Socio-cognitive alignment and the eco-social environment: The case of an EFL pre-service-teacher and his beginner learners

Abstract Since the mid-1990s, the field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) has taken a social turn which acknowledges the role that social interaction plays in second language (L2) learning. Since then, extensive scholarship has used a multimodal perspective as well as alternative SLA approaches to explore L2 through classroom interaction. Even though multimodal grounded studies have analyzed fine-grained learning processes and conceive interaction as the driving force for learning, most of them have analyzed one single mode of interaction, thus, running short to integratively explore L2 classroom interaction. We draw from Socio-Cognitive Theory (SCG) to describe the trajectory in which an EFL pre-service teacher positioned an English only policy in the L2 classroom and how he and his beginning learners progressively aligned to it. SCG is an ecological L2 approach that conceives learning as the process through which humans adapt and align their minds and bodies to the eco-social world. Multimodal microanalysis of video and audio recorded segments serve to identify the diverse human and non-human semiotic modes, affordances, and natural pedagogy tools used to create and afford learning opportunities in this English lesson. Findings revealed how the “coordinated interaction” co-constructed in the lesson facilitated students’ alignment in this ecological environment, thus, contributing to the understanding of instructions, the identification of lexical items, and language production. We also discuss the implications of these trajectories for limiting students’ critical engagement in social issues related to equity and diversity.


PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENT
This paper describes in detail how the body posture, body movements, hand and face gesturing of an English as a second language teacher and his learners facilitate learners' comprehension of instructions, engagement in classroom activities, and participation in oral interaction activities in the second language.Thus, the findings from the study support current research positing that learning occurs not only inside the mind, but through the coordination of our mind, body, and the environment.Implications of the study are important for expanding conceptualizations of learning, how it occurs and how it can be facilitated.Such understanding is important for designing teacher training, language policy, and classroom instruction that allow learners to benefit from the embodied practices valued in their communities.

Introduction
Since the mid-1990s, the field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) has taken a social turn which acknowledges the role that social interaction plays in L2 learning.Ellis (2015) explains that "learning is no longer seen as essentially an individual, cognitive affair but as a participatory and social affair " (p. 229).Extensive scholarship has aligned to the social turn, thus exploring how L2 learning occurs in classroom interactions through multimodal and alternative SLA approaches.These approaches view an intricate relation between interaction and learning.
Using a Conversation Analytic (CA, Kasper, 2009;Kasper & Wagner, 2011) SLA approach, scholars have explored how learning occurs in classroom interactions through turn taking (Garton, 2012), initiation, response, feedback (IRF) routines (Lee, 2007;Waring, 2008Waring, , 2009) ) and self-repair exchanges (Hellermann, 2009).More recent CA research has used a multimodal perspective to describe the affordances that non-verbal resources (e.g., gaze, body posture, gesture) play in turn allocation, as well as the way learners' attention and task planning occur through mutual gaze, face expressions, and head shakes (Kääntä, 2014;Markee & Kunitz, 2013;Park, 2017).Notwithstanding CA-based research has explained how the creation of routines through turn taking generate learning, these studies still privilege talk over other modes of interaction and, in some cases, devalue the role of cognition in L2 learning.
To contribute an ecological perspective to explore social interaction and learning, we draw from Socio-cognitive theory (SCG) to describe the trajectory in which an EFL pre-service teacher positioned an English only policy in the L2 classroom and how he and his beginning English language learners progressively aligned to it.
Socio-cognitive theory posits a view of SLA that interrelates the body-mind and the world, a process in which learning is neither social, nor cognitive, but both together (Atkinson, 2010;Atkinson et al., 2007).Rather than conceiving learning as a process of internalization, SCG views learning as the default process of continually aligning oneself with one's socio-cognitive environment.Alignment, the main characteristic of SCG, requires adaptation and coordination with the socio-cognitive world that involves human and non-human participants.Even though SCG and the concept of alignment have been explored in one-on-one interactions (See for example, Arrubla et al., 2019;Atkinson et al., 2007Atkinson et al., , 2018;;Amador & Adams, 2013), little is known about the way alignment provides opportunities for learning in classroom settings.This study contributes to existing SCG and social interaction research exploring how a novice language teacher and a group of sixth graders align and adapt to a L2 space using all sorts of human, non-human semiotic resources, and affordances that the socio-cognitive environment offers.

Sociocognitive theory
SCG is a non-cognitivist SLA theory which posits that learning occurs through the continuous interaction and alignment between the mind, body and the world (Atkinson et al., 2007).Learning, in this sense, is conceived as a flexible dynamic process that occurs in classrooms or academic environments as we live, experience, and interact with the environment.As Ribiero et al. (2021) explain that in school settings, learning is produced through multimodal, multidirectional interactions and it is distributed across teachers and learners.SCG entails four main concepts: alignment, multimodality, natural pedagogy, and intercorporeality which we describe below.

Alignment
Alignment requires coordinated interaction that occurs while subjects adapt, survive, and prosper into their eco-social environment (Atkinson et al., 2007)."In face-to-face interaction, participants organize their bodies in concert with each other to share a visual, cognitive attention" (Goodwin, 2007, p.69).They build joint actions together that contribute to relevant structures in the environment by combining language, consequential structures, and gestures that are the focus of the participants´ attention during interaction activities (Goodwin, 2007).From a SCG perspective, alignment in L2 learning occurs through the presence and co-occurrence of diverse embodied tools (e.g., gaze, posture, visual aids), affordances (e.g., books, the board, notebooks) processes (e. g., conversations, interaction), and actors (tutors, teachers, students).

Multimodality
Multimodality is an eclectic approach (Jewitt, 2008) to meaning making.In a multimodal approach, meanings are made through the combination of different modes (e.g., image, action, music) or sets of semiotic resources (Jewitt, 2008).Such semiotic resources used among human beings include embodied tools like physical orientation, eye gaze, and gesture; verbal tools like intonation and associated tools like books, pens, markers which generate meaning making and opportunities for learning.Not unlike theories of multimodality, SCG posits that all social interaction is multimodal (Kress and van Leeuwen (2001).When interacting, humans use verbal communication in synchrony with myriad semiotic resources to mean and align their mind and body to the world (McNeill, 2005).
Multimodal classroom interaction research has shown the affordances that non-verbocentric microanalysis adds to the understanding of second language learning and teaching.For instance, Smotrova (2017), following CA, described how the use and imitation of gestures created opportunities for pronunciation learning in a beginner-level reading class in an intensive English program.Park (2017) explained that embodied tools such as proxemics and hand gesturing facilitate turn pauses, respect of turn, and turn allocation, all of which facilitate classroom communication and language learning.He also warned that teachers' lack of attention to these embodied tools (e.g., hand raising, head shaking) may obstruct communication and language learning.Drawing from SCG, Atkinson et al. (2007) described how Ako, an English learner, and Yuko, Ako`s Aunt, used embodied tools (e.g., mutual gaze, joint attention, body posture) to practice the "have you ever been" structure and gain language growth.

Natural pedagogy (NP)
Natural pedagogy (NP) posits that all humans are born with lifelong skills to teach, learn and adapt to different situations given to all the surviving skills transmitted culturally (e.g., human faces, eye contact, gaze, infant-directed speech, Atkinson & Shvidko, 2019).For example, Hewlett and Roulette (2016) described all the teaching and learning moments observed in hunter-gatherer communities; caregivers point at objects to cue their children to learn specific skills and provide positive or negative feedback when evaluating children's performance.Within this ecology, children express willingness to perform the tasks on their own, imitating the tasks they observe in the community and responding to the given feedback by parents or older children.This study contributed an example of a collaborative teaching and learning environment, which may support the claim that humans possess innate skills that allow them to adapt and prosper within their ecosocial environment.Atkinson and Shvidko (2019) also described how NP is realized in L2 learning by describing the array of NP tools (e.g., eye gazing, embodied action, mutual attention) that an Indian teacher and her primary school learners used to generate learning opportunities in an L2 lesson.As Atkinson et al. (2018) claim, NP is behavioral and occurs in "real space, by real people, in real time" (p.14).
In this sense, semiotic resources such as embodied and linguistic tools, activity structuring, and framing elements-used in interpersonal interaction-make NP available for learning and teaching.

Intercorporeality
Intercorporeality relates to the corporeal relations with other bodies as a result of our coexistence with the living world.Meyer et al. (2017) argue that human beings are predisposed to social interactions and intercorporeal relations from birth since infants are already able to perceive the emotions and intentions in the actions of others through posture, gestures, and facial expressions.Ribiero et al. (2021) explained how a group of L2 learners evinced an intercorporeal ethos (Goffman, 1963, p. 25) in a class by not only attending visually and cognitively but with their whole bodies.During the interaction, the teacher and students maintained mutual gaze and visual attention while rotating and aligning their bodies with the actions occurring in the interaction.
Recent scholarship has used an SCG approach to explain how second language and teaching evolve.For instance, research has supported how alignment, NP tools and intercorporeality converge to create learning opportunities.However, SLA scholars (Atkinson et al., 2007;Ellis, 2015) have expressed that SCG classroom-oriented research is still in its infancy, thus underscoring the need for studies that exemplify how learning occurs within an SCG perspective.Therefore, this case study adds to existing SCG research by exploring the language opportunities that emerge while a teacher and his students align with an L2 environment.

Methodology
This case study research aimed at identifying the learning opportunities generated in an English lesson through the analysis of the diverse human and non-human semiotic resources, affordances, and natural pedagogy tools that co-occur in an EFL classroom.Case study research allows to delve into the classroom interaction and gain an in-depth understanding of the case under study (Yin, 2014).The study is anchored in two main research questions: (1).Which semiotic resources converge during alignment moments in an EFL lesson?And (2).Which learning opportunities are generated through alignment in an EFL lesson?

Context and participants
This study analyzes a classroom interaction taught by Brando (pseudonym), a pre-service teacher in a public school in Cordoba, Colombia.By the time of the study, Brando was doing his teaching practicum, a requirement for graduation of the BA language teaching program he was enrolled in.Brando believes that public school learners in Cordoba have limited opportunities to practice the L2 (English, in this case) in the school.Therefore, teachers should use English as the main source of language instruction.Brando's actual teaching mirrored this account since he used the L2 as the main source of instruction to teach his students.Brando's students were sixth graders who had not been offered English lessons in primary school and were not familiar with L2 instruction.The class met weekly for two hours.

Data sources
This study analyzed data from a one hour and a half lesson video recorded by one of the coauthors.In the video, Brando and his 40 sixth graders participated in a lesson in which the focus was the description and identification of the members of the family.The lesson was divided into four main sections 1) familiarizing with family members, 2) identifying family members, 3) describing the students' families and, 4) monitoring two activities on the description of each students' family.The one hour and a half video served to explore the semiotic resources both the teacher and students used to align with this L2 environment and afford learning opportunities.Data sources also involved an interview with Brando to explore his view of teaching and his teaching practices.

Data analysis
We engaged in a collective iterative viewing process that involved the following steps: 1. Watching the video several times to identify segments where the convergence of semiotic tools and alignment were more noticeable.2.Watching the segments iteratively to select moments that responded to the unit of analysis.3. Using microanalysis (Erickson, 1992) for transcribing the data at a level of granularity (Kasper & Wagner, 2011, see Table 1 for transcription conventions), thus, including multimodal elements in the forms of comments and screen captures of each moment.4. Viewing the videos at slow-motion speed to capture the granularity of the interaction, identifying the convergence of proxemics, face and body gestures, body posture, gazing, and intonation. 5. Peer-reviewing the transcripts to have a detailed version of each transcription.This collaborative process allowed us to analyze the data, observing how alignment took place in these specific moments and all the elements involved in the learning opportunities created in the lesson.

Findings
Analysis of teacher and students' interactions reveal that an array of semiotic resources such as gesture, proxemics, and prosody converged in this lesson, thus, generating opportunities for understanding instructions, learning vocabulary, and responding to questions.Through the following three episodes, we describe how a pre-service teacher and his students (all students' names are pseudonyms) studied a lesson about families through whole class interaction, one-on-one interaction, and small group interaction.

Whole class interaction: introducing the lesson
The teacher started the class stating the lesson objectives and describing the activities to complete during the English lesson.While students gazed at the teacher and listened to his L2 talk, some of them manifested that they did not understand the teachers' L2 talk (e.g., ¿què dice profe?, [what did you say teacher?];No entiendo, profe, no entiendo, [I do not understand, teacher, I do not understand, teacher]).The teacher continued to introduce families as the theme of the lesson.He used a set of pictures about families from popular TV shows such as The Simpsons and The Fairly Odd parents to which he constantly pointed at while questioning students "do you know this family?"Besides pointing, the teacher also smiled, gazed, and moved between students.Students responded to teachers' questions by providing new information such as Flanders, Dinkleberg, the Simpsons.The teacher confirmed students' answers and moved between aisles, a practice that is popular to maintain or monitor students' attention (Picture B in Figure 1).
The teacher continued the interaction by adding a level of difficulty.He no longer pointed at the families but orally described them for students to be able to guess which family it was.While giving these instructions, some students gazed at the teacher and others at the board.The teacher continued describing the family (Transcript 1), which he coupled with body gestures, such as raising two fingers from his left hand while mentioning the number of family members (Figure 2) and rising intonation while calling each family member (lines 2,3).
Then, the teacher asked students to identify the family that had been described (what family is that) while pointing at the board (Figure 3).Whereas most students in the front maintained gaze at the board-except student 5-, students in the back rotated their bodies to follow the teacher's movement and, in the case of students 1, 2, 3, and 4 maintained their gaze at the teacher (Picture A in Figure 4).Interestingly, S1 rhythmically followed the teacher's body movement, rotating his head (Figure 3) while correctly answering the question (line 6) as his partners.For assessment purposes, the teacher first restated the question (is this?), raising his intonation and pointing to the wrong picture (line 8).S1 replied no, lengthening the phoneme to confirm his response.Then, the teacher touched the right picture Transcript 1. Describing families for students to guess The teacher continued to describe the mono-parental family while moving to the back of the classroom (Picture A in Figure 4), pointing at the board (Picture B in Figure 4), raising his index fingers when mentioning the number of family members (Lines 16, 17; Picture C and D in Figure 4).
The students followed the teachers' gesturing and proxemics, some by gazing at the board which the teacher had pointed at, and others by gazing at the teacher, following his movements (Ss 1, 2, 3, 4 in Figure 4).Students, once more, correctly answered the teacher's question, identifying it as the Flanders family (lines 22, 23, 24).Students 1 and 2 pointed at the pictures in synchrony with the teacher (Figure 5).Two intriguing aspects of this interaction are the teachers' constant movements and gesturing while talking in English to this group of students who are not accustomed to L2 instruction.It seems that the convergence of the semiotic resources may have allowed this group of students to understand the teachers' family description in English, as supported by the students' choral and correct responses to the teachers question about the families.Besides alignment between the teacher's question and students' answer, we also observed alignment between the teacher and the whole class.For example, S1 and S2 frequently followed teacher's hand gesturing, nonidentified students were gazing at the board while the teacher pointed at it.For us, it was interesting to observe the teacher's effective instructions at this point of the class, especially since it was his first lesson with this group of students.In the following episode, we describe the teachers' continuous use of semiotic resources to monitor learning tasks and provide instructions.

One-on-one Interaction: semiotic resources during task monitoring
In this episode, the teacher had asked students to first draw their families on their notebooks and then write a short description of their families.While students were completing the tasks, the teacher monitored students' work and helped them as needed.This interaction (Transcript 3) illustrates the time in which Lisa asked the teacher for instructions to complete the task.
When the teacher came close to the students at the back of the classroom, Lisa called the teacher, saying the word Profe (Teacher) while standing up and gesturing to gain the teacher's attention.After the teacher provided attention to Lisa by rotating his body and gazing at her, Lisa asked the teacher to confirm her understanding of the task in progress "yo tuve que dibujar una mamà, un papá" [I had to draw a mom, a dad] while gesturing with her fingers.While the teacher pointed to the description example written on the board (Picture A in Figure 6), Lisa shifted to the L2 to mention the members of the family "un mother, un brother" while counting with her fingers (Picture B in Figure 6).The teacher nodded and smiled at the student while still pointing to the board.Next, the teacher continued to describe the following step of the task: "Now: you are going to write a description" while still pointing to the written example on the board.The student manifested her understanding of the instruction by saying "hay que dibujarse uno mismo [we have to draw ourselves] while touching her chest (Picture C in Figure 6).The teacher immediately pointed to the student with his index finger and nodded his head confirming the student's response (Picture C in Figure 6).The teacher reaffirmed his answer saying "about you.(.2) yeah!" "About your family" stressing the words "you" and "your" to aid the student's understanding of the task instruction.This brief interaction reveals the interplay of semiotic resources during task monitoring.The teacher's constant gaze, gesturing, and intonation, as well as the visual aids provided affordances that engaged Lisa in a one-on-one interaction that facilitated her participation and understanding of the task.It is interesting that the teacher did not align to Lisa's use of L1 while calling him out, a point for discussion in the following section.Instead, the teacher offered Lisa instruction that was accompanied by visuals, gestures, proxemics, gazing, and intonation.For instance, the teachers pointing gestures and the written family description on the board provided an example of the task outcome.Furthermore, the combination of pointing gesture, rising intonation, and stress of the words "you" and "your" were used by the teacher to ensure Lisa's understanding of the instruction.
Interestingly, the student also used several semiotic resources (gesturing and pointing) while she started to align to the teacher's L2 use.For instance, she used words in the L2, while hand Transcript 3. A description about your family.gesturing, to confirm her understanding of the task's first step.She further gestured and pointed at herself to demonstrate her understanding of the task instruction.The board was an important non-human tool that both the teacher and the student relied on to provide and obtain a model for the task product.In sum, during this interaction, multiple semiotic resources such as gesturing, pointing and using a non-human tool allowed the teacher and the student to clarify and understand instructions, respectively.In what follows, we describe the interplay of non-human tools and proxemics to prompt students' language production in a small-group interaction.

Small group interaction: family descriptions
This interaction occurred at the concluding stage of the lesson where the teacher had reorganized the seats in a horseshoe arrangement and students were expected to orally share their family's descriptions.After a few unattended calls to participate, the teacher walked toward three students (Carlos, Rafael and Julio) sitting on the right side of the classroom.Then, the teacher attempted to prompt a specific group of students' participation by leaning forward, pointing at them, and asking them to describe their families.Then, the teacher directed the request to participate at Julio, whom he looked at and asked °who° do you live with?Julio reacted to the teacher's questions by quickly unzipping his backpack, taking his notebook out and gazing at Carlos, who is sitting by Julio's right-hand side.Carlos smiled and gazed back at Julio (Figure 7).Julio's reaction was followed by Rafael, sitting by Julio's left-hand side, who opened and leafed through his notebook while looking at Julio's notebook (Picture A in Figure 8).Next, Julio gazed at Rafael as if appealing for help (Picture B in Figure 8).Rafael responded to Julio's gaze by pointing to a drawing on Julio's notebook (Picture C in Figure 8).This interaction is mainly constructed using gaze, pointing gestures, and interaction with nonhuman tools (notebook) and the semiotic practices and structures they represent.In this case, Julio and Rafael aligned to the teacher's L2 use by restraining themselves from using their L1.However, they were able to use other semiotic resources and practices to communicate without challenging the teacher's L2 use.Furthermore, Rafael's proximity to Julio, afforded by the horseshow seating arrangement, also allowed Rafael to look at Julio's notebook, thus benefitting from the interaction.The notebook was a tool that the teacher had positioned as an important element of the lesson since students had used it to illustrate and describe their family composition during the previous tasks.Although Julio did not respond orally to the teacher's answer, his use of the notebook reveals his awareness of the importance of this tool in the classroom ecology, especially to respond to the teacher's question.After Julio's failed attempt to respond to the teacher's question, the teacher directed the question to Carlos (Line 1 in Figure 9), who was sitting on Julio's right-hand side and who had been previously identified as S2 in Figures 2, 4 and 5. Carlos correctly answered the teacher's question while Rafael observed and listened to Carlos respond the teacher (Line 3 in Figure 9).Then, Rafael raised his hand and said, "Profe, yo [me teacher]" to volunteer to participate (Line 5 in Figure 9).Interestingly, Rafael was able to reposition himself in this interaction from following Julio's reaction to grabbing and leafing through his notebook (Figure 8) to observing and listening to Carlos before volunteering to participate (Figure 9).Next, the teacher gazed at Rafael, leaning forward, pointing, and asking: "who do you live with?" as Rafael skimmed his notebook and read aloud my mother and brother (Figure 10).The teacher recast Rafael's response your mother and your brother.Rafael nodded to confirm the teachers' recast.
Similar to Goodwin's (2007) description of participatory frameworks, Rafael's answer seems to have been built by the interplay of semiotic practices such as gazing, pointing, and reading the family description and drawing he and his classmates had been working on during the lesson.The simultaneous practices at stake in the interaction rely heavily on the affordances provided by the students intercorporeality; for instance, the horseshoe sitting arrangement allowed Rafael to closely observe and listen to Carlos.If the students had been seated in rows as in the initial part of the lesson, Rafael would have not been able to closely observe Carlos, who had been sitting at the center of the classroom away from Rafael (Figure 11).

Discussion
The findings of this study described how different semiotic resources converged to provide alignment in different interaction and participation moments in an EFL lesson that resulted in language learning opportunities.Thus, this study concurs with previous research in that the alignment of embodied and ecological tools facilitate language learning (Ingerpuu-Rümmel, 2018;Matsumoto & Dobs, 2017;Shanahan & Roof, 2013).For instance, Smotrova (2017) described the ways gesturing supported language learners' pronunciation of foreign sounds.Shanahan and Roof (2013) found that the combination of embodied resources such as gesturing and speech along with visual artifacts afforded learning opportunities for reading comprehension skills.
This study also confirms previous SCG-oriented research (Arrubla et al., 2019;Atkinson et al., 2007Atkinson et al., , 2018) ) by illustrating that it is not the presence of a single mode or actor which generates affordances for language learning.Rather, it is the synchrony between the actors in tandem with all the embodied tools the environment offers which facilitate learning.In this sense, Brando and his students engaged in a "dynamic ecological adaptivity" (Atkinson et al., 2007, p. 185) and alignment to an L2 environment unfamiliar to both similar to the way Ako and Yuko engaged to resolve a language learning problem/task in Atkinson et al. (2007).Beyond confirming previous research on the affordances of embodied tools, this study thoroughly illustrates how these tools generate alignment in a language classroom.More specifically, our analysis showcased how proxemics, body posture, gesturing, visual aid, language, and gazing converged to help the teacher and the students adapt, align, and maintain this L2 scenario generating language growth.In the first episode, it was interesting to see how Brando engaged all students in the class interaction by constantly moving between aisles and walking from the front to the back of the classroom at the time he gestured, pointed to visual aids on the board, and verbally conveyed instructions changing prosody and intonation.This is a key finding since as Shamim (1996) concluded, more often than not, teachers maintain proximity only with the students in the front, creating less optimal conditions for students at the back.In this lesson, Brando initiated and maintained proximity with students in both zones, thus generating opportunities for all learners, as was evidenced in the finding's section.
In the second episode, Brando created an intercorporeal ethos (Goffman, 1963) with Lisa marked by proximity, mutual gaze, joint attention and gesturing which allowed them to communicate and, in the case of Lisa, understand the task at hand.As described by Goffman (1963), this engagement constitutes an embodied action in which participants were not only engaged cognitively, but with their whole bodies.
In the third episode, we can observe how such L2 and learning opportunities are created through gesturing, proxemics, and non-human tools.As described in the interaction, the notebook, constant gesturing, and intercorporeal organization cued the understanding of the teachers' question and eventual students' response to it.This finding resonates with Atkinson et al. (2007) assertion that non-human resources such as exercises, notebooks, and books constitute essential tools for meaning making.As previously described, Julio's notebook became an essential tool for students´ understanding of the task at hand.Likewise, the findings echo Lim et al. (2012) perspective that spacing, and classroom organization do play a key role in classroom interactions.
In analyzing our data, we highlighted various learning opportunities associated with input comprehensibility, and more specifically with, instruction recognition, as well as vocabulary understanding and learning.Even though the data suggests that such opportunities occurred during the whole interaction, they were more visible in specific moments in the class.In the first episode, students identified the different families presented on the board and then recognized the families the teacher described.In the second episode, Lisa could understand and follow the instructions given to complete the two tasks.Similarly, in the third episode, Julio, Carlos, and Rafael identified the teachers' questions about family description; in the case of Rafael and Carlos, they could verbalize their responses.Existing SLA classroom research (Glisan & Donato, 2017;Krashen, 1981;Swain, 1985) have shed light on input and language comprehensibility.However, they have underplayed the role that embodied tools and natural pedagogy could add to language instruction.Glisan and Donato (2017) envisioned language comprehensibility as a core practice in which they prioritize language behavior as the main means of instruction and meaning making, arguing that "[u]sing the target language in ways that foster comprehension requires more than showing pictures or making gestures to illustrate what is said.Relying on these ways alone to increase comprehension actually works against developing learners 'ability to make meaning from what they hear" (p.22).Moreover, they suggest a pre-scripted procedure to realize such practice which consists of three main steps 1) creating comprehensible language, 2) creating contexts for comprehension, and 3) creating comprehensible interactions.Whereas we acknowledge the contribution of core practices in teacher education, we take issue with this procedure.As has been largely argued, all classroom interaction is multimodal; therefore, it is naive to conclude that embodied tools do not have any meaning-making potential.Goodwin (2007) argued that learners draw on embodied practices (e.g., gesturing, using objects) to organize their participation and interaction.Goodwin (2018) also illustrated how his father could follow instructions and communicate using a compilation of embodied tools despite his limitations to produce oral language.Moreover, whereas teachers plan their lessons and follow certain procedures, not all moves and tools used in classroom interaction obey a pre-scripted format.Brando followed a lesson plan; however, during the interaction he used natural pedagogy tools (Atkinson & Shvidko, 2019) such as nodding, shaking, pointing, mutual gaze to provide opportunities that emerge as the class evolved.
This study has demonstrated the feasibility of using an only English policy with beginner learners in a public-school context.Even though we have presented the nuances of such practice, we acknowledge the limitations that an L2 only policy may bring to foreign language beginning students as pointed out by current research on translanguaging (García & Li, 2014;Lau, 2020;Lau et al., 2017).For example, the interest to maintain an L2 environment may have prevented the teacher to engage the students in a critical exploration of the wide range of family types that are present in students' contexts, thus limiting opportunities to deconstruct social stereotypes of family constitutions.However, this analysis is beyond the scope of this article.

Conclusions
This study showed that diverse human and non-human semiotic modes, affordances, and natural pedagogy tools create and afford learning opportunities in this English lesson.Results also unveiled how the pre-service teacher provided alignment moments in his interaction with students to co-construct meaning and use English during the whole class.Interestingly, a major takeaway in this analysis is how such alignment evolved naturally during the minute-to-minute classroom interaction.We described a natural teaching process that occurred as Brando unconsciously synchronized his body, mind, gestures and associated tools with his students and the environment of his class to create opportunities for learning.He used his body language (mutual gaze, joint attention, and body posture) to support his verbal instructions, and brought associated tools such as images pinned on the board and students' notebooks to clarify ideas and teach the content of his lesson.By doing so, he did not use a single mode but rather a combination of innate tools that allow us to teach, learn and adapt to different situations and contexts (Atkinson & Schivdo, 2019).We believe Brando's use of innate tools contributes a valuable example for public, secondary, language teachers who daily struggle to engage their language learners in the classroom ecology.
This study contributes to emerging research on SCG and its applications in language classrooms as well as to pressing questions in teacher education such as how do teachers facilitate language comprehensibility in the classroom (Glisan & Donato, 2017)?Our concrete examples illustrate how to engage learners in different locations of the classroom, especially the learners who sit at the back and whose voices are often unheard because teachers' attention is mainly kept for students sitting in the front.Similarly, our analysis exemplifies how non-verbal tools such as gesturing, proxemics, and eye gazing can facilitate explanations of L2 vocabulary and instructions during one-on-one interactions.Another significant insight lies in our underscoring the role of non-human tools, like notebooks, textbooks, and utensils for facilitating interactions in the L2, especially asking and answering questions.
All in all, our analysis constitutes a significant tool to explore in teacher education programs and research in teacher education as it addresses the need for concrete examples of learning as a natural process of alignment with the environment as suggested in SCG theory and research.We suggest video viewing as an essential tool in teaching training programs to exemplify how alignment moments evolve and are co-constructed in minute-to-minute classroom interactions.Further research should explore how other teaching and learning practices (e.g., giving instructions, providing feedback) are realized through a microanalysis using an SCG lens that considers all actors, semiotic tools, and affordances in the classroom interactions.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Pictures a and B of the teacher pointing at the board and then walking through the classroom.
Figure 2. Picture of students (1,2,3 and 4) gazing while teacher points at Pictures on the board.

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Figure 3. Picture of teacher pointing at Pictures on the board.

Figure
Figure 4. Pictures A, B, C, and D of teacher gesturing with his hands while describing a family.

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Figure 5. Pictures a and B of students 1,3 and 4 while pointing at the Pictures.
teacher rotates his body, gazes at the student and approaches her))4L Yo tuve que dibujar, ((gestures with right hand using her fingers to number the family members) una mamá, un papá, (.2) un father 5 T =((points with his index finger to the board)) 6 L un mother y un brother (gestures with right hand indicating the members of the family) 7 T =((rotates his body, looks at the student and nods)) 8 T still pointing to the board)) Now: you (points at the student with right hand) are going to WRITE a ((rotates body to the right pointing to the board)) description 9 L ((rotates body looking at the board)) hay que dibujarse uno mismo ((touches her chest)) 10 T ((nods pointing to the student with her right finger)) about you (.2) y:eah about your family Sagre Baboza et al., Cogent Education (2023), 10: 2256203 https://doi.org/10.1080/2331186X.2023.2256203

Figure
Figure 6.Pictures A, B and C of the teacher and Lisa's interaction during task monitoring.

Figure 7 .
Figure 7. Carlos, Rafael and Julio Gazing at Julio and his notebook after the teacher Called Julio out.

Figure 10 .
Figure 10.Rafael Looks at his notebook while answering the T's Question.

Figure
Figure 9. Rafael Observes Carlos and then volunteers to participate, Rafael Looks at his notebook while answering the T's question, Carlos', Julio's and Rafael's seating positions during the first part of the lesson.

Figure 11 .
Figure 11.Carlos', Julio's and Rafael's seating positions during the first part of the Lesson..