Seeing what they meant: transcribing as a route to noticing

Abstract

This paper describes a reflective noticing activity in which pairs of adult learners of English for Academic Purposes transcribed their own performances of a routine classroom speaking task. Working collaboratively, they then discussed and edited the transcripts, making a large number of changes, which were overwhelmingly for the better. These edited transcripts were passed on to the teacher, who made further corrections and reformulations, and then discussed the changes with the learners. Analysis of the process and product of these cycles of work suggests that collaborative transcribing and editing can encourage learners to focus on form in their output in a relatively natural way. It also underlines the role of the teacher in this sort of post-task intervention, especially in the area of vocabulary.