| The study shed some lights on the roles of sociocognitive affordances in EFL classroom interaction which enlightens the involvement of cognition, body and classroom ecology to make meaning. This study works under the framework of Sociocognition proposed by Atkinson et al. (2007). This model is not to neglect the social factors that assist participants to interact. This study focuses on the roles of sociocognitive affordances in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom interaction. This study centres on classroom interaction in which the participants employ the sociocognitive affordances as tools to assist the language learning and teaching to result the meaningful classroom interaction. Atkinson et al., (2002) argue that L2 development happens by involving the mind, body and classroom ecology. To achieve it, the concept of alignment is introduced by this framework as the means by which coordinated interaction is affected and maintained by the interlocutors involved in. The alignment is the sociocognitive affordances which play the roles as the assistance for the participants in meaning making practices in classroom interaction. The sociocognitive affordances comprise of (a) associated tools; (b) individual and their multiple roles and identities such as interlocutors, peers, friends, experts, teachers and family members; (c) socially defined purposes, situations, identities, participants structures (politeness, phatic, communication, instruction, speech acts, genres, lesson, work situations, service encounters, and tutoring sessions); (d) historical trajectories like personal relationship, cross-cultural experiences, individuals’ histories and tutoring session; (e) Sociocognitive sytems and processes like memory of action, connectionist networks (Atkinson, 2007). Accordingly, the interaction is visible process that involve the affordances in interaction which are gaze, gestures, facial expressions, body positioning, physical objects and artefacts, theory of mind and knowledge, interaction skills, natural pedagogy, activity framework, and language. The participants involved in this study are five senior teachers who work in 4 universities in Jakarta. The teachers teach speaking classes and learners attending their classes. The data are classroom interaction which is collected by pre-observation interview, classroom observation and post-stimulated recall interview. This study reveals that the alignment works together with the cognition, body and classroom environment to assist the participants to make meaning in classroom interaction. It is found the employment of sociocognitive affordances in pre-teaching and while teaching stages is to assist the participants to convey meaning and comprehend it. In the last stage of teaching, the sociocognitive affordances assist the participants to play the roles as the interlocutors. The interaction is natural since they are in symmetrical relationship and have equal rights in participating. The natural function as the goals is achieved. In this stage, the participants need to possess the pragmatic competence to establish rapport and maintain the relationship. In this study, the participants employ all the sociocognitive affordances in different stages. In pre-teaching and while teaching stages, the associated tools are employed mostly since the teachers use these affordances to elaborate the lesson, elicit learners’ background knowledge, ask questions, explain the unfamiliar vocabulary using L1 and metalanguage, and provide corrective feedback. The others are employed in last stage. The employment of sociocognitive affordances is based on the wants and the needs of the participants, stages in classroom instruction, and topic and activities orientation. |