Second Language Interaction in Diverse Educational Contexts ed by Kim McDonough & Alison Mackey (review)

This volume brings together 14 empirical research studies that explore interaction in a wide range of educational settings. Starting from the interactionist approach to second and foreign language acquisition, the reported studies build on the hypothesis that language learners may benefit from interacting, negotiating, and collaborating with peers, native speakers, and their teachers. One of the main ambitions of the editors is to broaden the empirical base on interaction in language education, which is reflected in the broad range of educational settings, interaction contexts, research questions, and methods of analysis that are involved. So, although the focus of the volume is on oral interaction, several studies also address the link between interaction and writing skills; as well as studies into interaction in traditional classroom settings, the volume also includes work that involves the interaction between learners and technology, and the use of interaction studies for informing placement and testing decisions. Although in most studies the accuracy, complexity, and lexical diversity of the interlocutors' output is analyzed, some studies focus on pragmatic and sociolinguistic features.

The volume is organized in three thematic sections. Part 1, including four studies, focuses on interaction in L2 classrooms. In Chapter 1, Kim reveals the differential effects of task repetition and procedural repetition on Korean learners' attention to linguistic form during collaborative tasks. Chapter 2 focuses on the occurrence of language-related episodes during collaborative tasks: Basterrechea and Garcia Mayo compare the interaction between English-as-a-foreign-language learners with those between students in content-and-language-integrated-learning programs during dictogloss tasks. Two other chapters in this section focus on the impact of collaborative tasks on the use of specific grammatical features: In Chapter 4, Mackey et al. compare the production of question forms by students in two conditions (task-based activities versus traditional practice activities), using a pretest-posttest design. In Chapter 5, Wagner and Toth explore interactions among American high school learners of L2 Spanish during three lessons on the pronominal clitic. The two remaining chapters in this section take a different perspective. The study reported by Gilabert and Baron in Chapter 3 measured the impact of increasing cognitive task demands on the use of L2 learners' pragmatic moves. In Chapter 6, Batstone and Philp report a study in which they adopted a qualitative approach to the analysis of extended stretches of classroom interaction as adult language learners worked collaboratively over repeated cycles of teacher-fronted and related group work tasks. Their innovative study reveals the power of classroom interactions as they evolve across time and in both public and private spaces and documents how learning emerges from interaction between individuals.

Part 2 focuses on interaction involving technology. In Chapter 7, Sauro examines the text-chat interaction of second language learners and teacher trainees engaged in an online exchange that linked classes. In their study reported in Chapter 8, Smith and Renaud used eye tracking to explore the relationship between second-language recasts, noticing, and learning during computer-mediated chat conferences. Another methodologically innovative study is the one reported in Chapter 9: Collentine and Collentine used corpus-linguistic methods to examine the extent to which L2 learners of Spanish exhibit structural convergence on nominal-clause syntax during task-based synchronous computer-mediated communication. In Chapter 10, Heift reports a study comparing the effectiveness of two types of pre-emptive feedback in a CALL environment. Finally, in Chapter 11, Serafini's study explored the use of learner-response systems ("clickers") as a source of feedback for teachers during language lessons. Many of the chapters in this section clearly break new ground, illustrating that the notion of interaction takes on new guises as language learners utilize digital tools to practice their language skills.

Part 3 is a miscellaneous section, bringing together studies in a varied range of educational settings and dealing with research questions that were not covered in the previous sections. The first two chapters in this...