Interaction in the Target Foreign Language

Interaction in the foreign language, as Long depicts it, is "beneficial as it leads to the negotiation of meaning". This statement entails a transferring of ideas which lead to some level of settlement between people. Interaction in the foreign language is comprised of a process people undergo to reach an understanding of one another. To apply negotiation of meaning in a foreign language means the learner/speaker needs to clarify, rephrase and confirm his thoughts in order to be understood and for others to understand him. Without this interaction, learning a foreign language becomes a much higher mountain to traverse.

Challenges such as the students' anxiety, shyness, inability to notice feedback, as well as each individual's internal learned capacities are only some of the challenges teachers face when asking students to do conversational activities in the classroom. Teachers can overcome, or at least manage, these challenges by being aware and knowledgeable about their implications. For example, in relation to a student's ability to memorize in the face of distraction, teachers must keep in mind that everyone will not be at the same level. Therefore, by incorporating and interweaving various learning activities, the students may have a higher probability of actually retaining a new aspect of the target language learned in the classroom. However, in a class of 30 to 40 students, lesson plans have to be revised because these challenges can multiply very easily.

In the classes where I have had to interact with classmates, if the teacher wasn't nearby, we would usually revert to English. The students I worked with never felt comfortable speaking the target language and even if we did speak the target language for a little while, someone in the group would break from it and a snowball effect would ensue. It felt frustrating to me because there were times when I couldn't express myself as well as I wanted and other students (sometimes more proficient speakers) would just ask what I was trying to say in English. Without an environment where students feel they have to communicate in the target language in order to be understood, I believe interaction can not be fully realized.