Abstract:

The emergence of online classes began approximately a dozen years ago, peaked during the COVID-19 pandemic, and continues to enjoy widespread popularity today. This paper aims to explore teachers' interactional competence (IC) in synchronous online classes. Employing Conversation Analysis (CA), it compares and analyzes the conversations and interactions between two Philippine K-12 teachers and their students in an online setting.

This paper uncovers several key findings:
1) The lead-in phase is critical in online environments. Positive greetings, adequate preliminaries, clear interaction rules, engaging activities, and sufficient wait time can significantly enhance interactional dynamics.
2) To prevent online classes from devolving into teacher monologues, it is essential that teachers provide students with more opportunities to speak.
3) The utilization of online technology tools and platforms such as Zoom Whiteboard, Avatar Classroom, Google Slides, and Nearpod can greatly augment interactional efficacy.

This paper offers fresh insights into interactional competence within the context of online teaching. It holds innovative and practical value for teacher training programs, which often concentrate on linguistic competence and traditional, face-to-face classroom settings.

Keywords:

Synchronous online classes, Interactional Competence, Conversation Analysis.