Student-student interaction

Student-student interaction includes all learning situations where students work in groups

to accomplish particular learning objectives and are interdependent for successful completion of

the objective. There will be a lot of pair and group work in the classroom, as well as genuine

language input from the "real world" for meaningful communication.

Learning English is better when the students use it for what it was designed for:

communication. Peer interaction may facilitate acquisition through fostering learner production,

feedback, and noticing of form. Thus far, much of our attention has focused on understanding

classroom communication by looking at the interaction occurs between teachers and students.

However, by doing so we have ignored another important dimension of classroom interaction,

that is, the interaction that occurs between students themselves, and the impact that student-

student interaction has on the patterns of communication, classroom learning, and opportunities

for second language acquisition.

Many studies (e.g. Barnard, 2002; Pica, 1998; Swain, Brooks & Toralli-Beller, 2002) are

done on peer cooperation learning and peer tutoring. Drawing results from these studies, many

scholars hold the position that students can obtain benefits from their peers by negotiating

meanings or receiving scaffolding information. Such interactions among students do facilitate

students’ second language acquisition because while negotiating with or scaffold to peers,

students experience the input enhancement and output production by reformulating their

linguistic forms.

Reciprocal scaffolding, a method first coined by Holton and Thomas, is a method that

involves a group of two or more collaboratively working together. In this situation, the group can

learn from each other's experiences and knowledge. The scaffolding is shared by each member

and changes constantly as the group work on a task (Holton and Clarke, 2006). According to

Vygotsky, students develop higher-level thinking skills when scaffolding occurs with an adult

expert or with a peer of higher capabilities (Stone, 1998). Conversely, Piaget believes that

students discard their ideas when paired with an adult or student of more expertise (Piaget,

1928). Instead, students should be paired with others who have different perspectives. Conflicts

would then take place between students allowing them to think constructively at a higher level.

Empirical research with second language supports the contention that engaging in

language interactions facilitates second language development. Findings from a study to

determine how conversational interaction affects the acquisition of question formation indicate

that interaction can increase the pace of acquisition (Mackey, 1999).

Task-based learning

Researchers have used tasks to understand both the second language learning and teaching

processes. Task-based teaching provides learners with opportunities for learner-to-learner

interactions that encourage authentic use of language and meaningful communication. The goal

of a task is to “exchange meaning rather than to learn the second language” (Ellis, 1999, p. 193).

Research suggests that learners produce longer sentences and negotiate meaning more often in

pair and group work than in teacher-fronted instruction. Interactive tasks may be most

successful when they contain elements that

Are new or unfamiliar to the participants;

Require learners to exchange information with their partners or group members;

Have a specific outcome;

Involve details;

Center on a problem, especially an ethical one, such as deciding in a small group who

should take the last spot in a lifeboat, a nuclear physicist or a pregnant woman;

Involve the use of naturally occurring conversation and narrative discourse. (Ellis, 2000)

Student-student interaction strategies

Leaner-centered learning: This kind of instruction involves the giving over of some "power" in

the language learning process to the learners themselves.  It also strives to allow for personal

creativity and input from the students, as well as taking into account their learning needs and

objectives. Cooperative Learning:  This concept stresses the "team" like nature of the classroom

and emphasizes cooperation as opposed to competition.  Students share information and help,

and achieve their learning goals as a group.

Let’s talk is one of the 6 proposals to promote language learning in the classroom.

a. When learners talk to each other… by Micheal Long and Patricia Porter (1985)

learners can offer each other genuine communicative practice

b. learner language and proficiency level by George Yule and Doris Macdonald (1990)

‘sender’ – low-proficiency learners, interactions were longer ‘receiver’ – low-proficiency learners, almost forced to play a very passive role and said

very little

c. when pair work comes in by Naomi Storch (2002)

When pair work functions collaboratively and learners are in an expert-novice relationship, they can successfully engage in the co-construction of knowledge

d. interaction and second language development by Alison Mackey (1999)

produced more advanced question forms with native speakers

The potential advantages of group activities in language instruction (based on Jacobs 1998)

Advantage Comment

1. The quantity of learner speech can

increase.

In the teacher-fronted classroom, the teacher typically

speaks 80% of the time; in group work more students

talk for more of the time.

2. The variety of speech acts can

increase.

In teacher-fronted classrooms, students are cast in a

responsive role, but in group work they can perform a

wide range of roles, including those involved in the

negotiation of meaning.

3. There can be more individualization

of instruction.

In teacher-fronted lessons teachers shape their

instruction to the needs of the average student but in

group work the needs of individual students can be

attended to.

4. Anxiety can be reduced.Students feel less nervous speaking in an L2 in front of

their peers than in front of the whole class.

5. Motivation can increase.Students will be less competitive when working with

groups and are more likely to encourage each other.

6. Enjoyment can increase.

Students are ‘social animals’ and thus enjoy interacting

with others in groups; in teacher-fronted classrooms

student-student interaction is often proscribed.

7. Independence can increase.Group activities help students to become independent

learners.

8. Social integration can increase.Group activities enable students to get to know each

other.

9. Students can learn how to work

together with others.

In typical teacher-fronted classrooms students are

discouraged from helping each other; group work helps

students to learn collaborative skills.

10. Learning can increase.

Learning is enhanced by group work because students

are willing to take risks and can scaffold each other’s

effort.

From these it seems reasonable to conclude that group work can provide the interactional

conditions which have been hypothesized to facilitate acquisition more readily than can

interaction involving teachers.

When we compare adult and children interaction (Kowal & Swain, 1994)

Interaction gives opportunities for children to learn language from each other and to

practice what they have learned elsewhere. This process of learning affects all levels of

language; prosody and sound, vocabulary, syntax, the verb system, social markers and stylistic

features, and organized routines. The process of learning through interaction with other children

probably is similar in first language to observations in second-language contexts. Children

imitate their models, receive corrections, copy predictable routines, figure out meanings from

context, and then permute and recombine what they have learned. The opportunity to practice

new forms is particularly available in interaction, because in peer contexts children are required

to negotiate what they want, to argue for their positions, and to explain ideas. In doing

interaction, they have the chance to acquire and practice strategic language used in social

relations where adults or more powerful partners do not control them.

Unlike children—who are fascinated with learning and willing to engage with learning

purely because it’s fun, new and different—adults like to learn when it makes a difference in

their lives. Adults learn languages for many intrinsic reasons (and this may be a reason why they

can be so good at learning languages, all things considered). Their self-directedness, life

experiences, independence as learners, and motivation to learn provide them with advantages in

language learning. Peer interaction has shown that adult learners are able to give each other

second language input and opportunities for interaction. It also can provide each other with

feedback, in the form of clarification requests and negotiation for meaning. Kowal and Swain

(1994) have found that adolescents are able to benefit from pair work activities in which students

work together to reconstruct dictated texts. Adult learners usually make word errors, factual

errors, syntactic errors and discourse errors in order in the student-student interaction. Then, they

give their partners such feedback as repetition, clarification requests, recast and explicit

corrections. They are using repetition as feedback, and then perceive their errors while

interacting with their partners. According to the types of errors, factual errors usually invite

clarification request and word errors usually invite repetition. Adult learners usually do self-

repair (self-correction).

Self-correction: After the students recognize what is incorrect in his/her response, s/he should be

able to correct him/herself. This is the best technique, because the student will remember it better

Peer correction: Sometimes the student cannot self-correct (although they should always be

given the opportunity). In this case teacher can prompt another student to provide the correction.

After doing this, teacher needs to return to the original student to get the self-correction.

Teacher needs to be aware of allowing two or three students in the class to become the ones who

always provide peer correction. Correction of mistakes should be a task shared by all the students

in the class. Sometimes it is a good idea just to let students speak and not worry about mistakes –

help them develop some degree of fluency.

Incidental focus on form in student-student interaction

Conducted by Morris and Taone (2003), first study reveals that incidental focus on form does

occur among students’ interaction, especially between NS (native speaker) students and NNS

(nonnative speaker) students. However’ the results show that NNS students sometimes do not

regard their NS peers’ feedback as helpful input enhancement, but as criticism and even

mockery. It seems that in some cases the social dynamics of the language classroom may

dramatically alter the way cognitive processes of attention or noticing are deployed on

cooperative learning activities in which feedback occurred, and this in turn appears to affect

acquisition.

While the findings of another research conducted by ZHAO (2005) show that incidental

FFREs occur very frequently in student-student interactions and frequency of immediate uptake

of these FFEs are very high, which may be indirectly effective for L2 learning? Thus, learners

are able to work as knowledge sources to each other in their L2 learning. Therefore, ZHAO

suggests that spoken interactions should be encouraged between students themselves.

What is FFI?

is an umbrella term for “any planned or incidental instructional activity that is intended to

induce language learners to pay attention to linguistic form” (Ellis, 2001)

FFI has been seen as consisting of two broad types: focus on forms and focus on form

(Long, 1991, 1996)

Focus on forms is characterized by “division of the language according to lexis, structures,

notions or functions, which are selected and sequenced for students to learn in a uniform and

incremental way” (Klapper & Rees, 2003), and by the general absence of a communicative

context. Focus on form in contrast, constitutes attention to linguistic structures within the context

of meaning-focused, communicative activities (Ellis, 2001; Long, 1991, 1996). It may involve

the negotiation of meaning, as well as the planned or incidental targeting of problematic

linguistic items, often in the form of some type of error correction. Although there is still

considerable debate regarding the most effective type(s) of FFI, there is some consensus that it is

beneficial, and even necessary, for L2 learners (Russell & Spada, 2006). Incidental and planned,

whatever shape it takes, focus on form:

Does not interrupt the natural flow of a communicative task

Is closely linked to students’ needs to carry out the task

Is not done in an isolated fashion

Draws the student’s attention to structures in situations where primary focus is

meaningful communication

Planned focus on form

In light of the teacher’s past experience and students’ needs in carrying out a given task, the

teacher carefully plans a communicative task that includes some form-focused activities. This

type of activity is integrated into the flow of the task. Planned form-focused interventions

include:

1. Providing access to resources: Teacher can plan student access to resources such as word and

expression banks, posters, and models for speaking and writing tasks. Providing essential

language in the form of posters or word banks will help students speak sooner and more

accurately. Modeling of speaking activities and functional language will diminish the number of

errors. The teacher can model the targeted language alone or with a student or have two students

act out the language.

2. Consciousness-raising: Teacher can point out certain structural features. For instance, a

teacher uses a story as a lead up to a speaking activity in which students share their daily

routines. The teacher highlights the third person singular of the present tense in a story about a

pre-teen’s unusual day by writing on the board a few verbs that correspond to the character’s

actions: gets up, has, goes, travels… The students then reinvest their understanding by

exchanging their daily routines. Each student the reports his partner’s daily routine to the other

members of the group.

Student: Kevin gets up at 7:00.

He has breakfast at 7:30.

At 8:00, he takes the bus to school…

3. Monitoring the writing process: Teachers can improve writing accuracy by monitoring their

students as they perform the writing process. Students can refer to a writing checklist that

outlines the steps before, during, and after the actual writing. Also, throughout the writing

process, students should have access the resources: model, word banks, peers and the teacher.

4. Presenting brief explanations or mini-lessons Teachers can plan for very short explanations or

mini-lessons when the task requires such an intervention. If possible, these presentations should

be visual. Avoid lengthy explanations of rules and complicated exceptions.

5. Interactive grammar activities: Interactive grammar activities allow students to participate in

communicative-type activities while practicing grammatical structures. The main focus is on the

interaction (production and understanding) of meaning with an eye on the structure being

manipulated. These activities are not meant to be used in isolation; rather they should be part of

the task. They allow for personalization and student input.

Incidental focus on form

Incidental focus on form takes place during a communicative task with no prior planning.

Teachers decide to intervene when some structural problem arises and has to be attended to in

order to carry out the task at hand efficiently. This type of intervention is brief and to the point;

the natural progression of the task is not impeded. Incidental form-focused interventions include:

1. Brief impromptu explanations and mini-lessons: Sometimes a brief explanation is needed

when a particular aspect of grammar is giving many students problems or impeding their

understanding of the message. The teacher can intervene quickly to point out the problem.

2. Answering questions: Student questions on structural signal an emerging awareness and

interest on how the English language works. Answer should be short. For instance:

Student: Why two feet and not two foot?

Teacher: Foot is different; it is an exception. One foot, but two feet.

3. Corrective feedback: Corrective feedback is any indication to learners by teachers, native

speakers, or non-native speaker interlocutors that their use of the target language is incorrect

(Lighbown and Spada 1999). A teacher´s role in the language classroom is to give feedback on

errors, but different corrective feedback has different rates of language uptake.

Language learners will benefit from corrective feedback that makes them retrieve the target

language form (rather than immediately supplying the correct form). The retrieval and

subsequent production stimulates the development of connections in the learner’s memory.

These are the various ways of supplying the students with corrective feedback:

Explicit correction: The teacher supplies the correct form to the student and clearly

indicates that what was said was incorrect. This is common corrective feedback in large

groups of students where the teacher’s time is limited. Explicit correction has a very low

rate of uptake since the student doesn’t have to self-correct and the mistake could be

easily forgotten.

Recasts: Often used for grammatical and phonological errors. The teacher implicitly

reformulates all or part of the student’s output. Recasts result in the lowest rate of uptake

since they don’t lead to any self-repair.

(Neither recasts nor explicit correction lead to any peer or self-repair because they already

provide correct forms to learners).

Elicitation: Teacher asks for a reformulation, ‘How do you say that in Spanish?’ or

pausing to allow student to complete teacher’s utterance. ’I went on a holiday and...’

Metalinguistic clues: Teacher provides comments, information, or questions related to

student output. For instance, ‘You need past tense’

Clarification: Teacher uses phrases such as, ‘I don’t understand’, or ‘What do you mean?’

Repetition: Teacher repeats the mistake adjusting intonation to highlight the error. For instance,

‘You buyed the car?’, ‘You goed yesterday?’

Study Participants Target structure Design Tests Results

Carroll and Swain (1993)

100 Spanish adult ESL learners (low intermediate)

Dative verbs Five groups:(A) direct metalinguistic feedback. (B) explicit rejection. (C) recast. (D) indirect metalinguistic feedback. (E) control, treatment consisted of two feedback sessions, each followed by recall (i.e. production without feedback)

Recall production tasks following each feedback session

All the treatment groups performed better than the control group on both recall tasks. Group A (direct metalinguistic feedback) outperformed the other groups.

Kim and Mathes (2001)

20 Korean adult ESL learners (high beginners and intermediate)

Dative verb One group receive explicit metalinguistic feedback; the other recasts; feedback was presented in two sessions one week apart each followed by production with no feedback

Controlled production tasks (as in the treatment) without feedback

Differences between performance on first and second production tasks not significant; differences between groups for gains in production not significant. Learners expressed preference for explicit feedback.

Leeman (2003) 74 first-year university learners of Spanish

Spanish noun-adjective agreement

Four groups performing communicative task one-on-one with researcher(A) recast group(B) negative evidence group (source or problem indicated but not corrected)(C) enhanced salience with no feedback(D) control group

Post and delayed post picture description tasks

Only groups A and C outperformed the control group on any post-test measure. No difference between A and C

Lyster (2004) 148 (Grade 5) 10-11 year-olds in a French immersion programme

1.

French grammatical gender (articles + nouns)

Group 1 received form-focused instruction (FFI) + recasts; Group 2 FFI + prompts (including explicit feedback; Group 3 FFI only. Control group

Four test1. binary choice

test2. text completion

test, (oral production tasks)

3. object identification test

4. picture description test

Two post-tests (PT) with PT2 administered 8 weeks after PT1

FFI-prompt group was only group to outperform control group on all 8 measures (PT1 and PT2).FFI-recast group outperformed control group on 5 out of 8 measuresFFI-only group outperformed control group on 4 out of 8 measuresStatically significant differences between FFI-recast and FFI-prompt

Ellis, Loewen, and Erlam (2006)

34 intermediate-level adult ESL students in private language college

Regular past tense –ed Classroom-based exposure to either recasts or metalingustic feedback (without correction of the error)

1. oral imitation tests – OIT (designed to measure implicit knowledge)

2. untimed grammatically judgment test – UGJT (to measure explicit knowledge)

3. metalinguistic knowledge test (to measure explicit knowledge)

No effect evident for CF on the immediate post-test but the group receiving metalinguistic feedback outperformed both the recast and control group on both the delayed OIT and UGJT.

Sheen (2006b) Low-intermediate ESL learners in a community college in the USA

Indefinite and definite articles

Classroom-based exposure to recasts and correction – metalinguistic explanation in the context of performing an oral narrative task

1. dictation test2. written narrative

test3. error corrections

test

Whereas the metalinguistic correction resulted in significant gains in learning in both immediate and post-tests, the recasts did not

Ammar and Spada (2006)

64 mixed-proficiency learners in three Grade 6 intensive ESL classes

Third-person possessive determiners (‘his’ and ‘her’)

Classroom-based corrective feedback consisting of recast and prompts

1.written passage correction task

2.oral picture description task

high-proficiency learners benefited equally from recasts and prompts; Low-proficiency learners benefited more from prompts

A frequently cited study of corrective feedback is doughty and Varela (1998). A number

of other studies have compared the effect of different types of corrective feedback on acquisition.

Cathcart and Olsen (1976) found that the ESL learners they investigated liked to be corrected

and wanted more correction. Chenoweth et al. (1983) found that learners liked to be corrected

not during form-focused activities, but also when they were conversing with NS. This liking for

correction contrasts with the warnings of Krashen (1982) that correction is both useless for

ACQUISITION, may lead to a negative affective response. Krashen may be partly right, though,

as Cathcart and Olsen also reported that when a teacher attempted to provide the kind of

correction the learners in their studies said they liked it, it led to communication which the class

found undesirable.

Other studies have investigated which type of corrective feedback students prefer. Kim

and Mathes (2001) and Nagata (1993) reported a clear preference for more EXPLICIT

FEEDBACK. Learners, however, are likely to differ in how much, when, and in what way they

want to be corrected in specific instructional activities; to date, the studies investigating learners’

viewpoints about error correction have failed to explore this variation in any depth. There is also

a considerable variation among teachers regarding how frequently error treatment takes place.

Edmondson (1985) pointed out teachers sometimes correct ‘errors’ that have not in fact been

made! In general, it is teachers (rather than students) who correct errors. Studies of repair in

naturally-occurring conversations have shown a preference for self-initiated and self-completed

repair. However, in classroom contexts, where, as we have seen, discourse rights are unevenly

invested in the teacher, other-initiated and other-completed repair are predominant. Other pattern

of repair can also occur; Kasper (1985) found that the trouble sources were identified by the

teacher but repair by learners or by other learners. In the content phase of the same lesson; self-

initiated and self-completed repair was evident, although the learners were inclined to appeal for

assistance from the teacher. However, as with corrective feedback strategies, variation in the rate

and nature of uptake has been found.

Types of uptake following corrective feedback (from Lyster and Ranta 1997)

A Repair

1 Repetition (i.e. the student repeats the teacher’s feedback).

2 Incorporation (i.e. the student incorporates repetition of the correct form in a longer utterance).

3 Self-repair (i.e. the student corrects the error in response to teacher feedback that did not supply the correct form).

4 Peer-repair (i.e. a student other than the student who produced the error corrects it in response to teacher feedback).

B Needs repair

1 Acknowledgement (e.g. a student says ‘yes’ or ‘no’).

2 Same error (i.e. the student produces the same error again).

3 Different error (i.e. the student fails to correct the original error and in addition produces a different error).

4 Off target (i.e. the student responds by circumventing the teacher’s linguistic focus).

5 Hesitation (i.e. the student hesitates in response to the teacher feedback).

6 Partial repair (i.e. the student partly corrects the initial error).

Less important < focus on form > more important

Learner variables

Age Children Adolescents Adults

Proficiency level Beginning Intermediate Advanced

Educational background Preliterate, no formal educationSemiliterate, some formal

educationLiterate, well-educated

Instructional variables

Skill Listening, reading Speaking Writing

Need/use Survival Vocational Professional

The characteristics of L2 learners

Eight to twelve years old will benefit from some grammatical focus only if their age, proficiency

level, and characteristics are taken into account. The following grid is helpful for judging the

importance of grammar for a given group. Young learners are clearly identified on the left side

of the grid, showing that focus on form is less important for them that it is for adolescents and

adults. They are just starting out. Taking risks and making errors are part of their learning

process. Teachers must be tolerant and not try to correct all errors. An overly strong focus on

form will inhibit risk-taking. Children tend to view language in a holistic manner, getting the big

picture, rather than analytically like adults. Adults usually attempt to break up language into little

bits. Little explicit grammar instruction is need for children. Long grammar presentation and

explanations or complicated grammar rules are boring.

Several studies have shown that implicit corrective feedback in pair-work situations is beneficial.

Nicholas, Lightbrown, and Spada 2001 stated that recasts are more salient in pair work,

particularly if only one form is recast consistently. But recast may not always be perceived by

the learners as an attempt to correct their language form but rather as just another way of saying

the same thing. So, as a teacher… we need to make an appropriate method of teaching for

different group of age and also the task that teacher can focus on….