2. Negotiation
“Part of the skill of listening is learning how to take an active role
in providing feedback to the speaker (Brown, 1986). This
feedback may involve pointing out problems with the
comprehensibility of the message and specifying where the
problem lies. This feedback and questioning is called negotiation.”
3. Long on Negotiation
“. . . tasks that stimulate negotiation for meaning may turn out to
be one among several useful language-learning situations, in or
out of classrooms, for they may be one of the easiest ways to
facilitate a learner’s focus on form without losing sight of a
lesson’s (or conversation’s) predominant focus on meaning.”
4. Long on Negotiation (Cont’d)
• makes input understandable without simplifying it, so that
learnable language features are retained
• breaks the input into smaller digestible pieces
• raises awareness of formal features of the input
• gives learners opportunities for direct learning of new forms
• provides a “scaffold” within which learners can produce
increasingly complex utterances
• pushes learners to express themselves more clearly and
precisely— “pushed output”
• makes learners more sensitive to their need to be
comprehensible.
5. Gass on Negotiation
• “The claim is not that negotiation causes learning nor that
there is a theory of learning based on interaction. Rather,
negotiation is a facilitator of learning; it is one means but not
the only means of drawing attention to areas of needed
change. It is one means by which input can become
comprehensible and manageable, [and] . . . it is a form of
negative evidence [helping] learners to recognize the
inadequacy of their own rule system.”
6. Why Encourage Negotiation?
• clarifying poorly presented items
• clarifying because of inattention
• clarifying unknown items
• clarifying the task procedure.
7. Strategy Training for Speaking
1. Explanation of discourse strategies like “holding the floor” /
negotiating meaning / providing feedback to the speaker /
managing turn-taking
2. observing conversations / using a checklist and later
providing feedback
3. transcribing recordings of their own speech and critiquing
them.
8. Encouraging Negotiation
• Use of Written Input
1. completion activities
2. ordering activities
3. split information activities
4. ranking
5. problem solving
6. modify the statements
9. Types of Info Distribution
1. All learners have the same information (a cooperating
arrangement).
2. Each learner has different essential information (a split
information arrangement) (Nation, 1977).
3. One learner has all the information that the others need (a
superior-inferior arrangement).
4. The learners all see the same information but each one has a
different task.
10. Factors Affecting the Amount
and Type of Negotiation
• Pair work vs. Group of four
• Cooperating tasks vs. Information gap tasks
• The signals learners make affects the adjustment of output
during a task.
