This study investigated storytelling among two Japanese L2 learners of English during a five-month study abroad program in the US or Canada and explores their progression over time concerning aspects of turn-taking. Analyzing changes in social behavior and practice over time implies various methodological challenges for Conversation Analysis (CA) research (Pekarek Doehler & Berger, 2018). The conversation data was collected from these Japanese students as they participated in face-to-face interactions with speakers of host families, teachers, and friends during their study abroad program. Participants' conversations were video-recorded by the participants at the beginning, middle, and end of their study abroad program. Some of the findings of this study are the followings. A conversation tended to be interrupted when participants and other interlocutors were enthusiastic about talking with interest, where a subject mainly involved personal matters. For example, a teacher was interested in the story about Participant One's interpersonal relationship and then jumped into her speech halfway. Participant One did not seem to mind the teacher's interruption, and they cooperatively carried their talks forward instead. Similarly, Konakahara (2015) states that the interactants neither treat the overlap as interruptive nor competitive, and as a result, they succeed in understanding each other and building interpersonal relationships. Participant One explicitly used direct or unmitigated complaints when conversing with the teacher. As for reasons for Participant One's direct complaints, Wijayanto, Prasetyarini, and Hikmat (2017) explained that participants used insufficient mitigation strategies and lacked pragmatic competence. Participant Two shared her high school experiences with her language partner. They sometimes overlapped. Participant Two was penalized for cutting her eyebrows against the rules. Her language partner immediately asked questions as a way to express sympathy, "How do they check if you trimmed your eyebrows? How do they check that? Wow." And this time, she complained about her unpleasant experience, which she accidentally got dress code warnings. The self-disclosure to a female recipient's language partner by Participant Two (or vice versa) suggests that their friendships would be intimate. Females seem to share these kinds of personal experiences readily with their female friends. By agreeing about their evaluation of something, they reinforce their shared values. Both used the complaint strategies to inquire about the problems and seek information. Thongtong and Srioutai (2019) also show that females perform complaints differently from males in the role play.
