Publications

Interactional strategies for interlanguage communication: Do they provide evidence for attention to form?

Book Title
Investigations in Instructed Second Language Acquisition. Studies in Language Acquisition
Editors
A. Housen & M Pierrard
Year
2005
Pages
383 - 405
DOI
Publisher
Mouton de Gruyter
Links

The present study considers if learners’ needs in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) setting can be addressed through interaction other than negotiation of meaning. The performance of seven dyads of advanced EFL learners and of seven dyads of those learners with English native speakers was analyzed on two communication tasks and two strategies were identified: repair (self- and other-) and completion. Although during their interaction advanced EFL learners were resourceful in using these strategies, numerous morphosyntactic imprecisions were observed and led to the conclusion that the use of more complex focus-on-form activities is in order in this context and for this level of command of the language.