The Importance of Participant Role in Cooperative Learning

要旨

A way in which second language teachers can use analysis of student discourse to understand how small group interaction defines students' roles relative to each other is demonstrated in a case study. The study compared the participant role of a 21-year-old Japanese male student in an intensive English second language program in two different student pairs. In one pair, the subject did not participate fully, showed frustration, and allowed the other participant to determine the dynamics of the interaction. In the second pair, the subject negotiated turn-taking with his partner and began to perceive himself as a legitimate participant in the classroom culture. It is concluded that the interaction between students can either limit or enhance students' opportunities to participate and negotiate meaning, and the teacher is in a position to intervene to change the limiting organization of the pair or group. In addition, it is proposed that when the teacher can identify strategies that students are using to successfully negotiate meaning, she or he can help all students develop such strategies by making them explicit. (MSE) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** N 0 J The importance of participant role in cooperative learning Rebecca Freeman University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education This paper demonstrates a way that language teachers can use discourse analysis to understand how small group interaction defines students' participant roles relative to each other, and illustrates how the interaction can either limit or enhance students' opportunities to participate and negotiate meaning. Equipped with this understanding, the teacher can intervene to change limiting organizations. In addition, the teacher can encourage the students' development of useful strategies by making them explicit.

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