Interaction for learning

In the field of SLA, interaction became a core concept of language learning with the advent of the communicative approach to language learning, contrasting with the behavioural approach that focuses on the stimulation-response model in early years. Scholars believe that interaction with others is the fundamental process and purpose of learning, although with different emphases. Table 2.1 summarises the interpretation of interaction from different perspectives - cognitive, social and ecological.

20

Table 2.1: Interpreting interaction from different perspectives Cognitive

orientation

Social orientation Ecological orientation Interpreting Interaction for learning Interaction offers sources of input and output (1) The meaning-making process in interaction constitutes the learning itself

(2) Learning occurs in interaction with more competent members

(1) Interaction offers affordances for learning

(2) Interaction occurs at different levels: interpersonal, intrapersonal, and between human and physical environments

In cognitive SLA, interaction and context are understood as sources of input and output to facilitate cognition, but not as constitutive of learning itself in learning how to interpret, create and exchange meanings (Liddicoat & Scarino, 2013). Research on study abroad with this orientation usually uses quantitative instruments to measure interaction and socialisation during SA, such as measuring the amount of target language exposure and language use (Matsumura, 2000, 2001), and language contact and interaction (Dewey, Ring, Gardner, & Belnap, 2013). In these studies, interaction is seen as an external factor to language

proficiency and is not considered as part of the learning process itself. Although they inform us about the importance of interaction during study abroad, these studies cannot capture the detailed process of students’ interaction.

In social SLA, interaction is deemed to be a socially negotiated aspect by which learners are socialised into the L2 society. Social context is not only a source of input and output for the learner, but it provides interaction for active meaning-making with other participants who are more or less competent in the language (Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986). Research studies with this orientation are usually qualitative in nature as the qualitative methodology is “very much in keeping with a sociocultural perspective of second language acquisition which conceives learners first and foremost as individuals” (Lantolf, 2000, p.155). This line of research on study abroad explores more how students interact with different communities. For example, Castañeda and Zirger (2011) investigated how students interacted with members in the host family, community, and service school. Although socially oriented research focuses more on the process and questions of “how” and “why”, interaction is often limited to the interpersonal level, lacking attention to intrapersonal interaction and interaction between human and physical environments.

The ecological perspective embraces the importance of both the social process and cognitive process of learning but is broader than these. The following will explicate the two distinctive features of the ecological view on interaction: (1) emphasis on the affordances of

21

the environment for interaction, and (2) the multi-levelled nature of the environment for interaction.

An understanding of interaction from the ecological perspective is not narrowed to examining interactions with other learners or human beings, but takes a broader concept of interaction incorporating the holistic environment. As Kramsch (2002) stated: “The metaphor of ecology captures the dynamic interaction between language users and the environment as between parts of a living organism” (p. 3). The ecological perspective therefore has

“extensive explanatory power for learning deriving from the interaction between individuals and their environments” (Hoven & Palalas, 2011, p. 701). The ecological view on interaction privileges the notion of affordance, or “a particular property of the environment that is relevant ... to an active, perceiving organism in that environment.” (van Lier, 2000, p.252). The usefulness of an affordance is only manifest when a learner perceives it as salient (Hoven & Palalas, 2011), echoing Kramsch’s understanding of learning based on subjective and relational criteria. One of the educational successes of language education is the degree of engagement in discovering unplanned affordances along the way in the complex and unpredictable multilingual environment (Kramsch, 2002). Therefore, a research focus regarding interaction in this study is whether students perceived the affordances in the target environment were valuable for their construction of interaction opportunities.

To understand the holistic environment for interaction more thoroughly, it should be noted that interaction occurs at different levels, entailing not only interpersonal social

interaction but also intrapersonal interaction and the interaction between human and physical environments. Such an interpretation of the ecological perspective stems from

Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) chaos theory on educational development, which sees the

environment as complex nested systems at multiple levels from proximal to distal which can be labelled micro-, meso-, exo-, and macrosystems. Most relevant to understanding students’ experiences in a short-term ICS are microsystems because they fit the student and study abroad setting (Jessup-Anger & Aragones, 2013). The microsystem is originally defined by Bronfenbrenner (1993) as “a pattern of activities, roles, and interpersonal relations” that are experienced in one’s immediate environment that “invite, permit, or inhibit engagement” in that environment (Bronfenbrenner, 1993, p. 15). With the development of technology, the notion of an ecological techno-subsystem (Johnson & Puplampu, 2008) was added as a dimension of microsystems to include human interaction with non-living elements of communication, information and recreation digital technologies in environments. That is to say, ecological views on learning consider the “interactions among various aspects of an

22

intervention, including the students, teachers, environment, and technological tools, in order to determine how they work together to influence the teaching and learning process”(Ducate & Lomicka, 2013). Learning processes deemed by some scholars as non-interactional (e.g., watching TV, see Wiklund, 2002) are also deemed interactional in nature from an ecological perspective.

Informed by an ecological orientation, interaction in this study will be examined in different settings with diverse people and resources both in class and outside of class. The focus is not only on the diversity and intensity of social contacts but also on the nature of the interaction processes in the affordance of ICS. Since the usefulness of an affordance is only manifest when a learner perceives it as salient (Hoven & Palalas, 2011), the focus of analysis is on whether students perceived the affordances in the target environment were valuable for their construction of interaction and learning opportunities.