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Given the lack of studies comparing group and one-to-one language instruction, it is relevant at this point to consider the research into the nature of teacher-student classroom interaction, in language teaching and beyond, in comparison with peer interaction. This section will explore this area by considering the IRF framework and its variations, “Socratic” tutoring, teacher talk leading to negotiation of form, and the effects of perceptions of learner and teacher roles.

2.4.1 IRF and Scaffolding. Although few SCT-oriented studies have investigated teacher-learner interaction, research from other theoretical standpoints indicates that it has specific structural qualities that differentiate it from learner- learner talk. The triadic IRF (Initiation, Response, Feedback) sequence of interaction identified by Sinclair & Coulthard (1975) in their sociolinguistic discourse analysis of teacher-led group lessons, also referred to as IRE (Initiation, Response, Evaluation) by Mehan (1979), is perhaps the best known teacher-student interactional sequence. It comprises the initiation of interaction by a teacher (often by asking question), a response by a learner (usually with an answer to the teacher’s question), and feedback provided by the teacher, usually in the form of confirmation or correction of the answer provided. While this sequence was first observed in group lessons, evidence of its presence in one-to-one instruction was also provided by Graesser, Person and Magliano (1995). In addition to the first three steps in which (1) the tutor asks a question, (2) the student offers an answer and (3) affirmative or negative feedback is provided by the tutor, Graesser et al proposed a one-to-one tutoring frame in which two more steps, which they claimed to be unique to the tutoring context, are added: (4) the tutor engages in a series of exchanges with the learner, usually of between five and ten turns, in order to scaffold his or her understanding (such scaffolding may consist of breaking down the task into smaller parts, doing part of the task for the student, and / or reminding the student of an important aspect of the task); and (5) the tutor gauges the learner’s understanding of the answer by inviting the learner to evaluate his or her own level of comprehension.

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There is evidence, however, that contingent scaffolding of this kind is not unique to one-to-one tutoring, and also occurs in the feedback stage of IRF sequences in group lessons. In her SCT-oriented study observing student-teacher interaction in a language classroom, Gibbons (2003) adopted an interpretative ethnographic approach to analyse discourse in CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) group science lessons for eight and nine year olds at an Australian ESL school in which English was the medium of instruction. While observing that the IRF sequence was in effect in these classrooms, Gibbons also noticed that in their interactions with students, teachers used language to mediate between the students’ current language level and everyday understanding of science, on the one hand, and specific scientific language and specialist understanding of scientific concepts, on the other. Sometimes this mediation consisted of recasts, prompts to encourage learners to repair their utterances and use a more academic register, or the correction of utterances that were factually incorrect – in other words, precise and contingent scaffolding to help learners move beyond their current level of ability. Evidence was also found of teachers eliciting additional information instead of providing feedback in the third part of the IRF exchange, which Gibbons claimed encouraged learners to take greater responsibility for improving the comprehensibility of their response.

Gibbon’s study not only provided evidence of teachers in group contexts as mediators between Vygotskian spontaneous and scientific concepts, but also demonstrated that steps (4) and (5) of Graesser et al’s (1995) sequence are not limited to one-to-one contexts but also occur in group leaning, either in open class or while monitoring individual, pair or group work. However, it still stands to reason that in a one-to-one context the individual learner will receive more instances of scaffolding from a teacher than in a group, where the teacher’s attention is divided. If a teacher’s scaffolding and encouragement of self-evaluation promote learning, and if these occur more often in one-to-one than group contexts, then logically there will be more learning opportunities in one-to-one contexts – unless, of course, peer scaffolding of the sort observed by Donato (1994) and Ohta (2000, 2001) is able to support learner development to a similar extent as scaffolding provided by the teacher.

2.4.2 “Socratic” Tutoring. Evidence from studies in cognitive psychology (e.g. Chi, Siler, Jeong, Yamauchi & Hausmann 2001) indicates that the presence of

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the IRF sequence in one-to-one contexts may not in fact be more conducive to learning than other interactional sequences. Learning may occur just as effectively regardless of whether tutors assume a traditional didactic role, for example by providing explanations and feedback, or a more interactive role, for example by only prompting using questions such as “what’s going on here” and “what do you think” – the kinds of questions that might also commonly occur in student-student dialogue. In

Chi et al (2001), when tutors of eighth-grade biology students refrained from

providing explanations and feedback, but rather adopted a style of tutoring the authors referred to as “interactive” or “Socratic” (p. 512), learners engaged in a greater number of scaffolding episodes, and engaged in these more deeply. Learners also took more control of their own learning by reading more of the text, a behaviour to which the authors attribute the greater learning that takes place, as measured by pre- and post-tests. It seems that when teachers let go of the traditional didactic teacher role and rather adopted the role of a questioning peer, learners’ assumed more responsibility for their own learning, and learning outcomes were improved.

While the primary-age non-linguistic context limits applicability to the present study, these findings suggest that peer-peer interaction has the potential to benefit learners as much as learner-teacher talk, provided it consists of interrogative input that encourages interlocutors to engage in and reflect on the task at hand.

2.4.3 Teacher Talk and Negotiation of Form. Specific structural qualities of teacher talk in group classes have been identified by researchers working from a psycholinguistic interactionist perspective, such as Lyster (1998). In his analysis of French school-age immersion classroom discourse, teacher talk was found to contain elicitation, metalinguistic feedback, clarification requests and repetition – all of which the author claims led to student-generated repair and “negotiation of form”, a process defined as the “provision of corrective feedback that encourages self-repair involving accuracy and precision” (Lyster & Ranta 1997: 42). However, teacher feedback consisted overwhelmingly of recasts, which the author claims were less conducive to student repair and negotiation of form than the other kinds of feedback observed. Again, there was no comparison between teacher- and peer-feedback, but studies on peer interaction have demonstrated that students in dyads are also able to successfully engage in negotiation of form and self-repair (Gass & Mackey 2007; Kim &

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McDonough 2011; Gilabert & Barón 2013). Peer interaction is particularly well- suited to self-correction and the emergence of new forms, as it provides a safe context for experimentation with language (Philp, Adams & Iwashita 2014). The question can therefore be raised of how effective such teacher feedback is in comparison to that provided by a peer.

Furthermore, it has been claimed that teacher-initiated focus on form within LREs may be less facilitative of learning that learner-initiated FonF, as learner- initiated FonF i) indicates a genuine gap between the learners’ knowledge and the target language, and ii) demonstrates that the learner wishes to address this gap her or himself, which may in turn suggest greater motivation and learner autonomy than teacher-initiated FonF (Baralt et al 2016). While Baralt notes there is limited empirical research to support this claim, findings from Williams (2001) suggest that no matter whether the LRE began with feedback on an error by the teacher or with a learner’s request for assistance, the learner was equally likely to remember the form.

2.4.4 Perception of Roles. An important way in which teacher-student and student-student interaction may differ is in students’ and teachers’ perception of their roles, which has been described as asymmetrical (Chi et al 2001): teachers and learners often perceive the teacher’s role to be that of conveying meanings in a comprehensible way, to check learners have understood, and to provide necessary scaffolding, whereas the student’s role is often expected to be to display signs of comprehension, to ask questions, and to do the tasks set. Student-student interaction, conversely, has a greater degree of symmetricity: there may be greater co-construction of shared knowledge in which each participant has an equal role. These teacher and student roles have been described as complimentary, with the teacher assuming the role of language expert, and peers in dyads assuming the roles of fellow learners with whom to test and develop language (Philp et al 2014). The qualitative analysis of teacher-learner and learner-learner interaction in the present study will help shed light on the degree to which these differences in roles might impact on languaging and learning.

To summarise, while research into teacher talk, tutoring styles and learners’ perceptions of roles has helped identify important characteristics of classroom

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interaction, the differences between one-to-one tutoring and peer interaction have not been fully explored. Such as an exploration is one of the key aims of the present study.

This literature review now turns its attention to the main unit of analysis employed in the present research, LREs.