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- Title
Peer assistance among mixed-age pairs in mixed-age EFL secondary school classrooms in Germany.
- Authors
Kos, Tomas
- Abstract
Drawing from a sociocultural framework, this paper reports a study which investigated peer assistance among 10 mixed-age pairs (n=20) in mixed-age English as a foreign language (EFL) secondary school classrooms in Germany which are simultaneously mixed-ability classrooms. Mixed-age is increasingly used (Kallery and Loupidou 2016; Kuhl et al. 2013; Thurn 2011), but is under-researched in language classrooms. Although some research has been conducted in L2 mixed-proficiency settings, there has been no study conducted on peer-interactions within mixed-age groups/pairs in L2 contexts. This study aims to lay the foundations for future research of peer interactions among M-A second language learners. Results show that mixed-age pairs assisted one another in ways similar to those found in teacher-learner interactions, while some in ways which resemble to what Donato (1988, 1994) called collective scaffolding. However, the extent that this assistance benefited learning varied across learners. The findings also suggest that rather than age, the relationship between learners seems to be one of the major factors mediating the extent and quality of assistance.
- Subjects
ENGLISH as a foreign language; PEER teaching; SECONDARY schools; ENGLISH language education in secondary schools; MIXED age grouping (Education)
- Publication
European Journal of Applied Linguistics, 2019, Vol 7, Issue 1, p61
- ISSN
2192-9521
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1515/eujal-2017-0013