Foreign Language Classroom Context: Diversity in Students’ Comprehensible Output

Abstract

Data from the interactions between the students and their teacher as well as the interactions among the students themselves were collected through classroom observation, recordings, and interviews. The results revealed the existing diversity in learners' language-related episodes while trying to make their output comprehensible both in the big and the small classroom group without being prompted to do so. In addition, they showed the diversity of learners' output modifications as reactions to either their teacher's or their peers' feedback. Despite the abundance of studies on output and learners' interactions in the field, no research has been found that collects evidence of this type from an intact class in a Spanish-secondary-school setting where English is learnt. The article discusses the various pedagogical benefits of modified output not only for language development but also for learners' cognitive and psychological development and therefore suggests implications for educators. The study is indeed timely in view of the current interest shown by the Spanish government in promoting foreign languages.