Creating L2 Learning Opportunities Through Peer Collaboration

Creating L2 Learning Opportunities Through Peer Collaboration

  This study explored the nature of student-student interactions among young L2 learners to understand how the construction of meaning is negotiated through peer collaboration to facilitate L2 reading comprehension. The types of studentstudent interactions that occurred during student-led literature discussions in an English book club differed depending on the topics the students initiated. The request for clarifying unknown words entailed providing information using various means at the students’ disposal: sounding out, synonym, definition, procedural information, conceptual information, and translation in L1. However, when students were working on a discussion question that required more thinking rather than just a simple correct answer, the interaction types, such as eliciting and elaborating, occurred to facilitate the negotiation of meaning. The results of the study indicated that the student-led literature discussions provided useful opportunities for peer collaboration, in which the participating students took turns instructing one another until they arrived at an increased understanding and helped each other to consider alternative ways of understanding L2 texts.