This study aims to investigate the perception of Chinese English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) students towards the written and oral peer feedback they provided, received and observed in triads during an English writing course. Sixty-nine sophomores in a Chinese university who participated in the course filled out a questionnaire; nine of them,…

The role of L1 knowledge about language (L1KAL) in L2 teaching/learning has received little research attention despite its potential importance. In this study, 9 primary (aged 11) and 16 secondary (aged 15) school francophones working in dyads edited an English paragraph containing 19 errors whilst justifying each change. Their discussions were…

This study explored peer groups' mediation processes in the digital space. Building upon translingual research and multimodal discourse analysis, the researcher analysed video transcript excerpts of oral conversations and on-screen interactions among university students of different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. This article focuses on…

This paper presents a qualitative analysis of structured student reflection following carefully designed, collaborative student-centered activities to demonstrate how pre-service teachers may initiate perspectives on language awareness necessary in developing a praxis of language awareness. I begin by identifying a framework for a praxis of…

This study draws on Sociocultural Theory to explore how 12 adult EFL learners engaged in pair work, how their willingness to engage was demonstrated in pair activities, and what other factors influenced that willingness. Six pairs engaged in seven different activities and were interviewed after all activities were completed. Each pair's type of…

Research on form focused instruction has provided support for the use of collaborative tasks in which learners focus their attention on formal aspects of language and consciously reflect on their own language use (i.e. produce language-related episodes or LREs). A strand of research on LREs in different educational contexts examines the effect of…

This study examined intracultural peers using language as a cognitive tool (i.e. "languaging") to recognise, understand, and explain intercultural communication concepts. In pairs, 42 Korean public school teachers enrolled in an in-service program completed a describe-interpret-evaluate task through synchronous computer-mediated…

The ADEQUA research project has gained empirical evidence on how the situationally adequate use of learning strategies can be facilitated during cooperative reading tasks in the EFL (English as a foreign language) classroom. Two video studies were conducted with ninth-grade EFL learners in German schools: the first (laboratory) study investigated…

This study explored some MA students' perceptions of a Grammar Awareness course for language teachers. The aim was to understand how group tasks might help students build Grammar Awareness. Two cohorts of students were surveyed and interviewed. In this paper, the survey responses are discussed in some depth. While the first cohort was left to…

In this paper, both a cognitive and a sociocultural theoretical perspective are used to bring together findings from two studies that investigated the effects of instruction designed to enhance the potentially positive effect of peer interaction on L2 development. Despite differences between the studies' learning contexts, participants' age, and…

Drawing on Language Awareness (LA) approaches developed for francophone classrooms and a sociocultural theoretical perspective on language and learning that posits the genesis of new knowledge construction is situated in social interactions and shaped by socio-historical context, we conducted a small-scale case study of the implementation of LA…

In this study, we compare the first and the last sessions from an online oral proficiency course aimed at doctoral students conducted in the virtual world Second Life. The study attempts to identify how supportive moves made by the teacher encourage learners to engage with language, and what type of linguistic behaviour in the learners leads to…

The focus in studies of language awareness in L2 learning generally has been on the efficacy of teacher-generated attention to discrete elements of the forms of language through the manipulation of texts or corrective feedback. The study reported in this paper engaged learners in a collaborative task that involved learner-generated attention to…

Current research on language learning makes many claims about the potential benefits of small group work in L2 classrooms. With the relatively recent emphasis on students' perspectives, there is now a growing number of investigations that focus on learners' beliefs about the language classroom. In this study, 21 students and their teachers…

This paper looks at the employment of metalanguage by advanced English L2 users engaged in Dictogloss, a form-focused collaborative writing task, and compares it with that in an earlier study of intermediate learners. First, three commonly employed types of metalinguistic terms are recognised, listed and compared with those reported in a study of…