TELT

This is an interesting study by Chris Carl Hale, a teacher in the MA TESOL program at Teachers College Columbia in Tokyo.  It takes a conversational analysis perspective on a pairwork speaking/writing activity.  A close analysis of one pair's interaction with each other and the teacher reveals how the process of bringing the assigned task to an outwardly successful conclusion - the students handed in the required work - actually concealed a power struggle which ultimately had a lasting demotivating effect on one of the students.

Since the paper is from a research collection, there are no recommendations for the teacher, but we might suggest that teachers need to be aware of the face-threatening aspects of collaboration in a second language and try to minimise the risks for all learners.