In this article I investigate how Japanese students manage interaction together in a task-based English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom. Using methods from conversation analysis and focusing on the contextual dimensions of language, I analyse data from a real classroom task with a view to understanding the ways in which social processes and the wider cultural context are connected to the production of classroom language. Through my analysis I suggest that differing cultural beliefs and expectations regarding classroom practice, as well as pedagogic action, affect communicative behaviour in the classroom. I also suggest that students are as much attending to interpersonal and social goals during task performance as they are to the institutional requirements of the task. While my interpretation is subjective in nature and particular to this context, I hope that the discussion will provoke any practitioner reading this article to reflect critically upon the language produced in their own classroom context.