This article highlights a series of areas deemed worthy of attention by L2 researchers. In some cases the research effort would entail following up on studies initiated some years ago and in other cases the effort would involve relatively new research thrusts. The article includes ideas about research regarding: (1) "pathways to success in…

The question of whether written corrective feedback (CF) has a role to play in second language (L2) development has been controversial since Truscott (1996) published an article in "Language Learning" calling for the abandonment of the practice on theoretical, empirical and pedagogical grounds. As a result of his claims, an on-going…

A considerable number of studies on focus-on-form instruction, corrective feedback and uptake have been carried out in the field of second language acquisition (SLA) research over the last two decades. These studies have investigated the above-mentioned concepts from different perspectives, in a number of different contexts and in a number of…

Repetition is used for a range of functions in conversation. In this study, we examined all the repetitions used in spontaneous conversations by 41 French adult-child dyads, with children aged 2 ; 3 and 3 ; 6, to test the hypotheses that adults repeat to establish that they have understood, and that children repeat to ratify what adults have said.…

Correction and repair as components of an instructional practice that facilitates learning have figured prominently in research on classroom-based second and foreign language learning. Recent studies incorporating a conversation analytic (CA) perspective on second language acquisition (SLA) have also focused on repair and correction. From a CA…

Researchers have claimed that recasts might be ambiguous as feedback. Because recasts serve a dual function, as both feedback and conversational response, learners might not always interpret them as feedback (e.g., Lyster & Ranta, 1997). This study explores how learners interpret recasts they notice (as responses to content, negative evidence,…

Most research on language awareness in a second language (L2) has been carried out with adult learners. This research presents data showing that pedagogical techniques can be devised enabling children as young as 8 to develop metalinguistic awareness of their emerging L2 system. Building on existing work by Canadian researchers, this…

In Skinner's (1957) conceptual analysis, the process of self-editing is integral to the dynamic complexities of multiply determined verbal behavior, but the analysis has generated little in the way of an experimental analysis. The majority of scientific work on self-editing has taken place within linguistics and cognitive psycholinguistics. Here…

This research investigates the usefulness of two major types of interactional feedback (elicitation and reformulation) in dyadic interaction. The focus is on the different ways in which each feedback type is provided and their relationship with learner repair. The participants were 42 adult intermediate English as a second language learners and…

Reviews psycholinguistic research on second-language (L2) self-repair to date with particular attention to the relevance of this field for L2 production and acquisition. (Author/VWL)

This analysis looks at the humorous use of second-speaker repeats to initiate conversational repair. It is proposed that consideration of joking repeats forces reanalysis of the organization of conversational repair. The preference analysis theory is rejected in favor of a locally governed analysis of conversational repair in which participants…

Adult "redoing" sequences (expansions and repeats) in conversations between adult and child (age 1;6) are analyzed with a conversational analytic approach, and two ways in which redoing sequences are involved in the initiation of repair are explored. It is proposed that a redoing sequence picks up a child's utterance and displays it for some kind…

Drawing data from audiotaped lessons with 10 native-speaker English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) teachers and 12 EFL learners of varied linguistic backgrounds, a study explored some of the ways in which classroom talk by learners is collaboratively built to repair errors, misunderstandings, and non-communication. Focus is on both explicit and…

The relationship between the notion of "error" in linguistics and language teaching theory and its potential application to error correction in the second language classroom is examined. Definitions of "error" in psycholinguistics, native speech, and English second language instruction are discussed, and the relationship of interlanguage…

This article reviews previous studies of the effects of implicit and explicit corrective feedback on SLA, pointing out a number of methodological problems. It then reports on a new study of the effects of these two types of corrective feedback on the acquisition of past tense -ed. In an experimental design (two experimental groups and a control…