Talking it through: two French immersion learners’ response to reformulation

This article documents the importance of collaborative dialogue as part of the process of second language learning. The stimulus for the dialogue we discuss in this article was a reformulation of a story written collaboratively in French by Nina and Dara, two adolescent French immersion students. A sociocultural theoretical perspective informs the discussion of three sustained examples of the learners’ “talking it through” as they confront and resolve many language-related problems while comparing their story with its reformulation. A pre-test/post-test design allows us to demonstrate the combined effects on second language learning of the reformulation and the students’ reactions to it.