Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2017 Heft: 216 Seiten: 451-477.

In higher education programs that train students for professions with high standards of safety, such as aviation, shipping and healthcare, exercises in simulated environments provide opportunities for training in educational settings. This study explores the use of simulators in maritime education, taking an interest in how navigation training is achieved by using simulated environments. By conducting an interaction analysis of video data, the study examines how training students to coordinate with other vessels in traffic is topicalized in simulator exercises, focusing (...) on discourses of temporality in instructions. The results show how instruction during simulations is a continuous interactional achievement built on the ability to assess the fit between the assessment criteria at work in the specifics of the situation and the ongoing tasks as they unfold. During simulations temporality becomes a matter for instruction, both when assessing how to develop the students’ understanding and as a topic in its own right. The results highlight tightly coupled relationships among tasks, instruction and technology. The implications for simulator-based training call for refocusing on training tasks rather than specific skills, and emphasize the importance of professional guidance in order to guide the students toward the discourses of maritime work practice in simulator-based training. (shrink)

Although the practice of formulating has been examined in a variety of institutional settings, its realization in the framework of school interaction has received no attention from a conversation analytic perspective. The present article aspires to fill this gap, offering some preliminary remarks about how reformulations, namely versions of what was previously said or implied, are accomplished in the classroom. More specifically, two types of the teacher’s reformulations are distinguished, on the basis of his/her epistemic access to what is reformulated. (...) The research aims at demonstrating how a general practice adapts to the central activities of the setting in which it is employed. (shrink)