Second Language Learning and Language Teaching

Learning through interaction involves negotiation 
of meaning.
The central concept in the interaction approach is ‘negotiation of meaning’ – ‘the
process in which, in an effort to communicate, learners and competent speakers
provide and interpret signals of their own and their interlocutor’s perceived com-
prehension’ (Long, 1996: 418). In other words, useful interaction involves keeping
the conversation rolling by continuously resolving any difficulties in comprehen-
sion. Some of the different possibilities are: ‘repetitions, confirmations, reformula-
tions, comprehension checks, clarification requests etc’ (Long, 1996: 418).
Rather like communication strategies, negotiation for meaning is keeping the
channel of communication open – the equivalent of saying, ‘Are you still there?’
The interaction approach 225
interaction hypothesis: successful second language acquisition depends cru-
cially on conversational interaction with others
negotiation for meaning: solving mutual difficulties in conversation by means
of various conversational moves
recasts: rephrasing incorrect student utterances
Keywords

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when the other person on the phone seems to fall silent. Almost invariably, these
interactional moves have been discussed in terms of conversation between native
and non-native speakers: comprehensibility has been weighted towards the native
speaker rather than to successful L2 users. An exception is research by Garcia
Mayo (2007), who found that L2 students talking to each other managed to suc-
cessfully negotiate meaning in a variety of ways, that is, ‘scaffolding’ each other’s
use of language.
Teaching involves not only these ordinary conversational moves, but also those
specific to the teaching situation in which the aim is learning. One is direct cor-
rection. Teachers have perhaps always corrected and always will. In my experi-
ence, students usually complain when their teachers do not correct, rather than
when they correct them too much.
General models of L2 learning