The development of second and foreign language learning through classroom interaction "Hall and Verplaetse (2000)"

The report of the title is in chapter 1 in "Second and foreign language learning through classroom interaction" (2000). Below is a summary of just the points that the author is expressing.

Second and Foreign Language Learning Through Classroom Interaction

foreigner talk(FT)...the primary function of FT was to convey information. 

talk to babies(BT)...the function of BT was to elicit interaction.

Long(1981)... a study of modifications---linguistic modification/interactive modification,

claiming that the interactive modifications were facilitative and necessary for second language acquisition. 

Long(1981) credited FT with the following techniques "to sustain conversation (be able to  have them take in the situation??) and to lighten other aspects of the NNS's interactional burden":

1. NSs engage in cooperative dialogue by supplying information to the NNS's utterances to help the latter express an idea.

2. NSs answer their own questions and ask rhetorical questions.

3. NSs frequently use an interrogative style, thereby requiring answers and, hence, sustaining the conversation.

4. NSs use many and frequent clarification devices to avoid conversation problems and to repair miscommunications.

Supplying information, Answering their own question (first), Using an interrogative style, Using clarification devices are the ways we can take in Japanese EFL situations to have Ss use as parts of their language skills. How about NNS's role??

NNS's role in interaction:

---it is the NNS's work in the negotiation of meaning that increases and ensures that the input is maximally comprehensible(←HOW is not explicitly written).

In this perspective, as one of the practices in the Japanese EFL situation, I implemented and summarize this point. Then, how about output? 

Importance of output in interaction:

---Swain(1985): output provided three functions: noticing, hypothesis testing, and reflection.

It is, however, no doubt that these are substantially the important functions in the interaction, how can we take them in the practice? Ss tend to notice the noticing happening, "oh, that's what I can use!", "oh, that's a nice(better) way to express this." After Ss finished expressing the idea, I want Ss to realize they had tested the hypothesis and whether they worked well or not. To do so, I should utilize the well-organized interaction in the activities. Then we have a closer look at the relevant topic, language learning and group.

sociocultural principles of language and learning

sociocultural: related to the different groups of people in society and their habits, traditions, and beliefs(Cambridge Dictionary Online). 

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/ja/dictionary/english/sociocultural

The findings show that our cognitive development is shaped through extensive and varied practice and experience in activities that display regular patterns of resources. It is suggested that the conventionality and frequency of use of these resources increase the likelihood that what is significant in the activities will be noticed.

The building of context-specific patterns of expectations allows us to recognize problem patterns and respond to them with practiced solution procedures. This, in turn, increases our chances of controlling and learning the skills needed for competent engagement.

These last three sentences are cognitively important, i.e., getting used to the activity or language use, which means being able to see him/herself objectively. And if we make Ss get used to them, they may voluntarily notice the problems they have. Then, what is the relationship between the individual and the others (esp. teachers' role)??

..., the individual mind is created in the pursuit of action in our material and social worlds. .... Through our repeated and extended engagement in these activities with others who are more knowledgeable or expert, we transform the specific means for realizing these activities into individual abilities. It is eventual self-regulation of the specific means for realizing our activities that characterizes psychological growth.

The fundamental core of what gets learned and the shape it takes are defined by the environment, constituted by the myriad activities available to us and our particular ways of participating in them. These dynamic environments shape at the same time both the conditions for and the consequences of our individual development. Key components of this process include the specific contexts of human action and the particular opportunities provided to or created by novice participants to use the means and to develop relationships with the more expert participants in these contexts.

Because teachers are considered to be the experts in their classrooms, their role in structuring and managing these intellectual and practical contexts in which the students learn has been shown to be especially consequential. Through their communicative actions in their interactional activities, teachers shape the learner's developmental paths in the following ways.

First, they make salient to the learners certain properties of the world constituted within their classrooms, providing models of what they consider appropriate communicative actions and ways to go about acquiring those actions as they do.

Second, they mediate both the quantity and quality of opportunities the students will have to participate in and learn from the activities.

Third, in and through their interactions with learners, teachers make apparent the standards against which students' performances are measured.

 In this article, we see Ss and teachers role in language teaching and learning. Apparently there are quite different and difficult issues due to this article is based on the extent that we cannot practice in our present situations, still, we are able to transform the procedures into our contexts. I still stick to this book and try to figure out the implications.