Conversational Interaction and Second Language Development: Recasts, Responses, and Red Herrings?

TLDR

The study focused on recasts, a key interactional feature recently examined in SLA research. The authors investigated how negotiated interaction, specifically intensive recasts, influences ESL learners’ short‑term interlanguage development and the nature of their responses. They compared two learner groups: one receiving interactionally modified input and another receiving the same input with intensive recasts. Results indicate that for more advanced learners, intensive recasts better promote production of targeted higher‑level morphosyntactic forms and short‑term interlanguage development, even when learners do not immediately modify their responses, suggesting such responses may be red herrings.

Abstract

This article examines the effects of negotiated interaction on the production and development of question forms in English as a second language (ESL). The study focused on one feature of interaction, recasts, which have recently been the topic of interactional work in the SLA literature (Long, 1996; Long, Inagaki, & Ortega, this issue; Lyster & Ranta, 1997; Oliver, 1995). The study compared groups of learners who received interactionally modified input with learners who received the same input containing intensive recasts in order to investigate: (a) the effect of recasts on learners' short term interlanguage (IL) development, and (b) the nature and content of learners' responses to recasts. The results suggest that for more advanced learners, interaction with intensive recasts may be more beneficial than interaction alone in facilitating an increase in production of targeted higher‐level morphosyntactic forms. These positive developmental effects were found for recasts even though, as is generally acknowledged in the discourse, recasts were usually not repeated and rarely elicited modification by the learners. This study, therefore, suggests that recasts may be beneficial for short term IL development even though they are not incorporated in learners' immediate responses. In fact, the responses may be red herrings.