It’s just not like I imagined: raising awareness of L2 learners’ language use through reflection

This study investigates how reflective dialogue between an instructor and L2 learners is interactionally accomplished in a university English as a Foreign language context. Drawing on Conversation Analysis, this study examines 90 minutes of video-recorded reflective discussions based on learners’ prior participation in dyadic assessment interviews. Two reflective dialogues comprising four extracts from a data set of 12 reflective dialogues are analyzed to uncover how reflection is co-constructed on a turn-by-turn basis. The analysis identifies three recurrent interactional patterns that foster reflection; teacher clarification requests that prompt elaboration, extended wait-time that supports learner meaning-making, and reformulation and recasting which scaffold learner articulation of emerging understandings. The absence of these practices is also shown to constrain reflection. These practices are mapped onto stages of reflection (noticing, making sense, and making meaning) as conceptualized by Moon, demonstrating how reflection is achieved as a situated and dialogic process. The findings contribute to reflective practice research by providing empirical evidence of how reflection unfolds in interaction, shifting the focus from reflection as an individual cognitive activity to a socially mediated process. Pedagogical implications are discussed for organizing reflective dialogues to support learner awareness of language use.