Discourse acquisition in peer talk – The case of argumentation among kindergartners

Publication date: December 2019Source: Learning, Culture and Social Interaction, Volume 23Author(s): Birte ArendtAbstractIn addition to adults, peers too act as crucial instances of discourse/language socialization. Due to the fact that the ways of learning differ greatly, peers learn from peers in a special way. In the study at hand we claim that within argumentation among kindergartners peers offer each other multiple learning opportunities and establish several requirements to improve discursive competencies. Discourse acquisition in this sense can be conceptualized as a longitudinally observable side effect of habitualized patterns of common interactions, fulfilling children's argumentative goals hic et nunc, deeply rooted in childhood culture. Based on naturally occurring peer talk of German speaking kindergartners the conversation-analytically interested study aims at describing both discursive competencies as well as resources supporting discourse acquisition. Combining reconstructed acquisition-supportive interactive patterns of social interactions with pedagogical theories of learning reveals several similarities that concretize and validate each other. Based on this I reconstructed three different, but interlinked interactive patterns, which offer different learning opportunities (1) on a macro-contextual level testing and practicing self-dependently and learning from mistakes; (2) on a meso-contextual level challenging and offering space and learning from specific ...
Source: Learning, Culture and Social Interaction - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research