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Current Perspectives on Learner Interactions in Language
Classrooms
Hui-jung Tang
Fortune Institute of Technology
[email protected]; [email protected]
Abstract
Although classroom interactions influence how learners learn a language, the research on teacher-student interactions outnumbers learner interactions. The literature review surveys the extant research on learner interactions in various language classrooms to synthesize the findings and reveal the remaining gaps. The discussion starts with the importance of learner interactions, and then a brief sketch of inadequacy of teacher-student interactions in facilitating students’ use of the target language. In addition, the different foci of communicative, cooperative and collaborative language learning are explored. Finally, the contributions of the perspectives of task-as-workplan and task-as-process are compared. The paper concludes with some suggestions for future research.
Introduction
Classroom interactions assist numerous students in learning a new language (Hall & Walsh, 2002; Nystrand, 2006). Many language teachers, embracing task-based instruction, cooperative learning and communicative approaches, use pair/group work in their classrooms (Ellis, 2003; Oxford, 1997; Savignon, 1991). It can serve several functions – to vary instructional organization, to provide chances to use the TL, to afford students to work collaboratively and construct knowledge, and to create a learner-centered situation in which students exercise their autonomy and agency (Long & Porter, 1985; van Lier, 1996).
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In Taiwan, most students do not have many chances to use English outside of their classrooms. Although the Ministry of Education has acknowledged the importance of communicative approaches (Nunan, 2003; Wang, 2000), 174 college freshmen, reflecting on their learning experiences in secondary schools, expressed a mismatch between their form-focused language education and their preference for communicative approaches (Savignon & Wang, 2003). This suggests that even in English classrooms, students rarely use the target language (TL) for real communications in Taiwan.
In Asia, Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority (HKEAA) has employed group discussion in class as part of its Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination (HKCEE) to respond to the call for reform of the high-stakes examination system. Students need to show “how to initiate, maintain and control an oral interaction through suggestions, questions and expansion of ideas” (Gan, 2008, p. 7). The alterations in these examinations show some test designers’ efforts in simulating real world communication in the tests. In the trend of globalization with increasing multilingual and multicultural exchanges, the change also endorses the need of language learners to communicate with not only native speakers, but also interlocutors like themselves (Crystal, 2003).
Research (Chen & Chang, 2004; Yan & Horwitz, 2008) also shows that in foreign language (FL) contexts, such as English in Taiwan, many students are very anxious to use the TL in a whole class setting, and the number can be as high as more than one third of the participants (Liu & Jackson, 2008). In such a situation, students might care too much about making mistakes to experiment with a feature that they have not totally mastered, being negatively evaluated or having the bad performance influence their social status in class. Even in group work, the group size relates to shy students' willingness to communicate – the smaller the group is, the more the students are willing to express their opinions (Cao & Philip, 2006). For the students feeling anxious in using English in public or more comfortable to talk with their peers, pair/group work makes English use possible.
On top of the form-focused instruction and students’ anxiety in using the TL in front of the whole class, the big class size does not facilitate students’ use of the TL, either. Elementary schools classes have an average of 25.9 students; in junior high schools, the average class size is 32.7 (Taiwan MOE, 2010a); in general and vocational senior high schools, the class size ranges from 36.42 to 45.08 (Taiwan MOE, 2010b). Although class sizes on college level vary based on enrollment, class size can be as large as 70 students, especially in classes such as General English
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(Chern, 2010). When the chances to use the TL only exist in teacher-student interactions, students might rarely do it. Here, I turn to the research on teacher-student interactions to shed light on this.
Teacher-Student Interactions
Research (Hall & Walsh, 2002; Mehan, 1979a, 1979b; Nassaji & Wells, 2000) indicates that the discourse pattern of Initiation-Response-Evaluation (IRE) dominates language classrooms across many cultural and instruction contexts. In the pattern, a teacher often initiates the sequence with a question, students respond to the question and the teacher provides an evaluation of the answer. The questions that teachers ask tend to be fake questions to which teachers know the answers and use to test students’ ability to recall the taught content (Mehan, 1979b). Ironically, in recalling and increasing comprehensibility of the covered material, IRE appears as less effective than participatory discussion (Nystrand, 1997). The use of IRE also does not promote students’ language use much with teachers’ occupancy of two turn.
IRE also limits students’ participation to the response turn, and thus students rarely have chances to acquire the practices of what a real conversation takes, such as opening and closing of a conversation, proposing a topic, maintaining flow, hypothesizing, or disagreeing (Brooks, 1992; Long & Porter, 1985; Nystrand, Wu, Gamoran, Zeiser, & Long, 2003). Although IRE can be effective in establishing the basis for class discussion (Nystrand et al.), the evaluative third move restrains students’ extensive participation (Nassaji & Wells, 2000). The amount of learner talk and the variety of language functions produced by students were bigger in pair conversation than teacher-led discussion (Long, Adams, McLean, & Castanos, 1976). In Pica and Doughty’s studies (1985a, 1985b), the participants also took more turns and received more feedback from their peers, even though the students’ proficiency was lower than the informants’ in Long et al. and the peer interactions happened in groups instead of dyads.
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participation patterns (Au, 1980, as cited in Weinstein, 1991) or narrative styles (Cazden, 1988, as cited in Weinstein), disadvantaged students who do not share the mainstream culture might not have chances to become legitimate participants and advances their social status with teachers’ omnipresence in the whole class setting (Weinstein). Although the same situation might happen in pair/group work, the relations among peers are likely to be more symmetrical than the ones between teachers and students.
Teachers are also often perceived as experts by their students (Hall & Walsh, 2002). Because of the role, students might expect teachers to directly give them an answer to their question and do not try to find one by themselves. Students, having the whole class as audience in most teacher-student interactions, might stop short of negotiation, which is believed to facilitate language acquisition based on the Interaction Hypothesis (IH) (Long, 1983, 1996). The proponents of the IH believe that language learners might benefit from realizing the differences between their own utterances and their interlocutors’ alternatives (Gass & Mackey, 2006; Gass, Mackey, & Pica, 1998; Long, 1996; Pica, 1994; Robinson, 2005). To communicate successfully, learners pay attention to the comprehensibility of received input (Alcon, 1998). They ask for or are asked for modified input to repair miscommunication (Pica, Kang, & Sauro, 2006). However, teacher-student interactions in whole class settings seldom facilitate such negotiations. For example, Doughty and Pica (1986) found more negotiations in pairs and groups than in whole class situations. Similarly, Pica and Doughty’s (1988) showed more modified interactions in groups than in teacher-directed communicative tasks.
Group/pair work provides not only chances of negotiation in a TL, but opportunities to notice and experiment with some linguistic features. Alcon (2002) further demonstrates the benefits of peer interactions by investigating the learning process of making requests. Twenty-four English majors in a Spanish university were randomly assigned to two groups. Researchers found that Group A (peer interactions) produced longer negotiations in co-constructing a dialogue of request, while Group B (teacher-student interactions) tended to produce shorter conversations. In the post-test, Group A’s higher scores on discourse evaluation tasks indicated that learner interactions facilitated noticing. Qualitative analysis also showed that the students discussed alternatives in solving their problems – the hypothesis testing function of interactions (Shehadeh, 2003). In summary, although both groups learned how to make a request, peer interactions supported negotiation, noticing and hypothesis testing.
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(2001) found that the uptakes – optional student moves indicating their understanding or correct use of the problematic feature – were higher and more successful when the students, rather than the teachers, initiated the discussion. Although the study did not explore why this was so, it did show that learner-learner conversations facilitated learning in providing chances to become aware of a gap in their or their peers’ linguistic knowledge and even find solutions for the problem feature.
In summary, although teacher-student interactions offer an influential environment for students’ learning of a TL (Allwright, 1984; Hall & Walsh, 2002), they do not always facilitate its use. Due to the differences in perceived roles, expertise and power between teachers and students, a monopoly of teacher-student interactions might not always be the most effective. Interaction with teachers and peers can complement each other and meet the needs of diverse learners (Long & Porter, 1985; Shi, 1999).
In the following section, I discuss the research of learner interactions, focusing on benefits of and influencing factors in peer interactions. The studies are grouped based on their various foci – communicative approach, cooperative and collaborative learning, task-as-workplan and task-as-process. I conclude with some suggestions for future research.
Communicative, Cooperative and Collaborative Language Learning
In communicative approaches, designed tasks offer learners chances to engage in meaningful conversations in a TL (Savignon, 1991). Although communicative approaches can refer to a range of practices, the shared goal is to “prepare learners for real-life communication” (Celce-Murcia, Dörnyei, & Thurrell, 1997, p. 143). Actual acts of dialoguing require not only grammatical competence, but also sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence and strategic competence (Canale, 1983; Canale & Swain, 1980). In other words, interlocutors need to know and be familiar with the proper forms of communication, the rules of language use in the sociocultural contexts, the ways to work with languages beyond sentence level, and the strategies to mend miscommunication in order to appropriately participate in conversations in the TL. Therefore, the approaches emphasize meaning-based, participatory, and experiential ways of learning that pay more attention to speaking and listening than reading and writing (Snider, 2005; Stern, 1983).
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Asia-Pacific region (Hu; Nunan, 2003; Yu, 2001). However, its impacts manifest themselves in the shift of pedagogic focus from teachers to learners in cooperative and collaborative learning, efforts in developing tasks to promote meaning negotiation in task-based instruction and the research drives to understand interaction process in pair/group work in the studies of task-as-process. Thus, my investigation turns to these three strands of research next.
In comparison to the various applications of communicative approaches (Celce-Murcia et al., 1997), cooperative learning is very structured. Cooperative learning emphasizes “specific, systematic principles and practices such as positive interdependence, specific role assignments in a group, and goal-related accountability of individuals and of the group” (Oxford & Nyikos, 1997, p. 441). Therefore, the activities are designed and structured in a way that the members need to cooperate to achieve the group goal. Careful design of shared group goals, individual accountability and adequate training contribute to the success of cooperative learning (Slavin, 1996). Because learners might not know how to work effectively together, the ways to train students to use cooperative skills to enhance efficacy of learning receive much attention. For example, Bejarano, Levine, Olshtain, and Steiner (1997) trained their participants to master two sets of skills to work more effectively. Skilled Use of Modified-Interaction included the communication strategies explored in the IH, such as checking comprehension, repairing communication breakdowns, asking help and providing assistance. Socio-Interaction Strategies focused on the skills to continue coherent discussion, such as elaborating, facilitating flow, responding, seeking information/opinion and paraphrasing.
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assist second language development, integration of content knowledge and sometimes even the first language (L1) maintenance.
Both cooperative and collaborative learning emphasize the importance of learning in pair/group work. However, collaborative learning has a stronger theoretical orientation than cooperative learning (Dale, 1994; Oxford, 1997). Aligning with constructivism, Dale explored the differences in engagement, cognitive conflicts and social interactions in groups of ninth-graders co-authoring a passage. The model group, the most collaborative triad, focused on moving the task of collaborative writing forward. This is consistent with other studies that found intense engagement and active participation facilitated collaboration and learning (Mackey, 1999; Storch, 2008). Their cognitive conflicts were about disagreement and alternative solutions to their problems, and led the members into reflective thinking and enhanced the quality of problem solving (Tocalli-Beller, 2003). Respect for their peers and validation of their peers’ input showed evidence of positive interdependence facilitating collaboration among the members (Naughton, 2006). Whereas the model group showed no sign of marginalizing or negatively evaluating a member, the least collaborative group did. The consequences of not accepting a member as a legitimate contributing peer were detrimental (Dale; Tocalli-Beller; Storch, 2004). While cognitive conflicts managed productively can improve the quality of work, affective ones often disrupt collaboration (Tocalli-Beller).
Learners’ performance in dyads/groups influenced the interactions in the above studies. Mistakes in punctuation or spelling might cost students their social status and consequently the group’s cohesion (Dale, 1994). A special type of collaborative learning that gives constructive feedback higher priority than a group’s cohesion is peer response groups (Hansen & Liu, 2005; Nelson & Murphy, 1993). To improve their writing and gain audience’s perspectives from their peers, students take turns to assume the roles of readers and writers. This method, with its underling value of individualistic culture, pursues a writer’s benefits instead of the collective equilibrium (Carson & Nelson, 1996). Carson and Nelson (1994, 1996) argued that collectivist culture valuing group harmony kept their Chinese participants from participating constructively in the groups. Although the scholars acknowledged their small sample size (3 Chinese students in Carson & Nelson, 1996) and dismiss of individual variation, cultural differences were portrayed as a source of mismatch.
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tasks, cognitive conflicts and positive relations contribute to collaboration. On the other hand, disengagement with tasks, affective conflicts and negative relations impede collaborative learning. The challenges of collaborative learning also lie in finding the balance between asserting one’s own viewpoints and being open about others’ diverse ideas, building solidarity with one’s partners despite all differences. Even in-service teachers found working collaboratively challenging (Wilhelm, 1997) or expressed some reservation in implementing the pedagogical approach (Horwitz, Bresslau, Dryden, McLendon, & Yu, 1997). However, compared to teacher-fronted settings, learners in cooperative and collaborative learning benefit from bearing more responsibilities for their learning (Oxford, 1997). For insights on how to design tasks to facilitate engagement, collaboration, and shared goals, I turn now to the studies on task-as-workplan.
Task-as-workplan
Task-supported and task-based learning both aim to create a situation for learners to use a TL to cooperatively accomplish a task. The two are different in the centrality of tasks. The former, aligning with the weak form of communicative approach, incorporates tasks with language instruction, while the whole course is designed around tasks in task-based instruction, the strong form of communicative learning (Ellis, 2003). The believers of the weak form conceive communication as necessary but not sufficient for language acquisition, whereas the followers of strong form perceive interactions in tasks to be adequate for learners to figure out the rules of a TL (Howatt, 1984, as cited in Ellis). Despite the differences, learners’ interactions in both situations are believed to help language development (Ellis; Keck, Iberri-Shea, Tracy-Ventura, & Wa-Mbaleka, 2006).
Language acquisition is made possible through engaging in a task, “an activity which requires learners to use language with emphasis on meaning, to attain an objective” (Bygate, Skehan, & Swain, 2001, p. 11; for a discussion of different definitions, see also Ellis, 2003). As the definition indicates, most studies of tasks focus on meaning negotiation. However, meaning and form are difficult to separate – a difficulty in expressing the intended meaning might be caused by a linguistic problem (Swain, 2000) and many classrooms focus on both (Alcon, 2002).
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(discussed on p. 3) and that only language acquisition constitutes learning.5
These studies often employ quantitative methods to show either gains in linguistic knowledge or frequency of communication moves. Keck et al. (2006), analyzing 14 empirical quantitative studies on tasks published between 1980 and 2003, found that interactions facilitate second language acquisition. The learners engaging in interactions with their peers had statistically significant gains in post- and delayed post-tests over their counterparts with little or no interactions. The effects of interaction were sustained after a short delay (8-29 days), but beyond that the influence was not clear. The impacts on the acquisition of both grammar and lexis were comparable. The tasks in which the target features were essential in accomplishing the tasks and output was required were more effective in learners’ acquisition of the target items than the activities without these characteristics.
It belongs to a weak form of social interaction, because interactions play an assisting role in language acquisition, providing opportunities for learners to use a TL (Mondana & Pekarek Doehler, 2004).
The effects of the negotiation on language acquisition can also be shown indirectly through communication moves (Ellis, 2003). Negotiation is often operationalized as comprehension checks, clarification requests and confirmation checks (e.g. Gass, Mackey, & Ross-Feldman, 2005; Oliver, 2002). The research shows that task types influence interactions. Information gap tasks tend to elicit more negotiation than open tasks in which more than one solution are possible, such as opinion exchange or discussion (Gass et al.). Open tasks, on the other hand, prompt longer turns and more diverse discourse types (Nakahama, Tyler, & van Lier, 2001). Besides the effects of different task types, learner variables, especially students’ linguistic proficiency, also receive much attention. Dyads with mixed proficiency were found to produce more negotiations (Iwashita, 2001). The collaboration was more likely to succeed, when the lower proficiency student was given a more dominant role (e.g., to be the information provider in one-way information gap tasks) (Yule & Macdonald, 1990). If highly proficient learners worked together, they were more likely to pay attention to grammar and solve problems (Leeser, 2004). When the participants were not aware of their partners’ competence, the perceived proficiency was influenced by learners’ expectations. Consequently, the perception impacted interactions (Watanabe & Swain, 2008). The participants who preferred a contributing partner might misconceive a reticent peer as less proficient (Watanabe, 2008; Watanabe & Swain). Regardless of their partners’ proficiency, however, the collaborative dyads focused more on linguistic issues and
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performed better in post-tests (Watanabe & Swain, 2007). This is consistent with the findings in collaborative learning – not allowing their colleges to be equal partners obstructed learning (Dale, 1994; Storch, 2004; Tocalli-Beller, 2003; Watanabe).
While proficiency received much attention, interestingly, there were only a few discussions on culture in this strand of research. Culture is often operationalized as a controlled variable of participants’ L1 (e.g. Gass & Alvarez Torres, 2005; Gass et al., 2005), or briefly described when the participants had various mother tongues (e.g. Ellis et al., 2001; Mackey, 2002; Oliver, 2002). Varonis and Gass (1985) suggested that shared background, including cultural heritage, might decrease meaning negotiation, though the participants from the same cultural background, communicating in an unfamiliar language, still created more negotiations. Another related discussion centers on the combination of gender and culture as influencing factors in negotiation (Gass & Varonis, 1986). Building on the research of assessment showing that gender (or male and female speech styles) influenced scores in interviews (O'Sullivan, 2000; Porter, 1991; Porter & Shen, 1991), Gass and Varonis found that English language learners from Japan (a country where its culture and language are highly marked with gender differences) demonstrated “unequal partnership” (p. 349). The male participants dominated the interactions and employed the conversations to produce more comprehensible output in mixed-sex dyads. The female informants initiated more negotiations than the men in mixed-sex pairs to acquire comprehensible input.
To conclude, many psycholinguistic studies focus on negotiation and gains in post-tests as the effects of peer interactions. Various variables have been inspected to tease out what factors contribute to negotiation and language acquisition. Factors of task implementation that were investigated include task features (Ellis, 2003; Pica et al, 2006), task difficulty (Gilabert, Bar6n, & Llanes, 2009; Robinson, 2001; Taguchi, 2007), task environment (Gass et al., 2005; Hardy & Moore, 2004), and planning time (Philp, Oliver, & Mackey, 2006). Besides proficiency and gender, other learner variables explored include acquaintanceship (O'Sullivan, 2002) and age (Oliver, 2000). Linguistic functions and features – such as input (Ellis, Tanaka, & Yamazaki, 1994; Garcia Mayo & Pica, 2000; He & Ellis, 1999; Pica, Lincoln-Porter, Paninos, & Linnell, 1996), corrective feedback (Iwashlta, 2003), and modified output (Shehadeh, 2001, 2003) – also received discussion. The research of task-as-workplan shows that learner interactions can promote negotiation and language development. The factors contributing to language acquisitions continue to be investigated. Because most studies focus on one dependent variable, to understanding variable interactions calls for more studies (Ellis).
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interactions and their effects, but less what actually goes on in pair/group work. In addition to mending miscommunication with interaction strategies and acquiring the target features, this begs the question of what else learners do in the process. To answer the question, I next examine the studies perceiving tasks as a transforming process.
Task-as-process
Most researchers in this strand, aligning with sociocultural theory (SCT), try to understand learner interactions in tasks from the viewpoint of learners, rather than task designers (Ellis, 2003). In contrast to the psycholinguistic views of seeing languages as neutral input and output, the proponents of SCT perceive languages as socioculturally significant signs that are both mediating tools and the object of learning in language classrooms (Firth & Wagner, 1997; Young, 2008). People use languages for both communicating and thinking (Swain & Lapkin, 2002). Learners are not only a collection of variables, but human beings who make sense of a task, construct a unique activity out of the task based on their individual goals, shape their roles and relations with others, and use languages to accomplish all these (Coughlan & Duff, 1994; Heneda, 2007; Storch, 2004). Thus, this line of research focuses on the process of language learning by examining, often with qualitative methods, how tasks are configured into various activities by learners. It is a strong form of socio-interaction in perceiving interactions as a constitutive catalyst of development (Mondana & Pekarek Doehler, 2004), unlike the psycholinguistic perception of interactions as arenas to practice linguistic skills.
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sub-goal was acceptable to her/his partner, the student ensured that the decision was shared, respect for the partner was expressed, and the dyad could move on to pursue the subordinate goal. The intermediate goals were neither too broad nor too small to prevent steady progress and completion of a task – the usual ultimate goal.
Goal establishment contributes to successful task management and completion, and so does division of labor (Storch & Wiggleworth, 2003). Work allotment involves assigning responsibilities and roles. Roles are often assigned in experiments and quasi-experiments, such as information providers and receivers in one-way information gap tasks (e.g., Iwashita, 2001; Slimani-Rolls, 2005), or readers and writers in peer revision groups (e.g., de Guerrero & Villamil, 2000). However, in tasks that do not impose jobs, roles may be negotiated or readily formed. Consented responsibilities and roles enable task completion, even when the responsibilities are not even (Storch. 2001). For example, Storch (2002a) found little negotiation between dominant and passive roles, because passive participants tended not to challenge such roles. However, being assigned roles might cause fissures in the relations and collaboration, if one participant was unhappy about the imposed part (2002b). When a participants performed her/his role dutifully (Storch, 2001), shared responsibilities for the task completion (Storch, 2002b), or shifted roles based on the necessity (Kowal & Swain, 1994; Ohta, 1995), working productively together was possible.
Besides investigating the building of intersubjectivity, task management, goals forming, and division of work, researchers of interaction process have also investigated metatalk. Because research suggests that learners’ attention to a TL promotes linguistic development (Leow, 2000; Robinson, 2005; Schmidt, 1990), researchers want to see which awareness-raising tasks assist language development. The explored tasks include dictoglosses, joint compositions, and crossword puzzles. Dictogloss tasks require learners to listen to a dictated passage, take notes and use the notes to collaboratively reconstruct a text (Kuiken & Vedder, 2002; Swain, 2000; Swain & Lapkin, 2000; Wajnryb, 1990, as cited in Storch, 2008). While audio input is provided in a dictogloss, visual cues are offered in joint composition. In co-authoring, learners co-construct a passage based on a graph (Storch, 2002a, 2002b) or a serial of pictures (Swain & Lapkin). Crossword puzzles can focus learners’ attention on morphology, induce learners to articulate morphological rules, assist students to recognize and even produce the correct forms in post-tests (Leow, 1997, 2000).
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who provided a suggestion benefited more than the students who simply repeated it. This echoes the research arguing for the influence of active participation on learning (Mackey, 1999).
When tasks raise learners’ awareness of a TL, research also examines which aspects of the TL learners’ attention is drawn to. In closed tasks that are designed to have only one result or solution, learners’ awareness can be drawn to the target feature, such as morphology (Leow, 1997, 2000) or passive voice (Kuiken & Vedder, 2002). In tasks which are more complex, such as text reconstructions (Storch, 2008), learners can attend to a range of features in grammar (including articles, verb tenses, etc.), lexis (e.g., adjectival, nominal or adverbial suffixes), or mechanics (such as punctuation or spelling).
The research on learners’ attention shows that talking about the TL, whether verbalizing one’s thoughts out loud in a think-aloud protocol (Leow, 1997, 2000) or more naturally in talking to a partner (Kuiken & Vedder, 2002; Qi & Lapkin, 2001; Storch, 2008; Swain & Lapkin, 2002), can enhance language development. This is consistent with the findings in other studies. When students discuss cooperatively their linguistic problems or language use (e.g., Swain, 1997, 2000; Swain et al., 2002;
Swain & Lapkin, 1998, 2002; Watanabe, 2008; Watanabe & Swain, 2007, 2008), learning takes place.
As the above discussion shows, learners perform a range of actions in the process to move the task along, besides mending miscommunication in task-as-workplan research. Learners manage a task (Anton & DiCamilla, 1998; de Guerrero & Villamil, 2000; Storch & Wiggleworth, 2003), keep on establishing intersubjectivity (Anton & DiCamilla, p. 327; de Guerrero & Villamil), talk about the TL, indicate interests in their partners’ talks (Foster & Ohta, 2005), request and provide assistance (de Guerrero & Villamil), and put their resources together (Swain & Lakpin, 1998). Thus, the research of task-as-process shows learner interactions involving a variety of actions as rich and complex. This research also depicts pair/group work as multi-dimensional, because working together entails not only an assortment of observable actions, but also psychological operations (such as motives, interpretations and perceptions) informing the above actions.
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negotiation often stopped short, and further linguistic development could not be found. Some did not attempt to involve or gave up engaging their partners very soon, and transformed the pair work into an individual task (Storch). The urge to validate oneself, prove one’s superiority over a partner or dominate the task could cloud the possibility of learning in the process (Storch; Tocalli-Beller, 2003). The tasks were turned into a power struggle. For some students, the desire to achieve group harmony (Carson & Nelson, 1996) or to complete the task without making their partner lose face (Slimani-Rolls) stopped them from working more constructively or engaging in negotiation. On the other hand, some learners interpreted the task as a chance to assist their partner to become a fuller participant (Rogoff, 2003) and scaffolding took place (Ohta, 2000; Storch). Amazingly, they did exactly what experienced teachers did – providing assistance only when necessary. They not only enabled their partner’s linguistic development, but also nurtured their confidence and self-identity as a contributing partner. Some took the task to be a chance of pooling together their resources, and were able to co-construct new knowledge that each did not seem to be able to demonstrate alone (Donato, 1994).
All these various motives and interpretations shape pair/group dynamics. When the motives and goals are shared or compatible, collaboration and learning is possible (de Guerrero & Villamil, 2000; Storch, 2004; Swain & Lapkin, 1998). In these situations, learners are able to learn more effectively (Donato, 1988, as cited in Storch). If the motives and goals are divergent or even competing, there are neither traces of cooperation nor signs of learning (Storch; Tocalli-Beller, 2003).
Learners’ actions are not only guided by motives, but their perceptions and interpretations as well. They interpret tasks, as well as their partners’ actions. While repetition can be a form of establishing intersubjectivity, providing scaffolding help, improving language use, appropriating both content and scientific terminology, and showing comprehension of others’ utterances (DiCamilla & Anton, 1997; Duff, 2000; Tocalli-Beller, 2003), it can also express disagreement (Tocalli-Beller). Whereas recasts are found to facilitate language acquisition (Han, 2002; Leeman, 2003), some interpreted them as ridicule because of the unfriendly relations with their peers (Morris & Tarone, 2003). Relations, informed by learner’s history of learning and working with others, and other social factors, influence learner interactions (Donato, 2004).
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& DiCamilla, 1998; Storch & Wiggleworth, 2003; Swain & Lapkin, 2000).
Learners use L1 to execute a range of actions, such as managing a task (Anton & DiCamilla, 1998; de Guerrero & Villamil, 2000; Storch & Wiggleworth, 2003), achieving intersubjectivity (Anton & DiCamilla; de Guerrero & Villamil; Swain & Lapkin, 2000), enhancing interpersonal interaction (Swain & Lapkin) or talking about a TL (Storch & Wiggleworth; Swain & Lapkin). One beneficial form of metatalk in L1 is to make connection to a TL (Anton & DiCamilla; de Guerrero & Villamil). The connection can trigger semantic analysis or a search for appropriate lexis (Anton & DiCamilla). The discussion often rolls like a snowball picking up pieces of knowledge that each learner contribute to and becoming something even more concrete and solid (e.g., see the search for the right Spanish word for “to go” in Anton & DiCamilla). Therefore, L1 serves not only communication purposes, but also knowledge building.
In contrast to the use of L1 as a representation the participants’ ethnicity and culture in the research of task-as-workplan, the studies of task-as-process portray L1 as a resource that learners can take advantage of to engage in a spectrum of actions to advance the task, to develop interpersonal relations and to help them make sense of a TL. On the other hand, the use of culture as resources did not appear to be discussed much in the studies. Although culture and language can not be separated from each other (Adgar, 1994), one wonders if learners use cultural heritage to make meanings of or connections to a foreign event while communicating in a TL.
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Conclusion
The paper sketches an overview of the literature on peer interactions in language classrooms. I first discussed what kind of learning opportunities might be missed, if language classrooms are dominated solely by teacher-student interactions. Pair/group work can complement teacher-fronted instruction to meet the needs of various learners. Communicative approaches advocate learners’ participation in real-life communication. To achieve the goal, communicative competence requires more than grammatical abilities, and should include sociolinguistic, discourse, and strategic competence. The approaches influence the development of using tasks in cooperative learning, collaborative dialogues, task-based and task-supported instruction to promote learners’ engagement in meaningful communication. In cooperative learning, research shows that detailed planning, careful implementation, concrete communication strategies, and shared responsibilities facilitate cooperation. Collaboration requires intense engagement, cognitive conflicts and positive relations between/among partners to make it effective.
How to achieve the above conditions through task design motivates many researchers in task-as-workplan. The research enhances our understanding of the various factors influencing pair/group work, including task features, learner variables and communication strategies. The benefits of student interactions are demonstrated by the frequency of meaning negotiation and the gains in post-tests. The literature of task-as-process, on the other hand, documents the interaction and learning process. Besides discussing their language use and finding solutions to their linguistic problems, learners also manage the task, build intersubjectivity, form goals, assist one another, indicate interests to encourage further conversations, and shape interpersonal relations. All the actions are informed by learners’ experiences, motivations, perceptions and interpretations of the task and the relations with their partners. Language students are portrayed as resourceful in using various tools and means to execute the actions. Learner interactions – shown to be rich, complicated and multifaceted – are loaded with insights and implications for language educators and researchers to explore further.
113 high-school and non-traditional aged students.
The comparatively little research on language learners’ interactions outside of Western educational contexts (Mackey & Silver, 2005), especially in Taiwan, also calls for more studies. Here in Taiwan, students attend most classes with the classmates from their home room. Research shows that relations influence interaction patterns and relationship can be very stable (Storch, 2004). However, what in relations sustains the same interaction pattern or triggers transformation in interactions over time? What role does students’ history of learning and working with others play in interactions? How do learners interpret pair/group work in classrooms in which English is taught as a foreign language? More research to fill in the above gaps is warranted.
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