The document discusses the significance of student-student interaction in language learning, highlighting how collaborative work fosters communication and second language acquisition. It emphasizes the benefits of peer cooperation and the role of reciprocal scaffolding in enhancing learner engagement, autonomy, and language proficiency. Furthermore, it outlines effective strategies for focus on form during communication, addressing the importance of both planned and incidental instructional activities to facilitate linguistic development.

1. 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

2. 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;

3. 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

4. The potential advantages of group activities in language instruction (based on Jacobs 1998)
Advantage Comment
In the teacher-fronted classroom, the teacher typically
1. The quantity of learner speech can
speaks 80% of the time; in group work more students
increase.
talk for more of the time.
In teacher-fronted classrooms, students are cast in a
2. The variety of speech acts can responsive role, but in group work they can perform a
increase. wide range of roles, including those involved in the
negotiation of meaning.
In teacher-fronted lessons teachers shape their
3. There can be more individualization instruction to the needs of the average student but in
of instruction. group work the needs of individual students can be
attended to.
Students feel less nervous speaking in an L2 in front of
4. Anxiety can be reduced.
their peers than in front of the whole class.
Students will be less competitive when working with
5. Motivation can increase.
groups and are more likely to encourage each other.
Students are ‗social animals‘ and thus enjoy interacting
6. Enjoyment can increase. with others in groups; in teacher-fronted classrooms
student-student interaction is often proscribed.
Group activities help students to become independent
7. Independence can increase.
learners.
Group activities enable students to get to know each
8. Social integration can increase.
other.
In typical teacher-fronted classrooms students are
9. Students can learn how to work
discouraged from helping each other; group work helps
together with others.
students to learn collaborative skills.
Learning is enhanced by group work because students
10. Learning can increase. are willing to take risks and can scaffold each other‘s
effort.

5. 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

6. 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.

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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?‘

12. Study Participants Target structure Design Tests Results
Carroll and Swain 100 Spanish adult Dative verbs Five groups: Recall production All the treatment
(1993) ESL learners (low (A) direct tasks following each groups performed
intermediate) metalinguistic feedback session better than the control
feedback. (B) explicit group on both recall
rejection. (C) recast. tasks. Group A (direct
(D) indirect metalinguistic
metalinguistic feedback)
feedback. (E) control, outperformed the
treatment consisted of other groups.
two feedback
sessions, each
followed by recall
(i.e. production
without feedback)
Kim and Mathes 20 Korean adult ESL Dative verb One group receive Controlled production Differences between
(2001) learners (high explicit metalinguistic tasks (as in the performance on first
beginners and feedback; the other treatment) without and second production
intermediate) recasts; feedback was feedback tasks not significant;
presented in two differences between
sessions one week groups for gains in
apart each followed production not
by production with no significant. Learners
feedback expressed preference
for explicit feedback.

13. Leeman (2003) 74 first-year Spanish noun- Four groups Post and delayed post Only groups A and C
university learners of adjective agreement performing picture description outperformed the
Spanish communicative task tasks control group on any
one-on-one with post-test measure. No
researcher difference between A
(A) recast group and C
(B) negative evidence
group (source or
problem indicated but
not corrected)
(C) enhanced salience
with no feedback
(D) control group
Lyster (2004) 148 (Grade 5) 10-11 French grammatical Group 1 received Four test FFI-prompt group
year-olds in a French gender (articles + form-focused 1. binary choice was only group to
immersion nouns) instruction (FFI) + test outperform control
programme recasts; Group 2 FFI + 2. text completion group on all 8
1. prompts (including test, (oral measures (PT1 and
explicit feedback; production PT2).
Group 3 FFI only. tasks) FFI-recast group
Control group 3. object outperformed control
identification group on 5 out of 8
test measures
4. picture FFI-only group
description test outperformed control
Two post-tests (PT) group on 4 out of 8
with PT2 measures
administered 8 weeks Statically significant
after PT1 differences between
FFI-recast and FFI-
prompt

14. Ellis, Loewen, and 34 intermediate-level Regular past tense –ed Classroom-based 1. oral imitation tests No effect evident for
Erlam (2006) adult ESL students in exposure to either – OIT (designed to CF on the immediate
private language recasts or measure implicit post-test but the group
college metalingustic knowledge) receiving
feedback (without 2. untimed metalinguistic
correction of the grammatically feedback
error) judgment test – outperformed both the
UGJT (to measure recast and control
explicit knowledge) group on both the
3. metalinguistic delayed OIT and
knowledge test (to UGJT.
measure explicit
knowledge)
Sheen (2006b) Low-intermediate Indefinite and definite Classroom-based 1. dictation test Whereas the
ESL learners in a articles exposure to recasts 2. written narrative metalinguistic
community college in and correction – test correction resulted in
the USA metalinguistic 3. error corrections significant gains in
explanation in the test learning in both
context of performing immediate and post-
an oral narrative task tests, the recasts did
not
Ammar and Spada 64 mixed-proficiency Third-person Classroom-based 1. written passage high-proficiency
(2006) learners in three possessive corrective feedback correction task learners benefited
Grade 6 intensive determiners (‗his‘ and consisting of recast 2. oral picture equally from recasts
ESL classes ‗her‘) and prompts description task and prompts; Low-
proficiency learners
benefited more from
prompts

15. 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

16. 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).

17. Less important < focus on form > more important
Learner variables
Age Children Adolescents Adults
Proficiency level Beginning Intermediate Advanced
Semiliterate, some formal
Educational background Preliterate, no formal education Literate, well-educated
education
Instructional variables
Skill Listening, reading Speaking Writing
Need/use Survival Vocational Professional

18. 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….