Amanda Hoskins

PhD student

I study EFL students' task-based interactions and how these are affected by the design of speaking tasks

Designing and accomplishing interactive speaking tasks in the EFL Classroom

My dissertation addresses the pedagogical practice-based issue of parallel interactions, i.e. monologues or interview-like structures such as question-response sequences often found in students’ accomplishment of oral tasks. Findings show that task design affects the students' interaction, creating affordances for collaborative interaction and the development of interactional competence.

I am interested in how the design of speaking tasks affects EFL students' interaction during task accomplishment. More specifically, my research focuses on the social actions generated by the tasks and how different variables of task design affect the ongoing interaction. Central to my research focus is the role of material objects used in the speaking tasks, for example, instruction cards, cut-out pictures and various physical objects. My data show that these material objects are used by the students as a resource for task-based interaction.

The data collection comprises video recordings of dyadic task-based interactions between students of English 5 (upper secondary school) analysed through multimodal conversation analysis.

Publications

2025

Silvia Kunitz, Jessica Berggren, Karina Pålsson Gröndahl, Malin Haglind, Amanda Hoskins, Anna Löfquist, Hanna Robertson (2025)

Practicing interactional competence: It all starts with task design Alla språk i skolan: Språkundervisning i nordisk kontext, p. 37-56 (Chapter in book)

Amanda Hoskins, Paul Resch, Kenna Sim-Sarka, Hossam Sultan, Nils Vallberg (2025)

Editorial: Open Issue Confero: Essays on education, philosophy and politics, Vol. 10, p. i-iii (Article in journal)

https://dx.doi.org/10.3384/confero.6388

2024

Amanda Hoskins (2024)

The tangible nature of pedagogical materials in L2 speaking tasks: Embodied orientations to pictures and objects In S. Kunitz & A.R. Majlesi (Chairs), The materiality of situated learning: On objects and their use in language learning, teaching and testing contexts [panel presentation]. (Conference paper)

2023

Amanda Hoskins, Silvia Kunitz (2023)

The affordances of visual ambiguity in L2 classroom tasks for promoting collaborative interaction (Conference paper)

Silvia Kunitz, Amanda Hoskins (2023)

Doing the task right: Embodied orientation to task instructions in the EFL classroom (Conference paper)

CV

Academic Background

I have a degree of Master of Arts in Education (upper secondary school) from Linköping Universitet (2015), English and Spanish. I have also studied Linguistics and Language Pedagogy (MA) at Stockholm University.

I have worked as a qualified teacher since 2014.

I participated in the research project From Monologues to Dialogues as part of Stockholm Teaching and Learning Studies (STLS) between 2019 and 2022. I worked as a project assistant at Karlstad University in 2021. It was a pilot project on storytelling and assessment in High-Stake Tests.

Teaching

I teach English in courses offered by the English Department, IKOS.

Other Commitments

Editor, CONFERO

Member of the publication group, English Education Scholars Sweden (EESS)

Board of PhD Studies of the Faculty of Arts (PhD representative)

From monologues to dialogues

Research Environment

Le mur des je t'aime. Place des Abbesses, Paris. By Britchi Mirela [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], from Wikimedia Commons.

The Language and Culture research environment

The Language and Culture research environment is a meeting place for linguistic and literary research in a cultural context.

The conversation and interaction seminar

The Conversation and Interaction Seminar (SIS) is a working forum for conversation researchers and concentrates its activities on data sessions and presentations of ongoing analytical work.

Supervisors

Nigel John Musk

Senior Associate Professor

Silvia Kunitz

Associate Professor

Michael Smith

Associate Professor

Organisation

Department of Culture and Society (IKOS)

At the Department of Culture and Society (IKOS), social sciences and the humanities gather in environments where research and education work together.

Division of Language, Culture and Interaction (SKI)

The department includes professional languages, English as well as research and teaching in the field of interaction studies.

Faculty of Educational Sciences (UV)

Linköping University provides a comprehensive teacher education and offers postgraduate training, as well as opportunities for research.