The past few decades have foregrounded cooperative learning and its pedagogical implications for students' academic, psychological, and social gains, particularly, in the Western context. These gains, nonetheless, were sometimes questioned and doubted in the Confucian Heritage Culture (CHC) countries such as China. This study adopts Norton's…

Using positioning theory as a framework, this study examined two adult learners' participatory opportunities in small group interactions when they were learning English as a second language in an American university. The study finds that control over access to participatory opportunities mainly lies in how learners manage to position themselves…

Research has provided evidence in support of the importance of the predictive effect of the willingness to communicate (WTC) on interactions in the classroom and shed light on the predictive sources of WTC. However, few studies have investigated learners' perceptions of classroom interaction in the target language (L2 PCI), and few have considered…

This chapter examines video-recorded peer interactions in one primary Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) maths classroom in Barcelona (Spain) from the perspective of facework (Goffman E, Interaction ritual: essays on face-to-face behaviour. Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1967). It aims to identify and describe how participants establish and…

This paper describes the effectiveness of student collaboration as a technique in improving vocabulary development among a group of ESL learners. The main motivation behind this study was the concern that vocabulary has become a neglected area in the teaching of English language. The main aims of the study were to evaluate whether student…

Following Ellis's (2005) call for more social and process-oriented planning research, this study explores how learners approach collaborative planning tasks in the classroom as a locally contingent activity in situ. Drawing on ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, the present study focuses on a group planning stage that precedes the final…

Researchers and teachers often invoke context to explain their particular research/teaching issues. However, definitions of context vary widely and the direct impact of the context is often unexplained. Based on research showing contextual differences in second language (L2) learner beliefs and interactional behaviors, the current project compared…

This paper proposes a student-oriented approach tailored to effective collaboration between students using mobile phones for language learning within the life cycle of an intelligent tutoring system. For this reason, in this research, a prototype mobile application has been developed for multiple language learning that incorporates intelligence in…

Synchronous written chat and instant messaging are tools which have been used and explored in online language learning settings for at least two decades. Research literature has shown that such tools give second language (L2) learners opportunities for language learning, e.g. , the interaction in real time with peers and native speakers, the…

In most learning situations, learners are learning with their peers, and the teacher is teaching to a class, not to an individual learner. As it is indisputable that learners conceptualize their learning as occurring in a group, it is logical to assume that the class group has some effect on learners' learning. Thus, it could be constructive to…

This article investigates the relationship between classroom climate and performance in postsecondary French as it is generated by student-to-student connections and interaction, rather than instructor-to-student interaction. The study applies an instrument originally developed to measure classroom climate in native language public speaking…

This article explores the use of group work strategies to increase student interaction and learning. Despite the growing linguistic and cultural diversity in tertiary institutions, there is strong evidence of minimal interaction between "domestic" and "international" students in classrooms and in wider university contexts. This study investigates…

Internet-mediated intercultural discussions have been adopted for intercultural and second-language learning. However, the notion of community development in this context has received less attention. This study employs exchange structure (ES) analysis (Stubbs, M. (1983). "Discourse analysis." Oxford: Basil Blackwell) to investigate the…

The current study examines the impact of pretask modelling on the collaborative learning opportunities that occurred when Korean learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) carried out three tasks: dictogloss, decision-making, and information-gap. Forty-four adolescents who were enrolled in a required English course at a middle school in Korea…

This pedagogical innovation aims at discovering new ways of interaction that go beyond the unidirectional relationship that is presented in the classrooms most of the times. The innovation considers peers to be active agents in the construction of knowledge and proposes new ways to arrange groups in the classroom so that the arrangement can…