1.3 The Advantages of Pair Work 2

1.4 The Problems Associated with Pair Work 2

1.5 Previous researches about pair work 3

1.6 This Study 3

2. Research Method 4

2.1 Participants 4

2.2 Instruments 4

2.3 Procedures 5

3. Data Analysis and Results 6

3.1 Language-Related Episode 6

3.1.1 Analysis of LREs 6

3.2 Results 8

3.2.1 Error Correction 8

3.2.2 Questionnaire 11

4. Discussion and Conclusion 12

4.1 Interactive LREs 12

4.2 Pooling Linguistic Resources Together and Co-construct Knowledge 12

4.3 Conclusion 13

1. References 14

1. Appendix I 16

2. Appendix II 20

1. Introduction

Since 1980s, cooperative learning has been used in many fields. And among the ways of cooperative learning, pair work is the one that is widely adopted in today’s second language classes. Besides, the idea that pair work is a useful method for students to learn second language has been accepted commonly. Since pair work is so popular and widely used in second language learning that it is important to find out whether pair work can truly benefit each student and help them form new knowledge.

1.1 The Theoretical Basis of Pair Work

Pair work is based on the socio-constructivist theory which is represented by Vygotsky. Vygotsky (1978), hold the view that the potential for cognitive development depends on the concept of "zone of proximal development" which is widely seen as a kind of scaffolding. And he also states: "Every function in the child's cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the inpidual level; first, between people (interpsychological) and then inside the child (intrapsychological). This applies equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, and to the formation of concepts. All the higher functions originate as actual relationships between inpiduals."

Besides, from the cognitive perspective, Long’s (1983) theory of interaction (interaction hypothesis), building on the importance of comprehensible input to second language learning (Krashen, 1981), posits that interaction, such as confirmation checks and clarification, between learners is just like “negotiations of meaning”. And in this kind of negotiation, students can get more comprehensible input and thus promote their second language learning. One way of encouraging such kind of negotiation is to use cooperative learning such as group work and pair work.

Moreover, Swain’s output hypothesis (1985) highlighted that the output is very important to second language learning. And Swain later identified some functions of output. One of them is that output can help learners notice the gaps between knowledge of their language and that of target language. And when learners talk about the language they produced, the metatalk may deepen learners’ knowledge of language use, of the relationship between meaning, form and function. Swain (1998) also argued that learners’ language learning process can be stimulated by metatalk among learners. And Swain pointed out that such metatalk can be encouraged by using group work or pair work on tasks requiring joint output and reflection on the language that is produced.