This longitudinal study of teacher talk examines the use of effective particles in the language of the university-level elementary Japanese as a foreign language classroom. The classroom is viewed as a crucial language socializing space in which students are not only acquiring grammatical competence, but are also being socialized into particular norms of interaction in Japanese. The frequency and variety of affective particles are carefully calculated and compared with particle use in ordinary conversation. The results show that affective particles are used far less frequently in the classroom language analyzed than in ordinary conversation. Significant differences between teachers were also found. Qualitative analysis of classroom assessments reveals that teacher stance impacts the frequency of affective particle use, with teachers revealing their communicative orientation towards interaction with students through their affective particle use—the frequency of affective particle use increases when the teacher's focus is on the communicative content of the interaction rather than on grammatical form.

SLA research in the tradition of sociocultural theory examines the dynamic relationship between interaction and acquisition, exploring how language, cognition, and culture are acquired through collaborative interaction. This paper presents an analysis of teacher-fronted and pair interaction involving two learners of Japanese in an intermediate language class, showing learner-learner collaborative activity between two students of differing levels of proficiency to result in creative interaction where scaffolding creates a positive environment for L2 acquisition. Learner use of Japanese in pair work is strikingly different from that in teacher-fronted practice, with learners becoming highly interactive and using the L2 for a variety of purposes, including 1) hypothesis-testing through language play, 2) talk about the here-and-now, 3) lexical experimentation, 4) modulating the pace of interaction, 5) repair, 6) negotiating roles 7) managing tasks, and 8) humor. Contribution of learner strengths and weaknesses results in refinement of both learners' L2 use, with both students learning and progressing through collaborative interaction in the zone of proximal development (ZPD).