Form-Focused Instruction and Verbal Interaction in the Context of English for Academic Purposes: A Vygotskian Approach

Abstract

This article presents the results of a case study research which aimed at investigating the effectiveness of peer verbal interaction with spontaneous focus on form for the improvement of reading comprehension skills in English in an EAP context. Grounded in the Socio-Historical Theory (Vygotsky, 1978) and in the Comprehensible Output Hypothesis (Swain, 2000), it was hoped that the investigation could contribute to a better understanding of how knowledge is constructed through social interaction in the foreign language classroom.