Teddy the T‐Rex, interaction and spontaneous formative second language assessment and treatment

Abstract

This pilot study draws on three short spontaneous conversation episodes between an English teacher in a Hebrew-English bilingual kindergarten in the United States and a young (five years eight months) native speaker of Hebrew during a task-based literacy event. It is argued that tasks that trigger spontaneous conversations between teachers and young second-language learners are potentially rich sites for language teaching and learning; teachers cognisant of this potential as they interact with their young interlocutors can use a variety of communicative strategies, which are illustrated in the data. Results of a finegrained discourse analysis show how communicative strategies might be reframed to demonstrate that they reflect and constitute spontaneous formative assessments and treatments. In this way, oral interaction in second-language development might be placed in the foreground of practice as it plays itself out in early childhood classrooms and might lead to more frequent, reflective, and intentional conversational moves by teachers in ways that have been shown to foster secondlanguage development.

A Systematic Review of Teacher–Child Interactions With Multilingual Young Children

“…Six studies described strategies to create extended discourse and support language development (Dolley & Wheldall, 1991;Gardner, 2008;Ping, 2014;Sayer, 2013;Sherris, 2011;Tsybina et al, 2006). The teachers in the study by Ping (2014) primarily used wh-prompts (i.e., use of "what," "where," and "why" questions) to encourage children to contribute to the interaction.…”

“…The teachers in the study by Ping (2014) primarily used wh-prompts (i.e., use of "what," "where," and "why" questions) to encourage children to contribute to the interaction. Sherris (2011) explored the spontaneous interactions between a multilingual child and the teacher. This teacher used a wide variety of strategies to extend the interaction.…”

International Perspectives on ELT Classroom Interaction

“…Studies of ELT classrooms thus far have investigated many different types of classroom; ESP classrooms such as Burns and Moore's (2007) study of the accounting classroom and Packett's (2005) study of journalistic interviewing, CLIL classrooms (Dalton-Puffer 2007), immersion classrooms (Pekarek Doehler and Ziegler 2007), EAL classrooms (Leung 2010), and bilingual kindergartens (Sherris 2011). In terms of geographical range, recent years have seen the publication of studies containing evidence of ELT classroom interaction in Jamaica (Taylor 2010), Syria (Rajab 2013), Australia and Korea (Ko 2013), Austria and Spain (Strobelberger 2012), Hong Kong (Luk and Lin 2007), Taiwan (Li and …”

Reference to a past learning event as a practice of informal formative assessment in L2 classroom interaction

“…In this way, RPLE displays orientation to students' epistemic responsibility and indicates to them that they "already possess resources to find the answer" (Lee, 2006, p. 706). Thereby, it treats through assessment or assesses through treatment (Sherris, 2011). This suggests that it is usually impossible to consider assessment and treatment as separate entities as they are closely intertwined.…”