A teacher-researcher snapshot of task-based peer interactions in EFL secondary school classrooms in Germany

This article reports a small classroom-based study that has explored task-based peer interactions among grade 9 secondary school students (N = 14) of middle and low relative proficiency. Drawing primarily on audio recordings of peer interactions, oral presentations, and post-task interviews, and conducted by the teacher-researcher, it investigated how students interacted on an output task that was embedded in regular EFL lessons and designed to wrap up the unit work centered around the topic Down Under. A particular focus was on exploring to what extent and how students used the language that the task was meant to trigger, namely future tense and unit-related vocabulary. The aim was to inquire whether the task worked in the way it was designed for. The findings have shown that although students were involved with the task and with each other’s contributions, the use of the targeted structure elicited by the task remained limited. Pedagogical implications are discussed.