Analysing language-related episodes in collaborative dialogue: English as a Foreign language speaking practices as part of pre-service Primary Education teachers’ training at the University of Cádiz (Spain)
Although research on Language Related Episodes (LREs) has grown in the past two decades, especially to investigate the type of language used in written texts and how it is handled among pair groups, the speaking aspect during collaborative and interactional classes in the presence of a native speaker is still scarce. Thus, the study seeks to examine the nature of LREs generated between students (prospect/ pre-service English teachers of Spanish nationality with different proficiency levels) and untrained native-speakers (native-language assistants). LREs resolutions, the type of tasks behind them, different modes of interactions (student-student (S-S) or teacher-students (T-Ss)), and most importantly, the linguistic issues that arise, are explored. Two months and a half of weekly sessions were observed, audio-taped, transcribed, and then the recorded interactions were analyzed in detail for LREs using the Jefersonian methodology of conversation analysis. Retrospective interviews with both group participants were conducted to gauge their perceptions of the methodology of teaching as well as certain recurring phenomena (mainly linguistic-based). Findings revealed that the generated LREs were better resolved among students themselves than how the native-language assistant would do so. Communicative type of tasks (vocabulary games, oral reading, debates, and random conversations) positively impacted the generation and frequency of LREs and hence fostered meaning negotiation and output production. In this regard, S-S modes of conversation lead to collaborative interaction strategies of scaffolding and facilitating the language by high proficiency learners to their lower proficiency level peers, unlike when the native-language assistant is involved. In different LREs, certain linguistic complexities were identified by Prospect-English teachers for which instructional strategies for teaching provided by native language assistants were neither appropriate nor effective and mostly neglected, leading to serious habits– fossilization, overgeneralization, negative transfer, and on-the-spot correction, inter alia.