-seras kara na

Talking about being grown up,
there is like certainty, because“seras”…
This one is a “seras” to me,“vas être” and “quand tu seras
grand…

H

15

R

7’25

kore wa seras no ki ga suru vas êtreto sera quand tu seras grand

16

H

7’35

qu’est-ce que tu veux être“… qu’est-ce que tu veux
être?”

(4s)

(4s)

17
18

R

7’40

mmh

Mmh.

19

H

7’42

ja iikka shita deWell, ok then, below.

20

R

7’43

quand tu seras\ mmh“Quand tu seras…”, mmh.

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1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

As in the previous excerpt, the dyad no longer points to the material and just checks
the analogy with the situation by looking at the worksheet. First, translation leads Ryōta
and Hiroki towards the right solution, the SF (l. 4). The first visual interaction with theworksheet occurs a few seconds later (Photos 2 (Hiroki) and 3 (Ryōta)). In line 9, Ryōta
takes a look at the material (Photo 5) and then returns to the dialogue (Photo 6). At thismoment, Hiroki also turns to the material and verbalizes the link between the content of the
dialogue and the value of the tense by resorting to his metalinguistic tool, “kakutei” (l. 14),which allows the dyad to conclude (Photo 8).
Discussion
Ryōta and Hiroki found the 5 answers. For situations 1 and 4, the anchoring in thepresent of the future event—the imminent fall of the suitcase, and the departure of the
train—was associated with the PF. An intrinsic sense of limitation in situations 2, 3 and 5,
where reference is made to an appointment, the calendar, and the child’s age, oriented the
dyad towards the SF. It should be noted that here the PF can also possibly be used10 even if
the SF is preferred. However, the positive outcome of the whole task is obviously limited
in its generalizability, since it is valid only for these dialogues and under the conditions of
this experience. For instance, the use of the SF for attenuated order was not tested. Above
all, learners with another L1 and in regions of the world where the culture of grammatical
instruction is different would have carried out the same task in a completely different way.
Also important, perhaps more so, is the answer to our second question: How was
the material used? Two answers emerge. First, the analysis shows that Ryōta and Hiroki
developed their own resources in interacting with the material, stimulated by the goal ofcompleting the task. Ryōta, in “languaging” (Swain, 2010), uses “kakutei” while
paraphrasing the explanation of the SF from the material (Excerpt 4). Hiroki takes up theword as a “cognitive tool”. This does not contradict the claim that L1 happens to mediate
the learning of the L2 (see Swain & Lapkin, 2013), quite the contrary. However, topromote real multilingualism right from the beginner level, displaying the target forms in a
way that they remain irreducible to translation should be emphasized.
The second point is that, with hindsight, a movement of internalization becomes visible
through the task, in accordance with the design of Galperin’s procedure. Clear evidence isthe regularly decreasing volume of gesture: from Ryōta’s impersonation in the first

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dialogue and the many pointing gestures on the material to the simple glances to it for thelast two dialogues. Further studies would be useful to report on subsequent states ofinternalization.
The use of the material, however, has not always been smooth. The main problem isthe limited understanding of the value of the SF as described by Bottineau (2014), while
this description is the most stimulating in the context of a Communicative Approach. The
solution would be to represent, by a means that suits the teacher, the inclusion of the otherparticipants in the choice of the perspective on the event with the PF, and their exclusion in
the case of the SF. The choice of tense could also be addressed in a situation where thespeakers’ communicative goals are opposed in relation to the same event. For example:
Votre ami(e) : On va rater notre train !

Your friend: We’ll miss our train!

Vous : Eh bien, on le ratera !

You: Fine, we’ll miss it!11

Another problematic point was the implicit use of the contrast between “be goingto” and “will” in Excerpt 7. For learners, the temptation of the analogy is great as both
English and French have a Go-Future. As a result, the SF is considered close to “will”. The
fact is, without going into details, that the PF is mostly translated as “will” (Celle, 1997),
as in the example above. Mika and Kyaw, in the other dyad, wasted considerable time dueto this erroneous analogy with English.
Regarding our theoretical and methodological options, it seems to us that a holistic
perspective for the analysis is fully justified to integrate discourse and interactions with thematerial, unlike a sole focus on gestures (as in McCafferty & Stam (2008)) which would
not have been compatible with our goal to account for the use of our material. An example
that illustrates this point is the case study reported on in Lantolf (2010), based on
McNeill’s “growth point” model. An English L1 student is interviewed by the investigatoron her choice of tenses in a narration task in French L2. The author assumes that thestudent’s gesture is a depiction of the schema provided in class four months earlier(Galperin’s procedure was followed). This intuition is not without interest, but it seems
necessary to us to document how such schemas are used in the first place, as we tried to do.
The analysis of gestures in the SCT for L2 adopts McNeill’s “growth point” model.
However, accounting for the interaction with objects goes beyond the relationship between
speech and gesture. Manipulations of objects further change the conditions in which
subsequent gestures occur by modifying the affordances in the environment (Nevil et al.,2014). About McNeill (1992)’s work, Goodwin wrote: “However, in that its analytic pointof departure is processed inside the mind of the individual speaker/gesturer, this approach
does not provide the resources necessary for investigating how phenomena outside thespeaker, for example, a consequential physical environment, contribute to the organizationof gesture” (2003: 23). This observation is still relevant in our opinion and justifies
documenting the learning process in Galperin’s procedure in a holistic theoreticalframework given the importance of the material in this procedure. For this reason, themethodology of Atkinson and colleagues in their sociocognitive approach was used as amodel in this study.
Beyond the inherent variety of levels, domains and designs, our study also
converges with others on the fact that Concept-Based Instruction can contribute to a better
understanding of L2 concepts and promote their conscious use in context (GánemCanadian Journal of Applied Linguistics: 25, 2 (2022) 71-102

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Gutiérrez & Harun, 2011; Kim, 2013; Lee, 2016; Negueruela and Lantolf, 2006; vanCompernolle, 2011). The present study, however, addressed the use of the material in realtime, and the data obtained distinguishes it from these. A manifestation of theinternalization process could then directly be inferred from the observation of a reductionin the volume of gesture and manual interactions with the material.
Another level of comparison is the theoretical perspective chosen to describe thetarget concepts. For example, Negueruela and Lantolf (2006), Gánem-Gutiérrez & Harun(2011) and Lee (2016) rely on internal representations of the event from the speaker’s
point of view regardless of the situation of uttering, much in the spirit of Cognitive
Linguistics—an option suggested by Lantolf (2006, 2011). In our study, however, and withthe reservations expressed above, it is from the angle of its pragmatic effect that we tried toapproach the contrast between the PF and the SF, a choice in this respect similar to Kim(2013) and van Compernolle (2011).
Conclusion
The initial idea of the present study was to reconcile grammatical instruction andlanguage use in French at initial levels of university in Japan. Galperin’s procedure seems
to us to be well suited to this challenge in this specific context. According to his inventor,
this procedure has, as mentioned, the advantage of avoiding the trial-and-error phase. Even
if imperfect— there is not enough room here to imagine all the possible improvements—
the material tested helped learners, even beginners, to take, at least to imagine, theperspectives on the situation that are specific to the two Future tenses in French.
Grammatical instruction should be carried out, obviously, in parallel with sessions focusedon oral communication, where for fluidity dialogues are written and role-played. We also
believe in the virtue of collaborative dialogue that promotes autonomy.
Moreover, Galperin’s procedure also seems to us to be suitable for the testing ofmaterial, and the work, perhaps still not well known, of this continuator of Vygotsky cangive rise to an important reflection on teaching materials. Indeed, it is rare to see learners
perform a learning task without consulting resources. On the contrary, in the course of atask, simple or complex, learners will use all means available to achieve their goal—completing the task, sometimes misusing these resources. It is the role of the teacher toprovide resources that help learners to complete the task. From a Vygotskyan perspective,
however, it is the internalization of the resources that is, for the teacher, the real goal.
Correspondence should be addressed to Loïc Renoud.
Email: renoud@okayama-u.ac.jp

Notes
1

This is in fact not always the case. The aspect is aoristic except if, with an atelic process, apunctual reference interval is more salient than the process interval. For example: “À huitheures, il dormira.” (Gosselin, 2005: 148–149) (“At 8, he will be sleeping.”)

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2

The situation of uttering can be that of locution, the actual place and moment of speaking,or embed the situation of locution and then become an abstract reference system (as inreading). For this reason, in Camussi-Ni’s paper, the situation of uttering is said to beinternal to the utterance.
3“ une situation potentielle (partir) est mise en relation avec une situation coïncidente avec
la situation d'énonciation (ils vont), elle-même construite par le locuteur.”
4

The rationale of using the PF does not lie in the “closeness” of the action as much as in
the stance the speaker shows to be taking, as argued by Bottineau (2014; see section 2.3.
above). As for “tanjun miraikei”, “tanjun” indeed means “simple,” but it is a meretranslation of the metalinguistic term taken from French first-language grammar. “Simple,”as opposed to “compound,” is not self-explanatory in Japanese, in which there is no past
participle. Our choice to use these terms nonetheless is a compromise.

5

Reading: “furīzusareta, katamaraseta”.

6

In the hours of study, there are variations below and beyond 90 hours, a number whichcorresponds only to a standard curriculum at the end of first year.

7

We purposefully gave only one worksheet of the material and one of the dialogues, so as
the interaction with the pedagogical material converge.

8

Let us not forget that Hiroki has, in a sense, contributed to the material with theinscription he previously made on it, “hobo kakutei shita mono” (see Excerpt 4).

9Galperin (1992: 62) explains how the abbreviation phase occurs: “In the orienting part,
inasmuch as it is applied to a variety of materials, the key attributes are differentiated from
attendant attributes, and the essential attributes are united into a stable system, into a visual
image or a concept. Thereafter, the object is readily recognized on the basis of a characteristic
combination of attributes; for this reason, the orienting activity is sharply abridged, to thepoint of immediate recognition.” See also Arievitch and Haenen (2005) and Haenen (2001).

10This was indicated to us by an anonymous reviewer, whom we thank. Indeed, as Abouda
and Skrovec (2015) point out, the SF is losing ground to the PF. This, however, does notcall into question their contrastive use.

11

Suggested by Didier Bottineau (p. c.)
Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a grant from the Japan Society for the Promotion of
Science (JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP18K12452). I would like to thank the twoanonymous reviewers whose comments and suggestions helped improve and clarify earlier
versions of this article. I also thank the students for participating in this study.

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