Structural differences in interaction: LRE initiation, resolution and scaffolding.

Table 14

Identity of initiator in group and one-to-one modes (* percentage of total LREs in that mode and task).

LREs %* M

P1 initiates in group (n = 15) Passage Editing 240 59.0% 16.0

Written Composition 97 41.5% 6.5

P2 initiates in group (n = 15) Passage Editing 166 41.0% 11.1

Written Composition 137 58.5% 9.1

Absolute difference between P1 and P2 Passage Editing 74 18.0% 4.9

Written Composition 40 17.0% 2.7

P1 initiates in one-to-one (n = 15) Passage Editing 318 88.6% 21.2

Written Composition 67 39.0% 4.5

Teacher initiates in one-to-one (n = 15) Passage Editing 41 11.4% 2.7

Written Composition 105 61.0% 7.0

Absolute difference between P1 and T Passage Editing 277 77.2% 18.5 Written Composition 38 22.0% 2.5

The qualitative analysis of interaction revealed important structural differences between one-to-one interaction and pairwork in group mode, in terms of the initiation and resolution of LREs and the use of scaffolding. The following one-to-one

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exchange, first discussed in section 5.2.2.4, was typical of one-to-one dialogues in the present data in that it contained evidence of the triadic IRF (Sinclair & Coulthard 1975) or IRE (Mehan 1979) sequence of interaction: the teacher initiated an episode by eliciting information about form, the learner responded and resolved the episode, and the teacher provided feedback.

Teacher OK, good idea… OK fine so you’re going to start writing, good… tell me if you need any help… opportunity is with one or two Ps?

Onofre Two

Teacher Good… and society Onofre With E?

Teacher Yeah good…

While the initiation and response stages of such one-to-one sequences also occurred in student-student dyads in group mode, there were two key differences with one-to-one interaction. Firstly, when a learner initiated an LRE in one-to-one it was almost always because he or she had noticed a gap between his or her current linguistic knowledge and the target language feature (a pattern noted by Gass & Mackey 2007 and Gilabert & Barón 2013), whereas when a teacher initiated an LRE, it was usually to elicit language that the teacher felt the learner may know. Secondly, in learner-learner interaction in group mode there was rarely any subsequent feedback, other than a phatic utterance such as “OK” or yeah”, as illustrated in this exchange between German and Guillermina:

German smoking, it, should, be Guillermina banned

German banned?

Guillermina banned con dos n’s [with two n’s] German Ah OK

In one-to-one interaction there was also evidence of the extra fourth step in tutoring contexts proposed as an addition to the IRF sequence by Graesser et al (1995). The fourth step consists of engaging in a series of exchanges with the learner, usually of between five and ten turns, in order to scaffold his or her understanding. In the following PE excerpt, Oscar’s teacher elicited a more formal way to close the email. When Oscar paused, the teacher appeared to interpret that Oscar needed support, and therefore provided scaffolding by prompting “Maybe something like I look”, after which Oscar was able to produce the expression without further

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assistance. From this point, the teacher’s contributions consisted only of evaluation, in the form of praise for Oscar’s language:

Teacher Alright, what erm, with this here “Bye for now and see you soon”, do you think that sounds

Oscar It sound, sounds more informal yeah

Teacher How could you finish an email in a more formal way? Oscar Let’s if I can remember the…

Teacher Maybe something like I look Oscar I’m looking forward to Teacher Good

Oscar To the next time Teacher Excellent, good…

Oscar Er… OK

Teacher OK, good yeah, so I’m looking forward to the next time we’ll see each other, very nice

However, there was no evidence in the present data of the fifth and final step in tutoring interaction proposed by Graesser et al (1995), in which the tutor gauges the learner’s understanding of the answer by inviting the learner to evaluate his or her own level of comprehension. This could have been achieved, for example, if the tutor had asked a concept checking question, or encouraged the learner to say how confident he now felt with the target form.

The preceding qualitative examples of structural differences between exchanges in group and one-to-one modes are supported by the quantitative analysis of the identity of the initiator and resolver of dyadic LREs. In PE, 89% of one-to-one episodes were initiated by the learner rather than the teacher, whereas in group interaction, the difference between participants was only 18%. Since LREs arise from gaps in knowledge, and tutors do not have any gaps, it stands to reason that one-to-one students should do most of the initiating. Likewise, one-to-one learners resolved 37% more LREs than their teacher, a significantly greater difference than that identified in learner-learner interaction in group mode. This difference can be attributed to teachers allowing learners time to attempt to resolve episodes alone before becoming involved in the LRE and, when necessary, providing support. In this way, any tutorial support eventually provided usually took the form of scaffolding, since a) it was contingent on learners’ current ability; that is, the amount of support was dependent upon the teacher’s ongoing assessment of the learner’s current level, and if the learner needed no support in identifying and / or resolving an error, none was given; and b)

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the support demonstrated a transfer of responsibility from the teacher to the learner, with the eventual goal that the learner might be able to complete the task

autonomously (Van de Pol et al. 2010).

In the following extract, for example, Ofelia was guided towards resolutions via the provision of scaffolding in the form of prompts and an L1 translation:

Ofelia First this Hi Teacher Hm

Ofelia Is like a bit informal

Teacher OK, what do you think would be better?... Ofelia I really don’t know how to make it better but,

Teacher Hm, if you write a letter or an email, usually, how do you begin?... Is there an expression in English like, a bit like estimado [dear]

Ofelia Ah like, Dear

Teacher Yeah, exactly, so you could change that for Dear Ofelia I wasn’t sure if it was too personal or not, I mean

Teacher Yeah, you can use Dear for, for er… yeah for a formal email, a formal letter, that’s fine

Ofelia OK…

The preceding example of “negotiation of form” (Lyster & Ranta 1998), in which corrective feedback was provided in order to encourage self-repair, contrasts with other LREs in Ofelia’s transcript, such as the following series of very brief episodes comprising corrections both initiated and resolved by the student. While the teacher responded to Ofelia’s corrections by offering positive feedback and metalanguage, none of the teachers’ utterances provided a correction of the error, as the teacher seemed aware that Ofelia could manage to do this herself. In other words, the decision not to provide the answer was contingent on the teacher’s ongoing assessment of what the learner was able to do without help:

Ofelia OK, If I give you a call Teacher Yeah

Ofelia On the phone number… is there a chance Teacher Exactly, very good, cos chance is singular

Ofelia Yeah… and tell me more I mean is there a chance you could give me more information

Teacher That’s better yeah…

Ofelia Er here you could like looking forward Teacher OK good

Ofelia Cos it sounds like too informal

Teacher I agree yeah , so I’m looking forward… I’m looking forward to… Ofelia Erm… to studying

143 Ofelia To studying in your university Teacher Great…

Given the evidence that learner-initiated FonF may be more facilitative of learning than teacher-initiated FonF (Baralt et al 2016), the prominence of learner- initiated episodes in one-to-one suggests learning benefits. It is also illustrative of the asymmetric (Chi et al 2001) and complementary (Philp et al 2014) nature of one-to- one interaction, compared to the more symmetrical learner-learner relationship in group mode, in which participants had more equal roles.

5.2.3.3 Initiator differences less significant in WC. Differences