Learning a Language with Peers

Drawing on experiences of ESOL teachers from around the world, this book provides insights into how peer learning is understood and used in real language classrooms. Based on survey responses, interviews, and observations in a wide range of classroom settings, this book integrates research on peer interaction in second language learning from cognitive and social frameworks with original data on teacher beliefs and practices around the use of peer learning in their teaching. Readers will gain understanding, through teachers' own words, of how peer interaction is used to teach linguistic form, how learners collaborate to develop oral and written communication skills, and how technology is used with peer learning. This book also delineates the ways that current second language peer interaction research diverges from classroom practice and concludes with a classroom-centered research agenda that addresses the nexus of research and practice on second language peer interaction. The book provides a template for integrating research- and practice-based perspectives on second language learning. Language teachers, teacher educators, second language researchers, and advanced students of applied linguistics, SLA, TESOL, and language pedagogy will benefit from this volume's perspective and unique work.