When Are They Going to Say “It” Right? Understanding Learner Talk During Pair‐Work Activity

Abstract

ABSTRACT Adopting sociocultural theory as their conceptual framework, the authors set out to study selected features of student discourse of three pairs of third‐semester (i.e., intermediate‐level) learners of Spanish at the university level. Specifically, they wanted to investigate how these selected features, identified in an earlier research project (Brooks and Donato 1994), developed during opportunities to engage in five different but similar jigsaw tasks. Through discourse analysis, they traced these features and found that the students indeed developed and became better at performing the tasks. Their work suggests that if the purpose and function of learner language during problem‐solving tasks are not clearly understood, learners may end up being denied strategic opportunities for language activity that can lead to their saying “it” right.