“This angle that we talked about”: learning how to weld in interaction

Variation theory is a learning theory focusing on the content of learning and learning is described as a changed way of seeing or experiencing something (cf. Marton and Booth 1997; Marton and Tsui 2004). In variation theory, the emphasis is on this something, the learning content as the object of learning (OoL). The OoL can be described as intended (what the teacher planned), enacted (what was possible to learn in the teaching/learning situation) or lived (what the students actually learned) (Marton and Tsui 2004). The space of learning is also a shared space (Tsui 2004) in which teachers and students interact. Furthermore, interaction between the teacher and the learner influences the enacted OoL (Asplund and Kilbrink 2018). In this study, we focus solely on the enacted OoL and what is possible to learn in the interaction between a vocational student and his teacher.

In teaching, some things are foregrounded while other things remain more or less in the background (Lo 2012; Marton and Booth 1997). In a teaching situation, it is important to foreground the aspects that are to be learned, the critical aspects, and to make sure that the same things are in the foreground for both teacher and student (cf. Lo and Chik 2016). What is in the foreground and what is in the background can change during the situation, depending on the interaction between teacher and student (cf. Asplund and Kilbrink 2018). Critical aspects are those aspects that are important to understand in order to learn an OoL. Critical aspects can adopt different values, which can vary or remain constant (invariant). For example, if colour is a critical aspect of an OoL, it can adopt the different values red, blue, green, etc. Which critical aspects to focus on in teaching can differ between different groups of students (Marton and Tsui 2004). Critical aspects can be highlighted in teaching by using different patterns of variation. Variation theory identifies four such patterns: fusion, which means that all critical aspects are present at the same time; separation, through which one critical aspect of the OoL is highlighted and varied, while others are kept invariant; contrast, which entails comparing the varied critical aspect to something it is not (red is not blue); and finally, generalisation, which means that the critical aspect is highlighted by showing different appearances of the critical aspect (there are different shades of red) (cf. ibid.). Lo and Chik (2016) also describe two horizons of fusion: one concerns how the parts and the critical aspects of the OoL relate to each other (internal horizon of fusion) and the other how the OoL as a whole relates to its environment (external horizon of fusion). In order to deepen knowledge of the OoL, learning needs to expand from the internal horizon of fusion to relate to the external horizon of fusion. In this analysis based on variation theory (compare Asplund and Kilbrink 2018), we focus on the critical aspects of the OoL that emerge in interaction and the patterns of variation that are used. We call this Variation Theory Analysis (VTA).

This article is also based on an understanding of teaching and learning as constituted in interaction, and we use the methodological tools provided by conversation analysis in order to analyse and describe how aspects of teaching and learning take shape through the participants’ orientations in the situated activity of learning how to weld.

Conversation analysis (henceforth CA) deals with the methodical ways in which action is constituted through participants’ simultaneous use of different semiotic resources in face-to-face interaction (Hutchby and Wooffitt 2008; Schegloff 2007). A fundamental principle in CA is that both meaning and understanding are “established, sustained and changed in and through the coordinated interaction of people” (Sahlström 2009, p. 103) and the interaction between people and artefacts in specific social and cultural contexts (Drew and Heritage 2006; Goodwin 2000; Schegloff 2007).

In contemporary CA, using and analysing video recordings provide important ways of investigating how conversation participants carry out courses of collaborative actions and how they show their interpretation and understanding of each other’s actions (Goodwin 2000; Hutchby and Wooffitt 2008; Schegloff 1996, 2006).

In identifying which actions the participants themselves orient to as relevant at a specific moments in the interaction, and to show this in a convincing way to other researchers, CA research has developed a method that is referred to as a “proof procedure” (cf. Heath 1997, p. 187; Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson 1974, pp. 728-729), by taking the viewpoint of the participants. The way in which previous turns and actions have been interpreted becomes visible when analysing how participants show their understanding of previous turns and actions in the way the next action is accomplished. Thus, the method involves the use of the participants’ demonstrated understanding of each other’s actions and thereby provides material for analytic explication. In doing this, video recordings are transcribed in great detail according to specific conventions (e.g. Hutchby and Wooffitt 2008; Ochs et al. 1996).

In the methodical organisation of turn-taking and sequences, not only talk but also other semiotic resources such as gazes, gestures, body movements and physical objects are seen as constitutive of and integral to the ongoing interaction. Thus, in this article the relationship between talk and embodied practices is viewed as processes that mutually contextualise one another, providing public resources for the teacher and the student to organise relevant actions which, in concert with each other, contribute to the ongoing situated activity of welding (Asplund 2016; Asplund and Kilbrink 2018; Goodwin 2000, 2006; Streeck, Goodwin and LeBaron 2011). The use of detailed representations of the interaction that has been developed within CA is in this article presented in the form of detailed transcriptions of spoken data (see transcript notations in Table 1 below for transcription conventions), as well as still images of visual phenomena in the interaction between the teacher and the student.

When Robin has welded for a while, the teacher makes Robin aware that “it” will be hot and that he should rest for a while from the welding process (line 1). In this sequence, heat emerges as a critical aspect of welding in the interaction, by being singled out from other critical aspects using separation as pattern of variation. The teacher follows up his request with a rhetorical question (“Do you know what is strange, Robin?”) which leads to a situation in which the teacher again is given the epistemic authority (Heritage and Raymond 2005)—he is positioning himself as the more knowledgeable other who can demonstrate his skills by instructing the student how to weld. In this section he is not doing it as a role model, by showing all critical aspects by fusion, but instead he emphasises different critical aspects one by one, using separation. In the turns that follow, it is the welding nozzle’s distance to the material being welded that the teacher and the student orient towards, and, according to the teacher’s action, it is also made clear that the distance to the plate that they orient to, follows a”different” logic and therefore also demands a “different” way of thinking.

In lines 4 and 6 the teacher informs the student that if he holds the welding nozzle “too high” during the act of welding, it then “gets too hot”. Here the heat is highlighted as a critical aspect by separation. This critical aspect is emphasised as a consequence of the distance of the welding flame to the plate, which emerges as a further critical aspect. If he would then “push the nozzle down then it gets cooler” (line 7). The teacher then follows up this statement in line 10 with the suggestion that “You have to fool the brain a little”. Hence, the values that the critical aspect distance to the plate can gain are: too high, too low and something in-between that is correct, but it is not explicitly made clear what it is. The pattern of variation that appears in relation to the distance to the plate could be seen as contrasting an expected experience that the teacher highlights in line 1 (“Do you know what is strange?”), in line 9 (“You have to fool the brain a little”) and in line 11–12 (“when it gets hot then you want to pull away, don’t you?”). Hence, the contrast is not made into something that is happening in the actual situation, but is something that the teacher expects the student to experience. Thus, this pattern of variation requires the student to be simultaneously aware of what happens here and now, and is also something that the teacher expects him to know already.

Robin’s reaction in line 10 (a somewhat cautious “oka:y”) is an expression of displayed attention but also a readiness to listen further. Robin’s somewhat cautious response is followed up by the teacher who continues his efforts to explain how to think when one is welding. He begins this in lines 11–12, where he positions Robin as someone who “knows” that when “it gets hot, you want to pull away”. Hence, what the teacher is doing in the example is to start from what one could say is a completely normal and natural reaction: if you are confronted with a situation during which something gets too hot, the normal reaction would be to retract from the heat you are exposed to. In this specific situation, which the teacher and the student are oriented to, this means that if/when the temperature gets too high at the welding point during the welding act, the normal/natural reaction is to remove the welding nozzle and its flame from the material. The teacher makes the student aware that both he and the student already “know” this. Also, the teacher uses the expression “don’t you?” when saying that “when it gets hot then you want to pull away, don’t you?”, which is our translation of the Swedish epistemic adverb ju that underlines that what is being said is something known by the other present participants (Aijmer 1996, p. 421). Thus, the teacher’s utterance is affirmed by Robin in the following turn. Then, the teacher shifts his reasoning when saying, “But when you pull away a li:ttle bit then it gets even hotter”. Robin affirms this with a more distinct “okay” than he did before (line 15) and in connection with this, the teacher asks him to “try again” (line 16). The teacher’s expression “try again, then we’ll see” encourages the student to continue welding. In the act of welding, the previously separated critical aspects are now included at the same time by the variation pattern fusion.

When Robin starts welding again, the teacher leans forward towards the welding place (Picture A). Soon after this, the teacher tells the student to “angle it more” (line 18) and the angle emerges as a critical aspect. In relation to this recommendation, the teacher grabs the student’s arm (see Picture B) and moves it into a different position than what the student has chosen himself, which could be interpreted as supplementing his verbal instructions. The teacher uses contrast as a pattern of variation when he compares how the actual act should be performed (both verbally, by saying “angle it more”, and physically, by helping the student find the correct value of the angle with his hands). As soon as the teacher has done this he asks the student to “Angle it like tha:t” (line 20), and when the teacher says “that’s right” (lines 20–21), he seems to be satisfied with the result, and the critical aspect angle has been ascribed its right value.

In line 26, Robin asks the teacher if the resulting weld does not get “very very thin” and thereby shows that he seeks confirmation that he understood, which the teacher gives. However, the teacher’s response on line 27 (“it doesn’t matter”) indicates that this is not something the student needs to focus on. The student contrasts the thickness of the weld to a showed expectation that the weld should have been thicker. However, the teacher does not follow up this line. Hence, the thickness is dismissed as a critical aspect in this situation. Instead, a longer sequence follows in lines 29–35 during which the teacher actively tells Robin how to weld. Here, again, heat emerges as a critical aspect. The teacher emphasises this critical aspect by contrasting what is done to how it should be done. First, he tells Robin that he “need(s) to heat more back first”, at the same time as he clarifies this by pulling his right arm backwards (Picture C), and then to “go forward” and “cut towards […] with the flame”. In line 29 the teacher confirms the student’s welding by saying “like that yes” which implies that Robin does it right and that the critical aspect has adopted the right value in Robins welding act. Thereafter, a sequence of activities follows, which all culminates in the superior critical aspect angle. The teacher first asks Robin to “turn around” and to “(a)ngle it more” (uses contrasting to the actual act). During this whole sequence, the teacher is also actively giving positive feedback on Robin’s actions, and in line 33 he says that if Robin finds it hard to “paddle around” then he can just “poke in it so that it might attach in the middle for you or it get less attached then”. Here the teacher gives two alternatives, which both produce the right result. These alternatives are related to what is easier and harder to do. The sequence ends with the teacher praising Robin for letting welding take time “(b)ecause it takes time to weld” (line 35). Here time is emphasised as a critical aspect of welding. The teacher’s feedback indicates that it already has the right value, so no pattern of variation is used. This whole sequence shows when the superior critical aspect—the angle—adopts the right value, other critical aspects (heat and time) come into the foreground.

Later, during the same session in the school workshop, Robin and his teacher are involved in a new teaching situation. This time the task is to weld together two short steel pipes (Situation 2). Before the next excerpt starts, the teacher has demonstrated welding while the student was watching.

As soon as the teacher (T) has finished welding and pushed up his protective goggles, Robin (S) turns to him and asks a question:

Also in this example, we can see that the teacher and the student orient themselves to the situation as a teaching situation. Already before the first turn the teacher positions himself as the one who knows how to weld by instructing how to weld, while the student stands to the side watching. All critical aspects emerge together through fusion and the teacher acts as a “role model” in demonstrating the entire act of welding. As soon as the teacher stops his instruction, the student approaches the teacher on line 1 and makes a statement—here formulated as a question—that the teacher “add[s] the flame rather early” when he “spots”. The student orients himself to finding out whether when you add the flame is a critical aspect. He notices that the flame is added early in this case. No pattern of variation is used and it is not visible from the interaction whether this is a critical aspect. However, it is clear that it is not a foregrounded critical aspect of the specific teaching situation, since the teacher does not elaborate on this interactional content. Instead, the teacher focuses on the angle as the general critical aspect throughout the example. Given the teacher’s questioning response in line 2, the student repeats his question, upon which the teacher is positioned from lines 5–24 as the one with epistemic authority and who knows how to weld, by telling the student how to weld the two pipes together, while the student is positioned as the less skilled one who is learning.

The interesting thing about this example—and what distinguishes it from situation 1—is that the teacher during his instruction refers to the earlier welding act and what was done then and puts it in relation to what is going to be done here and now. Hence, the teacher compares the two teaching situations to each other, by emphasising their similarities and differences. The comparison concerns the welded objects (a plate and a pipe) and how the angle and the movement of the tool are influenced by the task. When the teacher answers—in lines 5–6 and 8—he directly points out that the welding to be done now (“when you weld on a pipe”) differs from the welding that was done before (”Before, you welded on a plate”). The shape of the material emerges as a critical aspect by the pattern of variation contrast, through which a pipe is compared to a metal plate. In these turns, the teacher emphasises the word “pipe” and uses the utterance “you know” (ju in Swedish) which in this specific case is used to seek for agreement (Aijmer 1996; Melander 2012) from the student (it underlines that the hearer already knows what is claimed).

The student also affirms the teacher’s turns (lines 7 and 9) and in lines 10–14 the teacher then develops his instruction by focusing on the angle that should be “same” (as before) (the angle appears as a critical aspect and the pattern of variation used is generalisation: the teacher compares the previous welding angle to the current welding angle and states that it will be the same), but since “the pipe is turning” (note how he again uses “don’t you”), one must also follow with the “right angle”. Here, the critical aspect of the material is further clarified, in that it is evident that it is the shape of the material that is in focus when the previous situation is compared with the current one through the variation pattern contrasting—and it is also made explicit that the angle is the angle in relation to the rounded material—here is not the angle in relation to the heat or the body, as in the examples above, but in relation to the objects being welded together. The fact that the pipe is turning is not only something that the teacher emphasises by saying this, he also reinforces this by first making a turning, circular movement with his left hand (see Picture D-E), after which he says he “he has to follow” while he simultaneously makes a circular movement from left to right with his whole body. Here, the teacher repeats, with variation, the circular movement and again we have an example of an activity that is constituted not only by speech, but also by embodied semiotic resources, and their integrated use in interaction (see, for example, Goodwin 2000). The shape of the pipe emerges as a critical aspect that has an impact on the movement. How the movement follows the shape is made explicit through generalisation, in that the teacher shows this with the movement of his hand and body.

As the teacher here refers to the previous lesson when they were welding on a plate, the welding that was executed then, and the specific content that was oriented to, are re-actualised. This is thus an action and content that the teacher and the student are familiar with—something that is also made relevant in the example. In line 16, the teacher asks the student if he “follow[s]” and thus shows that he wants to know if the student has understood, and although the student responds affirmatively, the teacher continues his instruction in the next turn.

Here, the teacher approaches the pipes that should be welded with his body (Picture F-G) by showing the student how he should weld by again orienting to the angle that still should be “in the angle and then you follow and then you have to change the angle: o:f the nozzle as well”. The angle is, again (as in the example above), the critical aspect that is in focus. The movement that must follow the shape of the pipe in order to keep the angle constant is however made explicit. Thus, a hierarchy between the critical aspects emerges and the example shows how the different critical aspects co-operate and contextualise each other in the act of welding. In line 24 the teacher says that he can show the student how the welding should be done whereby he takes position and begins to weld.

In the example, the teacher positions himself towards a selection of transient contiguous content and thus orients towards longitudinality. Longitudinal orientation—in this case taking the form of relating to what has been done previously, and how it shall be done—is also one of the resources used by participants to construct an activity such as “teaching” and “learning” (Martin and Sahlström 2010; Slotte-Lüttge, Pörn and Sahlström 2013).

Our last excerpt also refers to the second situation (welding together two pipes). At the start of the excerpt, the student has been welding for a while under the teacher’s supervision when the teacher suddenly asks the student to stop welding for a moment:

After the teacher has asked the student to stop welding for a moment, the teacher asked him if he knows “why it gets harder now”. Here the whole situation 2 is contrasted to situation 1 (fusion), where the student is given the task of separating the critical aspect/s which makes the second situation harder than the first. The question indicates that the teacher has discerned that the student has some difficulties welding, which also is confirmed by the student who answers the question (an answer which is hard to interpret since the pupil talks rather quietly, which can indicate insecurity) at the same time as he makes a swinging movement with one of his hands. The pipe and its turning shape are separated by the student (line 4) as the critical aspects that mark the second situation (situation 2) in relation to situation 1. Furthermore, the question implies an explicit orientation to knowing something, and therefore also a shift to a teaching situation where the teacher is the one teaching and the student the one who is taught.

First, the teacher dismisses the student’s answer on line 6 (possibly he did not expect a “correct” answer?) but he immediately corrects himself (“yes exactly”). Thereafter he again orients himself towards “the angle” that they “talked about” earlier (line 9). Again, the angle is highlighted as a critical aspect by the teacher and again he uses generalisation as a pattern of variation when he relates to something they have talked about earlier, emphasising what the angle should be like. This is another example of a longitudinal orientation that the teacher again raises as a topic of conversation (cf. example Slotte-Lüttge et al. 2013). In lines 11–14 the earlier instruction is again made the topic when the teacher bends the welding rod to illustrate the position the nozzle is supposed to be in in relation to the objects that are to be welded. The teacher separates the critical aspect the angle and uses generalisation as pattern of variation when using another material to demonstrate the angle of the nozzle (see Picture H-I). In relation to this, the teacher says “Now you were you had it straight down like you have to meet up (.) more li:ke that” in lines 13–14. The student recognises this in his next turn. Here, the teacher contrasts the actual act to how it should have been done. Hence, we have an example of a longitudinal orientation to an act and content in which semiotic resources are integrated and synchronised (speech, body and artefact).