A study investigated whether, when second language learners engage in second-language interaction, opportunities to comprehend and produce the second language are conditioned by their gender and/or the correspondence between their gender and that of the interlocutor. The interactions of a native speaker (NS) and a non-native speaker (NNS) in same- and cross-gender dyads were analyzed in four information exchange tasks. Subjects were 12 male and 20 female native speakers of American English and 17 male and 15 female native speakers of Japanese learning English as a Second Language, all at the low-intermediate level. Results did not show a clear-cut role for NNS gender as a discriminating factor in frequency of negotiated interaction and its associated opportunities for comprehension of input, feedback on production, and modification of output. What emerged from testing of hypotheses was a complex interaction of both gender and task type in providing and inhibiting these opportunities. The framework for coding data on negotiated interactions and a diagram of one of the tasks are appended, and a 52-item bibliography is included. (MSE) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. *****************************t*****************************************

A study examined second language learners' interaction in the interaction stage of dictogloss to see how it might facilitate language learning. Dictogloss, a class activity, involves the teacher reading a passage aloud in class at natural speed, students taking notes for reconstruction, and students producing, in pairs or small groups, their own grammatically correct version, which is then analyzed and corrected by the whole class. Subjects were four adult students in an intensive English-as-a-Second Language (ESL) class. Students worked as pairs, then as a group of four. English-language interactions of the groups were analyzed for occurrence of Critical Language-Related Episodes (CLREs) (meaning-based, grammatical, and orthographic) reflecting attention to or negotiation of those language skills. About half of the 43 CLREs identified were grammar-related and 15 were meaning-based. The