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.

Author Biography

Rebecca Adams is an Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics in the Department of English at the University of Memphis, USA, where she teaches on second language acquisition, applied linguistics research, and TESOL pedagogy. Her prior research on peer interaction in second language learning has been published in journals including TESOL Quarterly, Language Learning, the Modern Language Journal, Language Teaching Research, and in edited volumes and handbooks. Her two previous co-authored books on this topic were published by Routledge.

Rhonda Oliver is a Research Professor of Applied Linguistics working within the School of Education at Curtin University, Australia. Her research has involved studies about the role of interaction, especially peer interaction, in second language and dialect acquisition. Her key focus has been children and adolescents. Her book with Bich Nguyen, Child Second Language Learning in Different Classroom Contexts, was published by Routledge in 2018. In recent times, her research has led her to work in Indigenous Education with an award-winning book in this area published by Routledge in 2021.