Classroom interaction and language learning

Abstract

http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/2175-8026.2003n44p165 In the field of second and foreign language learning, interaction has long been considered to play an important role. Studies taking a more traditional, formalist perspective on language and learning have focused on the role that interaction plays in helping learners to assimilate and internalize knowledge of linguistic forms in the target language. More recently, a group of scholars concerned with interaction and additional language learning, or the learning of languages other than the mother tongue, has begun to move away from this more traditional perspective and into areas outside of what has generally been considered the main focus of the applied linguistics field. Taking more of a sociocultural perspective on language and learning, this research is concerned with documenting the links between student participation in particular kinds of classroom interaction and their communicative development in the target language.