Negotiated Interaction in Teacher-Led versus Peer Group Adult ESL Discussions

This study investigated how teachers and learners negotiated meaning in three teacher-led whole-class and nine peer group pre-writing discussions in a pre-university ESL program. By analyzing various interaction features such as comprehension and confirmation checks, clarification and feedback requests, self- and other-corrections, and self- and other-completion, the study found that although peer discussions had high frequencies of negotiation, these negotiations were restricted compared with the extended negotiations in teacher-led discussions. Also, peer groups, where students showed more initiation to modify syntax, lexis, and meaning were limited compared with the target like forms in teacher-led error corrections. Students' feedback suggested that they perceived peer and teacher talk to complement each other to meet various needs of the learners as useful language learning experiences.