The document summarizes a study that investigated the use of private speech by adult English language learners during a collaborative task. Private speech is self-directed speech used for self-regulation and problem-solving. The study found that private speech was used to assess and correct language, understand tasks, and stay focused. It also helped learners visualize gaps and work together by expressing doubts. Private speech benefited both individual and group knowledge construction. However, it was not always enough to solve linguistic problems alone and required cognitive skills. The analysis of private speech provided insights into how tasks challenge learners.

1. I ENCONTRO NACIONAL DE ENSINO-APRENDIZAGEM DE LÍNGUAS E A TEORIA SÓCIO-
HISTÓRICO-CULTURAL E DA ATIVIDADE: O RESGATE DO DIÁLOGO
Private speech use in the
collaboration between EFL learners
Isis da Costa Pinho (UNISINOS/UFRGS)
Marília dos Santos Lima (UNISINOS)

2. Motivation
• The analysis and understanding of the use of
private speech in EFL teaching and learning are
of great interest to the sociocultural theory since it
offers evidences of the learner’s internal process
of mobilization, reflection, creation and
transformation of linguistic knowledge.

3. Motivation
• Second language (SL) or foreign language (FL)
acquisition research supported by Vygotskian
sociocultural principles indicates the need to study
the use of private speech by adult learners in
collaborative tasks within a FL context.
(LANTOLF, 2000, 2006; LANTOLF; THORNE, 2006).

4. Objective
• This study aims to investigate the role of private speech
in EFL learning focusing on its use by adult learners
engaged in a collaborative task.

5. Theoretical Framework
• The sociocultural theory seeks to understand the socio-
cognitive development of the individual through the
relationship between the interaction with the social
environment (interpsychological mediation), and the
interaction in the cognitive space (intrapsychological
mediation), which is established through language
appropriation, internalization and use (VYGOTSKY,
1987, 2003; NEWMAN; HOLZMAN, 2002).

6. Theoretical Framework
Self-regulation
• It is considered to be a voluntary regulation
internally oriented that shows that the individual is
capable of an autonomous functioning.
• It does not consist into a level of permanent
development, but it relates to specific tasks, being
characterized by the acquisition of an individual
potential for development.
(DICAMILLA; ANTÓN, 1997, 2004; LEE, 2008)

7. Theoretical Framework
ZPD
• It is the potential for learning generated by the
interaction between learners in specific tasks, from
which one may observe structures acquired and in the
process of internalization.
(VYGOTSKY, 1978; LANTOLF, 2000)

8. Theoretical Framework
Collaborative Dialogue
• Interaction support that takes place between learners in
performing a task in which language mediates SL
learning during the resolution of gaps highlighted by the
production. In this dialogical relationship, meanings are
co-constructed, appropriated by individuals and reused
in subsequent tasks.
(SWAIN, 1995, 2000)

9. Theoretical Framework
Private Speech
• It is a self-directed speech that the learner employs
usually before a task that promotes cognitive challenge
in the seek of a greater control over himself, the SL/FL
performance and over the task.
• It represents the mediation of the verbal thought in
search of a behavior regulation for the problems
solution.
(VYGOTSKY, 1986, 1987; LANTOLF, 2006; LANTOLF; THORNE, 2006)

10. Theoretical Framework
• Ferreira (2000) claims for the dichotomy of social and private
speech to be abandon, assuming, instead, the dialogism
constitutive of the phenomenon.
• The author adds to be difficult to distinguish between the
regulatory function and the communicative function, and the
isolation of social speech present in the private speech, and
the private contained in the social.
• Thus, the term private itself, directed only to oneself, has
flaws by not considering the co-presence of the
communicative and self-regulatory functions that constitute
speech.

11. Theoretical Framework
Private Speech
It is an experience both subjective and negotiated, in
which an intrapsychological self-regulatory activity may
have interpsychological consequences.
The social speech can move on to exert a private function
so that the joint resolution of a problem triggers the
activation of the learner's cognitive space, who
appropriates the collective production to schedule his own
battles and to create strategies to approach and transform
language as learning.
(SMITH, 2007)

12. Theoretical Framework
• Private speech in an ESL context also plays an
emotional role through expressions that demonstrate
relief or pleasure or that indicate anxiety and insecurity,
serving as an emotional support that promotes
psychological distancing and self-control before the
stress generated by the task.
(MCCAFFERTY, 1994)

13. The Study
• This case study involved the application of the
collaborative task “Jigsaw" (from SWAIN; LAPKIN, 2001)
to seven dyads of beginner and pre-intermediate English
learners aged between 32 and 54 years in an extension
FL course in a federal university in southern Brazil.

14. The Study
Metodology
• Questionnaire for the construction of the FL learners’
profile;
• Collaborative task “Jigsaw";
• Interview with the participants immediately after the task
to register their perceptions of the task, their
performance and the use of private speech;
• Reflective session one week after the task, in which the
pairs should reflect on their speaking and writing
production.

15. The Study
• After the observation of the dialogues, it was considered
private speech a self-directed speech (questions,
statements, answers, comments and exclamations) in
which the speaker did not maintain eye contact with his
partner, and generally decreased the tone of voice.

16. The Study
• It is asked: What is the nature and function of private
speech within a collaborative dialogue and what are its
effects in the self-regulatory process of individuals?

17. Collaborative task “Jigsaw”

18. Private Speech evidence
Excerpt 1
Lara: ãh:
Leo: ãh: when ãh: your clock,
Lara: when. como é que é essa? ah reló. ah tá. ãh: when your clock,
((fica olhando para baixo; faz uma pergunta e responde para si))
Leo: ring at ãh:
Lara: ring é tocou. tocar né.
Leo: é.

19. Private Speech evidence
Excerpt 2
Lara: usa o turn pra voltar? turn to sleep?
Leo: turn to sleep.
Lara: voltou a dormir. ((olha para baixo)) É né? To, sleep. ((olha para o
colega)) Voltou para dormir. Voltou. ((olha para baixo))
Leo: ((aponta para a figura com o lápis e tenta falar))
Lara: Turn sleep. ((responde enfaticamente e olha para baixo)) Voltou a
dormir. ((olha para o colega)) ok?
Leo: she’s, não. she turn off. ((lê o que a colega escreveu e a corrige))
Lara: foi o que ela fez.
Leo: she turn off the clock with,
Lara: o pé?
Leo: pé, her. ãh:
Lara: and turn sleep.
Leo: and turn sleep ((repete baixinho a produção da colega e olha para
baixo))

20. Private Speech evidence
Excerpt 3
Lara: wake up. A gente pode dizer ah [por que não aparece ela acordando]
Leo: [wake up é levantou. ((fala baixinho))]
Leo: não. wake up é levantou. ((aumenta o volume da voz)) wake up
[é levantar]
Lara: [acordar] ((olha para baixo)) ah. não sei como é acordar ((continua
a olhar para baixo)).
Lara: O relógio tinha uma mão and last time.
(...)
Leo: Acordar como é que é? ((fala baixinho e coloca as mãos no rosto))

21. Private Speech evidence
Excerpt 4
Vera: Six o’clock ãh:
Mara: É six two hours. O que que é isso? Ah, o despertador acorda. ((olha
para a figura))
(....)
Mara: mas o horário parece que tá virado
Vera: é ah:
Vera: ué. six o’clock. Será que ele não despertou e continuou dormindo?
Ah não. aqui é outro. aqui é um. aqui é outro. ah, só Deus sabe. ((olha o
tempo todo para as figuras))

22. Private Speech evidence
Excerpt 5
Mara: Tá gastando muita água, né?
Vera: é mu, much. Much. Much. much é, much é incontável? É. Much.
much water. ((olha para cima))
Mara: attention girl ãh: ((olha para baixo))
Vera: uhm.
Mara: attention girl ãh:, ((olha para cima e gira o dedo indicador))
Vera: it’s,
Mara: it’s expensiver,
Vera: expensive.

23. Results and Conclusions
The link between social speech and private speech of a
collaborative nature seems to be stronger than the
mere presence of a potential listener, as the less
collaborative dialogues proved to be unsuitable for the
emergence of private speech.

24. Results and Conclusions
• The participants revealed to "think aloud" for themselves
to put their thinking and production as objects of
evaluation and contribution of their peers, an intention
both cognitive and social.

25. Results and Conclusions
• The private speech occurrences, because they
happened in the presence of the other, benefited not
only the construction of individual knowledge, but also
the collective knowledge, giving continuation to the
narrative with the acceptance and assessment of
contributions made by the peer.

26. Results and Conclusions
• The private speech in the form of questions and
comments that indicated doubt and frustration
led to the understanding that the speakers
would be receptive to the assistance from their
partners, encouraging their collaborative
participation.

27. Results and Conclusions
• The use of private speech allowed the observation of the
reaction of learners to the task and the auto-regulatory
process of the individuals on themselves, on their own
cognitive system and on the task (VYGOTSKY, 1987;
LANTOLF, 2000).

28. Results and Conclusions
• The private speech was used as a cognitive
resource for language assessment and
correction in the search for answers to problems
emerged in the social speech and by the
challenges of FL meaning-making. Furthermore,
learners used PS to understand and to stay
focused on the task, organizing their thinking.

29. Results and Conclusions
• The private speech showed that, faced with the
challenge of producing the FL, the mother language
was a means for conceptual processing in search of FL
words and structures, besides facilitating the filling of
communication gaps.

30. Results and Conclusions
• Another strategy used was repetition to search
for and select words or structures for their
analysis, to stay focused and continue the
production by parts, thus facilitating learners’
performance.

31. Results and Conclusions
• The data suggest that when the level of proficiency was
lower than the task demands, private speech alone was
not enough to solve linguistic problems, serving more as
a means to visualize gaps in the language system for a
latter work. Therefore, not only private speech, but
cognitive skills are necessary for a success in the task.

32. Results and Conclusions
• From the need to test tasks that promote language
learning, the study of private speech showed to be
relevant for the analysis of how a specific task challenges
the learner to expand his cognitive system.

33. References
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language learners. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 14(1):36-69.
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34. Transcription conventions
Based on Atkinson and Heritage (1984)
, comma – continuity intonation;
. end point - falling intonation;
? question mark - rising intonation;
: two points - extension of the sound;
[] brackets - simultaneous or overlapping speech;
() empty parentheses - speech segment that can not be
reproduced;
(()) double parentheses - observations.