L2 Teaching in the Wild: A Closer Look at Correction and Explanation Practices in Everyday L2 Interaction

This article argues for a reconceptualization of the concept of 'corrective feedback' for the investigation of correction practices in everyday second language (L2) interaction ('in the wild'). Expanding the dataset for L2 research as suggested by Firth and Wagner (1997) to include interactions from the wild has consequences for the traditional concept of corrective feedback, which comes from classroom dyads of native speakers and nonnative speakers and focuses on a native speaker's correction of a linguistic error in an L2 speaker's turn. Correction practices in the wild, however, are co-constructed and predominantly initiated by the L2 learner herself. The study also shows that explanation practices are initiated by the L2 speaker or otherwise occasioned and that they emerge following a lack of understanding on the part of the L2 speaker during a correction episode. The data reveal no examples of L2 teaching in the wild as correction or explanation practices that are not occasioned, that is, they do not come 'out of the blue.' I will argue that L2 teaching practitioners might benefit from more awareness of the circumstances that occasion and sustain correction and explanation practices.