Examining Form-Focused Interactions in Peer Collaborative Dialogues within an EFL Context
Keywords:
peer interaction; sociocultural theory; focus on form; collaborative dialogues; language-related episodes; English foreign language contextAbstract
The learning process relies heavily on classroom interactions and peer learning. Consequently, it is vital to integrate peer interaction into second language learning environments. This research, grounded in sociocultural theory, examined how students focused on form while working together on pair/group activities during their regular English classes. The data collection involved audio recordings of student dialogues. The study included 22 seventh-grade English foreign language students in the Sultanate of Oman who participated in collaborative tasks as part of their mandated curriculum. The researcher analyzed the students’ collaborative dialogues for language-related episodes (LREs). The results indicate that the students produced 152 LREs within 140 minutes, which were categorized. The analysis revealed a higher occurrence of phonological LREs compared to morphosyntactic or lexical LREs. Other-initiated LREs slightly outnumbered self-initiated LREs. The students successfully resolved the majority of LREs. The study highlights English foreign language learners’ ability to recognize, tackle, and solve various linguistic issues during peer collaborative dialogues. The researcher suggests that English foreign language educators should encourage peer interaction in their classrooms by offering students the necessary support and scaffolding for metalinguistic discussions in the second language, through clear instructions and guided pre-task training on collaborative dialogues, to optimize the benefits of peer interaction in English foreign language English foreign language contexts.
https://doi.org/10.26803/ijlter.24.5.12
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