International Journal of Research Studies in Language Learning
2014 April, Volume 3 Issue 2, 85-100
© The Authors / Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs CC BY-NC-ND
The impact of small group interaction on learners’
grammatical accuracy achievement
Assia, Baghdadi
University of M’sila, Algeria (assiabaghdadi1@live.fr)
Said, Keskes
University of Sétif, Algeria (keskaid@yahoo.fr)
Received: 26 June 2013 Revised: 02 November 2013 Accepted: 04 November 2013
Available Online: 14 November 2013 DOI: 10.5861/ijrsll.2013.511
ISSN: 2243-7754
Online ISSN: 2243-7762
OPEN ACCESS
Abstract
In an attempt to investigate the impact of small group interaction on EFL learners’
grammatical accuracy achievement, methodological field experiments had been carried out
with a sample of 30 students over a period of ten weeks of regular lectures in the Department
of English, in one of the Algerian Universities. The obtained results indicated that learners’
interaction and cooperation had a positive effect on EFL learners’ achievement. And in order
to scrutinise the existence and the frequency of the speech functions that might account for
this effectiveness, a qualitative and a quantitative study had been conducted through the
adoption of the Interaction Analysis Method. The results showed that within a cooperative
learning context, factors such as the group size; the nature of the interaction; the learner’s role
within the small group, and the type of the task-based grammatical structure had an influential
effect on EFL learners’ grammar performance.
Keywords: grammar learning; interaction analysis; small group; group dynamics; task-based
activity