Language-related episodes

A language-related episode (LRE) is any part of a dialogue where language learners 'talk about the language they are producing, question their language use, or correct themselves or others ' (Swain and Lapkin 1998: 326). LREs were initially units of analysis to examine the goalappropriateness of discourse used in the completion of classroom tasks. This descriptive construct, which is based on instances of language use termed 'critical episodes' (Samuda and Rounds 1993), has since been used in classroom research to identify the degree to which language learners address recently learnt or problematic features of the target language, allowing for the systematic categorization of these episodes by researchers.