Book Review: Exploring Peer Interaction in Language Learning (LL&LT)

This report provides a comprehensive review of the book 'Peer Interaction and Second Language Learning,' edited by Masatoshi Sato and Susan Ballinger. The book explores the role of peer interaction in second language (L2) learning, examining interactional patterns, learner characteristics, task and interaction modalities, and learning settings. It highlights the benefits of peer interaction, such as increased learner comfort and opportunities for practice, and discusses three theoretical perspectives: cognitive, social-cultural, and social-cognitive. The review covers the book's methodology, which includes thirteen empirical studies involving over five hundred L2 learners, and emphasizes the importance of teacher support in facilitating effective peer interaction. The book also addresses the gap between research and practice by including sections on pedagogical implications. The reviewer commends the book's organization, clear language, and mixed-method approach, recommending it for students of applied linguistics and second language studies, while also noting a limitation in adequately explaining learners' interactional moves. Overall, the review underscores the book's contribution to advancing knowledge in peer interaction and related fields.

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Concepts in applied Linguistics
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Book Review; Peer Interaction and Second Language Learning
Overview of content
The book explores peer learning interactions for L2 learning. In doing so, three central areas
have been looked at, including interactional patterns and learner characteristics, task and
interaction modality as well as learning settings. The book suggests that learners feel more
comfortable during peer interaction as compared to student-teacher interactions. It is therefore
clear that this comfort positively contributes towards learners' processing ability, thus creating
more opportunities in learning practice. The book has also explored existing literature and
provides an extension by identifying three theories of peer interaction. The cognitive perspective,
social, cultural perspective, and social cognitive perspective are among the three theories that
this book sheds light on.
The book entails thirteen empirical studies that involved more than five hundred L2 learners
from all levels of learning, including elementary, high school, and university levels. The target
languages in this study comprise English, French, and Spanish (Sato & Ballinger, 2016).
Moreover, since the book aimed towards presenting a variety of theoretical perspectives
undertaken in examining a similar phenomenon, each chapter in this book has a methodological
framework section where the author justifies methodology adopted and to what extent they
contributed towards pinning down the research question.
Even though peer interaction is not a primary focus in this book, it is a very crucial aspect in
facilitating active peer learning. The book also argues that a teacher's role in peer interaction is
varies depending on several issues, including social context, learners' age, the task in question,
and learning outcomes. The argument here is that a teacher has a vital role to play in as far as

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peer interaction is concerned. It is required that teachers provide sufficient support beforehand
and, after that, follow the activity by addressing some of the challenges encountered.
Peer interaction, coupled with task-based language, have been very crucial aspects as far as
language teaching and learning are concerned. This is so because these two variables can
maximize classroom language learning by actively involving learners in language use and
problem-solving. For this reason, it is the author suggests that teachers should always strive to
increase levels of their learner's class interaction.
As a result of extending the gap between research and practice, which often leads to teachers
being less informed regarding the latest findings as well as researchers not considering classroom
context while considering and analyzing research, each chapter includes a section for
pedagogical implications.
Critical review
The book Peer Interaction and Second Language Learning is one of a kind; it has played a very
crucial role in advancing existing knowledge on peer interactions and other related disciplines.
The book has succeeded in achieving its primary aim of providing an up-to-date overview of
substantive interaction between language and learners. Thoughts have been carefully arranged in
a way that they organize the text into three main sections. These sections include interactional
patterns and learner characteristics, task and interaction modality, and learning settings.
Regarding these three sections, the books seek to answer several questions. First, the books aim
to find out how interactional patterns and learner characteristics affect L2 learning in peer
interactions. Secondly, the book seeks to find out how different types of tasks, as well as
interaction modality, the effect of interaction patterns in L2 learning. The third question that this

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book seeks is how learning settings affect peer interaction and L2 learning. To examine these
issues, the authors employed used several techniques such as qualitative, quantitative, and
mixed-method designs. Apart from this, social cognitive, social, and cognitive theoretical
frameworks were also brought into play. A large section of the studies in this particular book is
mainly classroom-based. Furthermore, the studies were conducted extensively covering
extending to all five continents, and in that way, covering it encompasses a wide range of learner
L1s as well as target languages.
The book has also adopted a rather mixed-method approach that makes it possible to explore
global context variables regarding peer interaction. Besides, it is written in a clear and concise
language, thus making it easy for all readers to follow regardless of varying levels of knowledge
and experience in the discipline. As such, the book requires strong recommendations more so to
students of applied linguistics as well as those of second language studies.
Even though the book demonstrated a concise chronology of thoughts and ideas, it has failed to
adequately explain why learners engage interactional moves during actual peer interaction.
However, there is circumstantial evidence that indicates that learners often feel more comfortable
during peer interaction as compared to teacher-student interaction. Through this, the book has
expanded available knowledge on applied linguistics and other related fields.

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References
Sato, M., & Ballinger, S. (Eds.). (2016). Peer interaction and second language learning:
Pedagogical potential and research agenda (Vol. 45). John Benjamins Publishing
Company.