Negotiation of Meaning in Dialogic Engagement as Indicators of Comprehension of ESL Learners

This study investigated negotiation of meaning in dialogic engagement as indicators of comprehension of ESL learners; employed a qualitative research to analyze the communication strategies, linguistic features and discourse markers employed by 48 grade seven, 45 grade eight and 33 grade eleven participants to negotiate meaning; and utilized three phases to carry out the study. Results revealed that the top ten most frequent communicative strategies employed by the ESL learners are: 1) responding to a wh-question (with a correct response), 2) code-switching (language switch), 3) uttering/responding not audible utterances, 4) expressing certain emotions, feelings, ideas, claims, etc., 5) calling someone to answer/respond to a question, 6) reading a word, phrase, sentences etc., 7) responding to a yes-no question (answering yes), 8) discussing/explaining something, 9) self-repeating, and 10) introducing/stating/providing something/someone etc. Manifestations of the spoken discourse comprehension of the ESL learners were evident when ESL learners utilized negotiation strategies such1) responding to the questions posed; 2) presenting their output before the class; 3) filling in the blanks with missing information or finish the statement of their teacher ahead of the latter; 4) illustrating verbally or nonverbally what was being asked; 5) providing the past tense of the verbs; 6) translating linguistic expression from L2 to L1 and vice-versa; 7) code-switching or code-mixing from L2 to L1 or vice-versa; 8) using of circumlocution, i.e., exemplifying, illustrating or describing the properties of the target object or action etc. Moreover, communication strategies, linguistic features and discourse markers were utilized to negotiate meaning.

Findings revealed that there is a relationship between the negotiation of meaning and spoken discourse comprehension Thus, a framework facilitating negotiation of meaning, questioning and dialogic engagement in ESL classroom is proposed.