A cross-sectional study on task type and negotiation of meaning in CLIL child-child interaction

Abstract

Different task types have been hypothesised to affect the type and amount of Negotiation of Meaning (NoM) generated in learner-learner interactions. However, studies specifically addressing the impact of the task variable on the NoM in child-child interactions in foreign language contexts are virtually non-exixtent. This study analyses the amount and type of NoM operationalised as conversational adjustments (CAs) present in the interactions of primary education L1-Spanish young learners (YLs) of English on two different tasks. Participants were 40 eight-year-old children enrolled in a partial immersion Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) program. Ten pairs took part in a two-way pictureplacement jigsaw, while the other ten participated in a one-way picture-placement storybased task. The results indicate that the impact of task type on the amount and type of CAs produced by participants is more far-reaching than expected, revealing a significantly greater amount of CAs in the one-way task. This finding locates this variable at the very core of the list of factors directly impinging on NoM.