Innovation in Language Learning

In language teaching departments, the prospective language teachers should be exposed to a variety of interaction patterns throughout their education as they are assumed to foster their general language proficiency and give them the opportunity to explore what makes a task pedagogical before they start their teaching profession. Therefore, pair and small group activities can be utilized to act as an agent to increase students' involvement in the process.  

Especially ‘pair work’ is one of the mostly preferred interaction patterns. Each of the pairs has the opportunity to contribute and there is almost no risk of dead time when compared to individual and group work. It allows students to work and interact independently without teacher guidance, thus promotes learner independence. In addition to its being easy and quick to organize ‘if we get students to make decisions in pairs, we give them the chance to have responsibility rather than having to bear the whole weight themselves.’ (Harmer, 2001)

Many studies which focused mainly on quantitative analysis of linguistic interaction and the factors affecting meaning negotiations were carried out. These studies seemed to ignore the individual differences between pairs and the effect of these relations on learning outcomes. In recent studies, however, pair work dynamics are analyzed with a much more intensive look. Individuals add their characteristic features into their interaction.

In this study, a group of university students from the faculty of education were involved so as to reveal the individual differences and their effect on completion of a given task.

Keywords: ELT, pair work, interaction