Grammar in dialogue: EFL children’s attention to form through collaboration
Demonstrating how grammar focused tasks, input enhancement and collaborative writing help children focus on formal aspects of the language.
Grammar in dialogue: EFL children’s attention to form through collaboration
26 Nov 2025, 17:30 – 19:00
Although the early learning of English as a foreign language (EFL) in school settings has grown exponentially over the past twenty years, one population that remains underexplored regarding these issues is children aged 6-12.
This talk will share ways in which interactive collaborative tasks can draw children’s attention to formal aspects of English. The research, grounded within cognitive-interactionist and sociocultural frameworks, demonstrates how grammar focused tasks, input enhancement and collaborative writing – combined with the manipulation of implementation variables (task repetition, task modality) and explicit metalinguistic explanations – help children focus on formal aspects of the language.
These instructional procedures enable children to resolve problematic issues without teacher intervention. The talk will conclude by identifying challenges and further research directions for effective grammar pedagogy for young learners.
This event will be particularly useful for researchers.
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Johnstocker via Adobe Stock.
Full Professor of English Language and Linguistics
University of the Basque Country, Spain
She is also honorary Professor at University College London and Honorary Consultant for the Shanghai Centre for Research in English Language Education.
She the director of the research group 'Language and Speech', the editor of Language Teaching Research and member of the Steering Committee of the Spanish State Research Agency.
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