Other-Initiated Repair Strategies (OIR) in Oral Interactions in an EFL Context

The aims of this study were to investigate the employment of Other-Initiated Repair Strategies (OIR) in solving communication barriers in instructor-student interactions. It also examined the kinds of trouble sources that prompt the employment of OIR strategies. The data were collected via video recordings of 12 lessons given by three EFL teachers in three teacher education colleges in Ethiopia and analyzed qualitatively using the framework of conversation analysis framework. The case-by-case analysis revealed that two participant instructors, M and N, used repair strategies like (a) unspecified initiators; (b) (partial) repetition; (c) partial repetition plus question word; (d) understanding check; (e) confirmation, and (f) clarification request to engage their students in classroom interactions. However, instructor L explained concepts and applied only limited interactive activities. In his limited dialogical interactions, he used very limited number of initiations-code switching and unspecified initiators. Students have initiated other-initiated repair directly (seeking information), indirectly (word search), and using unspecified initiators. Concerning the trouble sources that trigger other initiation strategies, this research highlighted difficulty with linguistic and meaning-related problems as the most prevalent problems among EFL learners. Examining the learners' language utterances closely revealed many of them contain ungrammatical structures. The study further showed that the ways in which instructors interact with learners influence learner engagement.

Classrooms are places where learners receive a large amount of input and have opportunities to use and experience language. Interaction between teachers and students is a method for making the learning and teaching process better.   During a lesson, teachers and students can interact in three different ways: teachers and the class, teachers with groups of students, or teachers and individual students. Teachers’ spoken language in EFL classes is   the core source of input. Therefore, how teachers use language in the classroom largely determines possibility of students’ interaction (Johnson, 1995).  They are responsible for initiating and managing communication in the classroom.

In the Ethiopian context, the English language is given as a foreign language, and it takes place   in the classrooms, usually under the guidance and supervision of teachers. Concerning learning English at school, to lead the students to acquire oral communicative skills, teachers encourage   students to get involved in interactions. Teachers display various aspects of their identity, for example, motivator, assessor, etc., and use scaffolding, display questions to facilitate language learning and progress toward goals. Although teachers enjoy special interaction rights, they may also delegate responsibilities to students.

Students experience difficulty with the verbal skills they need to interact with in the class. They know what they want to say in their first language but struggle with the vocabulary and grammar resources of the target language. Thus, they may not carry out the intended turn. For this reason, there could be much miscommunication between teachers and students. This situation might lead to the research agendum 'how do teachers and learners solve communication breakdowns that they face while working on classroom activities in EFL classes?' The researcher believes it is an indispensable issue because understanding interactional processes at work is crucial to enhance classroom learning (Walsh, 2002). Hence, this study targets on analyzing the trends of using conversational repairs between teacher-student oral interactions in EFL classes. Repair, as to Schegloff (2000), is defined as "a mechanism that operates in conversation to deal with problems in speaking, hearing, or understanding the talk in conversation" (p. 207). Wong (2000) also emphasizes that the teaching-learning process may be unsuccessful if repair is not used as an opportunity to correct or adjust some potential misunderstanding (Wong, 2000). So, studying the issue of repair seems crucial.

Teachers should be able to encourage their students to get involved in classroom interactions. The degree to which classroom talk has been jointly constructed between the teacher and learners   determines learners' understanding of classroom events (Allwright, 1984). Teachers who continuously seek clarification, check for confirmation and do not always accept the first contribution a student offers are more likely to maximize learning potential than those who do not (Musumeci, 1996). Therefore, language learning can be crucially enhanced by having EFL learners negotiate meaning while working interactively. Hence, it is considered imperative for teachers to construct an interactive learning environment in which learners can interact with each other in the target language (Mackey, 1999; Nobuyoshi & Ellis, 1993; Shehadeh, 1999). On the other hand, this implies that if there is teacher domination instead of creating interaction-based teaching, students may lack the opportunity to exercise the target language.

A teacher's communication skills greatly influence the quality of education and the learning environment. Consequently, teacher-student interactions significantly affect students' engagement and active participation since teachers' interactional practices determine their ability to generate learning opportunities (Walsh, 2006). A part of these practices in English language classrooms is a repair practice that refers to the various methods of addressing mistakes in speaking, hearing, or reproducing the spoken language (Schegloff et al., 1977). Whether the teaching-learning process is successful or not depends on the use of repair as an opportunity to correct or adjust some potential misunderstandings (Wong, 2000). It is therefore imperative to draw attention to the issue.

A study of repair was first conducted in L1 speaker interactions, and then the findings were extended to analyze L2 speaker interactions. Schegloff et al. (1977) examined repair in everyday conversation comprehensively and systematically for the first time. They identified unspecified interrogatives, partial repeat, partial repeat plus question word, and understanding check as repair techniques native speakers apply when they have conversation breakdowns.

Many contexts of conversation analysis have been included in institutional settings, especially in the classrooms. For example, Egbert (1998) studied the different repair initiation skills exhibited in dyadic interviews by German college learners. She defines six types of repair initiations, namely the five types reported by Schegloff and colleagues (1977) in ordinary English conversation and an additional category that involves repetition. Liebscher and Dailey-O'Cain (2003) also examined data derived from a talk given by a German-language learner. A class of   repair was replaced by Egbert's (1998) typology, which was a request for interpretation, translation, or definition.

A study was also conducted by McHoul (1990) in a traditional geography class in an Australian secondary school. He found more tendencies on other-initiation (primarily by the teacher) and self-completed repair (by students). Likewise, Cho and Larke (2010) examined repair strategies of an ESL classroom in a suburban elementary school in Texas with five students and presented another classification. They identified nine types of repair strategies: unspecified, interrogatives, partial repeat, partial repeat plus question words, comprehension checks, requests for repetition, definition requests, translation requests, explanation requests, and nonverbal strategies. These repair strategies were applied to bridge the communication gaps between students’ transition from their natural conversation to classroom conversation.

In the Ethiopian context, a few scholars have paid attention to repair processes in the classroom activities, but they focused only on one of its components, i.e., verbal error correction (Abiy, 2000; Animaw, 2011; Birhanu, 2009; Samson, 2007; Sileshi, 2008; Teshome, 1995; Wondwosen, 1992). The focuses of these studies reveal that everything learners said were potentially subject to evaluation by the teacher. When what the learner said was not parallel with the teacher's pedagogical focus, repair mechanisms were likely undertaken. As a result, the central phenomenon of classroom studies has turned out to be error correction rather than repair.

Error correction alone, however, cannot explain all the repair operations in the foreign language classroom. It is expected that students will correct or modify their utterances to fix anything that seems incorrect to them. Kasper argues that "studies of repair in the foreign language classroom should include all repair activities rather than focusing on one specific repair type- the teacher's correction of learners' errors" (1985, p.200). Focusing only on error disallows investigation of any difficulty occurring in the absence of error, including a learner's action on anticipated trouble.

Many studies on repair generally classified it into four categories based on who has initiated the restoration and who has taken steps to resolve it. After an error or mistake has been discovered and signaled, it is either self-corrected or other-corrected.  Repair processes can be classified as self-initiated self-repairs, self-initiated other repairs, other-initiated self-repairs, and other-initiated other repairs (Schegloff, 2000; Wong & Waring, 2010). During the interaction, interlocutors might face a communication barrier; in this case, there might be self-initiation or other-initiation. These interactional trajectories might indicate meaning negotiation, which provides more comprehensible input to the learners. Successful interaction may promote involvement between teacher and student or among students, enhance learning, and motivate students (Walsh, 2002). Therefore, the study examined the following research questions in order to understand the repair processes.

• Which types of Other-Initiated Repair Strategies do EFL instructors and learners use to resolve understanding problems?
• In instructor-learner interactions, what types of trouble sources trigger Other-Initiated Repair Strategies?

A descriptive qualitative method was employed in this study to describe other repair initiation strategies. Using a qualitative approach is the best way to investigate in-depth conversational repair strategies used by teachers and students. The analysis was based on the principle of conversation analysis developed by Sacks et al. (1974) (see the Appendix).

Setting

Amhara region is one of the administrative regions in Ethiopia. There are ten teacher education colleges in different zones in the region, which were established to satisfy the needs of primary and secondary school teachers in the region. The colleges give the training both in the cluster and linear programs. The study was conducted at three teacher education colleges in Amhara regional state on repair practices particularly on other-initiation strategies in an EFL context.

Participants

The data was collected in 2021 during the second semester. The semester incorporates major courses such as (classroom English and English teaching methods I), minor courses (structure of Amharic II and Amharic writing skill II) and common courses (practicum, action research, instructional media and physical education). The researcher expected more English language use in the classroom interactions in the major courses than the rest of the courses. Taking this into account, the researcher observed and recorded classroom interactions while the instructors were teaching Classroom English (Eng-106). So, three instructors, one from each college, were directly involved in the study. Since the instructors desired to remain anonymous, their names were represented by the English letters L, M, and N. Each of them has a second degree in TEFL and has been teaching for over twenty years.

The students learned English as a subject beginning from grade one; they also used it as a medium of instruction starting from grade seven. Thus, before they joined college, they learned English for ten years. In addition, they had taken communicative English Skills I and II courses when they were first-year students in the first and second semester, respectively. The courses are primarily offered to develop trainees' language skills to prepare them as excellent communicators in various activities. These indicated that the students had a shared experience in using English in various kinds of interaction situations. One section from each college was selected for observation and video recording.

Data Collection

The researcher first explained the study's general aim and built a good rapport with the instructors and students to conduct the research successfully. The researcher also observed the classroom for two periods during the teaching-learning process before conducting the data collection process. It was deliberately done to be more familiar both to the instructors and the students. This action was assumed to make the participants feel confident enough and do their classroom activities freely during data collection. The participants were orally asked for permission to video record their classroom interactions. They gave full permission. Following their consent, the teaching-learning process was video recorded for twelve hours.

The researchers analyzed the data without preconceived notions and hypotheses and kept an open mind towards any possible findings. The researchers viewed and listened to the film repeatedly to form early impressions. Then, the recorded data was transcribed. Next, the researchers read the whole text and made general notes about the overall manuscript.  Afterwards, we highlighted the focus area of the study using different color highlighters to cluster salient features around a central organizing concept-other initiation repair strategy. The trouble sources were also highlighted. This action was necessary to minimize reading the whole text now and then. This coding system was done multiple times to build deep connection across the data. The transcribed data were analyzed descriptively and qualitatively.

It was decided to look at the data instead of categories already in place to determine a satisfactory classification repair. The purpose was to investigate the patterns that emerged from the data rather than impose any classification method on the study's data. Following transcription of the data and identifying the instances of other initiation strategies, each recording was reviewed to analyze each instance and determine the types of initiation and repair employed by the teacher and the learners. Finally, a set of initiation-repair mechanisms tailored to the preferences of the teacher and the learners were examined by taking extracts from their lesson transcripts.

Extract 1

1. S: The oil released from tankers killed all kinds of seen animals
2. T: sea animals 
3. S: sea animals include [ inaudible] as well as fish and other from of 
4. T: forms of 
5. S: forms of marine life

In this extract, the student shared the effects of oil, which was released to water bodies. The student communicated the direct impacts of oil on animals' life in the ‘see’, but the student committed lexical errors while he was presenting. As indicated in line 1, the student said, 'the oil released from tankers killed all kinds of seen animals.' In this utterance, the student uttered 'seen animals' to say 'sea animals.' The words' sea' and 'seen' are two different words. The former is a noun, whereas the latter is the past participle form of the verb ‘see.’ So, the student's error is a clear example of a lexical error which might be created due to the similarity of the pronunciation of the two words. A slip of the tongue might create it. At a point where the student used the incorrect word, the instructor introduced reparation. By reformulating the problem source with the suggested item, the student accepted this correction. Here, the role of the teacher is correcting, and the role of the student is being corrected. Supplying a correct version of the linguistic form is a method of non-evaluating repair initiation.

In line 3, the student also committed another error. The student said, 'sea animals include …as well as fish and other from of'. At the end of the utterance, the student articulated as 'from of' instead of saying 'forms of.' This case is also a lexical error. The teacher did not want to leave the error, so he directly repaired the error by saying 'forms of.' In line 5, the student incorporated what was suggested by the teacher as a repair and uttered properly as 'forms of marine life'. This strategy is possibly the simplest and fastest repair technique, but, of course, it does not allow the learner the opportunity to self-repair. "If the teacher decides to correct the error, he or she can repeat the student's response with correction. This kind of modeling can be very effective because “it avoids providing overt negative evaluation and exposes students to the correct form" (Tsui, 1995, p.51).

As the instructor recast, we gained insight into the learner's use of the word’s "sea" and "form" as he initially produced the action, segmented it from the original utterance and replicated it within the target-like form. Both ways, the teacher, gave the learner a target language example of the message he perceived that the learner intended.  In the context of the learner's original utterance, the central meaning is preserved while changing morphological elements. The student's incorporation of the teacher's recasts in lines 3 and 5 is evidence of uptake in that the student notices his error and produces the correct target language. A study by Mackey (2000) shed light on the positive impacts of recasts on the development of lexical items.

Extract 2

1. T: What was the real problem that occurred in such type of experience? What was the real problem?
2. S: This means it umm Yoseph when Yoseph please please come her mother his mother is happened an accident
3. T: An accident in the kitchen?
4. S: Yes in the kitchen so when we [inaudible] the accident happens so heard umm his mother umm his mother is umm very cry and pain. The fa-the pan was on fire and he is too small to help her.
5. T: uhh
6. S: So mother said [inaudible] for asking aid or help asking asking help umm Yoseph is too small to help and go to neighborhood umm
7. T: to call
8. S: Yeah, to call
9. T: the people from the neighborhood.
10. S: yeah 

In line 1, the teacher sets the stage for interaction among students in class by addressing a referential or open question "What was the real problem occurred in such type of experience?" In line 2, the student responded to the teacher's question. However, it seems to the teacher that this learner is not answering towards the expected goal. Therefore, he asked for the learner's confirmation in line 3 as 'an accident in the kitchen?' The teacher's paraphrasing of the learner's previous response combined with a rising intonation function as a pushing tool to encourage the student to continue his contribution.

Following the teacher's encouragement, the student continued talking, as transcribed in line 4. The student used the non-lexical initiator 'umm' repeatedly as a self-initiating strategy. Here, the non-linguistic signal (umm) is used as a discourse marker. No part of the utterance is deleted or changed; the speaker repeated his former utterances, using the signal as a gap filler. This phenomenon may be linked to the way the student speaks personally. In the same line, the student used another self-initiating strategy. He used the other form of non-lexical initiator – cut off.  He realized that the way he started was not what he wanted to transfer.  Then, he avoided the syllable 'fa' and substituted it with 'pan'. His first attempt was incorrect, but he utilized no lexical resources to indicate that.

In line 5, the teacher acknowledged the response verbally by uttering a minimal acknowledgement token (uh) and nonverbally by nodding his head to provide the student with an opportunity to take an extra turn even if there are accuracy cases in the student's utterances. Here, the teacher's interest might target fluency rather than accuracy. The teacher wanted to give extra opportunity to the student to talk further. Through such kinds of effort, students might be motivated to use the target language further and further.

In line 6, the student continued his contribution following the teacher's acknowledgement marker in line 5. '…Yoseph is too small to help and go to neighborhood umm. 'This is what the student articulated in line 6, but he could not transfer the complete message. He used the non-lexical initiator to indicate that he runs out of concluding lexical item. Understanding that the student is searching for a word, in line 7, the teacher prompted the phrasal verb 'to call ' to push the student forward. In line 8, the student again stopped using the lexical item forwarded by the teacher. In line 9, the teacher further initiated repair by uttering the remaining part of the idea stated above. Then, in line 10, the student forwarded his agreement by forwarding the acknowledgement remark 'yeah'. The teacher used different kinds of repairing strategies to encourage the student to articulate more and more. This extract revealed that the teacher created a space for learning as part of his pedagogic goal by utilizing various interactional strategies.

Extract 3

1. T: here, yeah, say something 
2. S: this teaching aid is very important but umm what reading games one disadvantage when students play this game 
3. T: yeah 
4. S: and collect the the the… 
5. T the letters
6. S: yes this uses more time
7. T: it may take more time you mean?
8. S: yes

In line 1, the teacher encouraged the student to share his ideas with the class. Following the teacher's encouragement, the student forwarded his ideas concerning teaching aids in line 2. Finally, the teacher articulated the acknowledgement remarks 'yeah' in lines 3 and 5 to acknowledge the learner's previous contributions and motivate him to engage in more conversation during his turn. This strategy gives more opportunity to the students to stay in the interaction, which gives the teacher time to understand better the students involved in the interaction.

In line 4, the student responded following the teacher's acknowledgement tokens in line 3. In his response, the student repeated the definite article as 'and collect the the the…'. The language processor uses it to gain more cognitive and linguistic planning time and delay the next item. For instance, Rieger (2003) describes it as a resource for postponing the next due item. Interestingly, Bada (2010) argues that repetition enables long-time speakers to anticipate the repetition by building up the contents of their utterance so that a repeated element becomes no different from the delivery of an ah, er, erm.

In line 6, the student said, 'this uses more time', and in the subsequent line, the teacher initiates repair as 'it may take more time you mean'; the teacher believed that what the student intended to say was different than he said. This strategy of initiation of repair is the strongest in its grasp of the content of the trouble source turn. The strategy is used to reveal the proposal of candidate understanding. The teacher provides a final judgment of what the student has just said to confirm information or make a more explicit explanation of its meaning. In line 8, the student approved the teacher's repair initiation. This type of repair is generally called an understanding check. It might also be used to invite further talk in the interaction.

Extract 4

1. T: As you see, this strategy of reading di-deducing meaning in a context. Deducing means trying to understand the meaning of the words from the context you know from their context.
2. T: The word sit-settled is included in this part. What meaning did you find contextually for the word settle? Is the question is the question? So here from you, what is needed how do you discover the meaning of the word settle? (.)
3. T:  Maybe it is possible to say A, B or C., but here you are expected to explain in its contextual meaning, I mean.  Yeah ((pointing to the student))
4. T:  the teacher looked at the left and pointed at the student to give the turn
5. S: I think settled means live for a long time in an area
6. T: Okay, good, here are just the headwords. These headwords are selected from the text from the reading text. The word settled is used in this context. What is the meaning of the word settled as the alternatives are given on the right-hand side? Yes [pointing to the student].
7. S: F
8. T: A?
9. S: F
10. T: F?
11. Ss: Yeah
12. T: What does that say?
13. Ss: ((inaudible))

In Extract 4, the class discussed the day's lesson related to their context, as seen in line 1, where the teacher constructs a first pair part by posing a referential question that elicits learners' understanding of contextual meanings regarding words like ‘settle’. Next, the teacher silently looked at all the students around the room (the non-verbal prompt for initiation). After a second pause, during which the learners made no response, in line 3, the teacher reformulated the question to make it more meaningful.

In line 4, the teacher allocates the response turns to a student by looking towards her. For example, the student responded, "I think settled means live for a long time in an area".  When she has done this, the teacher moved his gaze down to the module to compare the student's response to the correct answer (line 6).

In line 6, the teacher accepted the student's contribution and presented the headwords that students should focus on for deducing meaning. He said 'these headwords are selected from the text from the reading text". The teacher is not satisfied with his first attempt, so he wanted to point the focus to the students by applying a repairing strategy called insertion. So, the teacher inserted the term 'reading' to specify the idea that he intended to transfer. Inserting is used as a strategy of self-initiated repair structure (Kormos, 2000).  Those who used this strategy repeated the previous utterance and inserted a word or an utterance to specify the information. Unfortunately, this repair often results in the source of trouble being repeated.

According to van Hest (1996), this strategy of specifying information is termed as "Appropriacy insertion repair", which he described as situations in which the speaker inserts one or more words to send a specific message. Inserting may be viewed as more of an "alteration", in that it is an adjustment to something that is not considered inherently unsatisfactory or incompatible, but things an extension may better realize.

In line 6, the teacher invited the students to choose a response from the given alternatives. The teacher nominated a student to answer the question. So, the student chose the letter 'F' from the given alternatives as indicated in line 7. In line 8, the teacher-initiated repair by saying 'A' to confirm that he heard correct. The student again repeated his former response in line 9. In line 10, the teacher used a strategy of confirmation-check to be sure of what he heard. Following the teacher's initiation, the whole students responded together as 'yeah' to indicate to the teacher that what he heard is right in line 11.

In line 12, the teacher asked 'What does that say?'   to initiate students to repair what the student has said in line 10. Here, the teacher's initiation strategy is an overt question by raising a question about the unclear preceding utterance.

Extract 5

1. T:   So that what Aminat did for umm as a first step I mean, she stood with many other students in front of the college notice board. This action is the first step yeah, this is the first action, and the second action will be yes ((pointing to the student)).
2. T (.) Turned his face definitely towards the left side of the class and pointed his finger towards a student at the end of the TCU.
3. S:   Aminat second step umm stood with many other students the college notice board
4. T:   Uhh, umm, at first, she stood with many other students in front of the college notice board. That is the first step that is the first action that she did. Okay, then which one will be the second one? Which one will be the second one?
5. S:   She request a boy at the college notice board to umm
6. T:       Sorry
7. S:        She asked a young boy to to to-----[word search]
8. T:      She asked a young boy to show her the finance office.

In line 1, the teacher uttered his expressions about Aminat, but he is not satisfied with what the student has forwarded. He anticipated as it might not be clear to the students. So, he initiated repair using the term 'I mean', and he rephrased what he has formulated in his prior utterance. He further explained what he rephrased as it was Aminat's first action. Here, the teacher, in order to make his ideas clear and well-received by his students, used repetition in phrases and sentences. Rieschild (2011) finds that the word 'I mean' has the following pragmatic and semantic functions: 'elaborating, correcting, creating narrative suspense, holding a turn, or, as the sole constituent of a turn, hedging a response' (p. 315). It is obvious that 'I mean' can be used by the speaker when he or she wishes to repair himself or herself while he or she also wishes to hold the turn at the same time.

In line 3, the student responded to the teacher's question. In line 4, the teacher repeated the learner's utterances to clarify and then asked further questions to encourage a more detailed response. Finally, in reply to the teacher's request, in line 5, the student extended his earlier answer by giving a little more detail but was still unhappy with the student's response.

In line 6, the teacher-initiated repair using the strategy 'sorry'. This strategy of repair initiation is used to communicate the idea 'I could not hear you; would you repeat that, please’. Following the initiation, the student forwards his answer again in line 7 as 'she asked a young boy to to to…' The student repeated the preposition 'to' three times for the sake of delaying the production of the next lexical item. The repetition phenomenon prevailing in this excerpt indicated that the student had encountered a communication problem. It is a strategy of searching for a word or idea. This strategy helps the speaker to lengthen the time to find out the correct words he/she wants to mention.

Repetition of a certain linguistic item, as indicated in line 7, signals co-participants to the fact that a search is underway and to their possible role in resolving it. So, the teacher involved in solving the shortage of a word or expression. As described by Brouwer (2003), language learning opportunities can be found in word searches when (a) another participant is invited to participate in the search, and (b) participants are encouraged to speak with each other. In this case, the teacher supports the student.

Therefore, in line 8, the teacher understood that the student struggled to search for a word or certain linguistic items to forward his ideas fully.  Taking the student's effort into account, the teacher anticipated what should come next and completed the remaining idea in line 9. This strategy supports students when they face a shortage of ideas or when they fail to apply a linguistic item that might be pertinent to express what they intended to say. Nevertheless, it should have been better if the teacher has pushed the students to reformulate his idea by his own effort. This strategy allows the speaker to prolong the time to find out the correct words he/she wants to mention.

Extract 6

1. T: Yeah, Yoseph's mother Yoseph's mother, so what was Yoseph doing when the accident happened on his mother? (3x) another student from the class can respond to this question.
2. S: The question?
3. T: What was Yoseph doing when the accident happened to his mother? What was he doing? what was he doing? Yes ((pointing to the student)).
4. S: His mother was ba-cooking
5. T: Yeah, she was cooking in the kitchen, but what was Yoseph doing? What was Yoseph doing? Yes (pointing to the student)
6. S: playing with his toys his new toys
7. T: Yeah, he was playing with his new toys. He was doing umm Who is Rahmat? Who is Rahmat? Who is Rahmat?
8. Ss: Yoseph father
9. T: ehh?
10. S: Yoseph father
11. T: right, Yoseph's father. good. So, we have to understand from this text that if successive questions are re-prepared out of it like comprehension questions, it is necessary to read every point you see every idea given so that…

As outlined in line 1, Yoseph's mother encountered an accident.  The teacher asked a referential question, 'What was Yoseph doing when his mother faced the accident'. The teacher repeated the question. In this case, however, the student does not reply to the question directly but rather directly asks the teacher. Therefore, in line 2, the student initiates a repair in the second turn by saying interrogatively, "the question?". According to Musumeci (1996), confirmation checks and clarification requests should be encouraged between the teacher and learners and between learners and the teacher.  Concerning the student's clarification request, the teacher repeated most of his previous turn, but he made additional revisions. The teacher was asked to repeat but seemed to perceive that reformulation was necessary, as portrayed in the student's request. The teacher reformulated the source of the trouble because the student requested it. The teacher's response improved the student's input.

The turn-allocation in line 3 is accomplished by a pointing gesture towards the selected next speaker. In line 4, the chosen student responded to the teacher's question as 'his mother was ba-cooking'. She started with the trouble-causing word (possibly backing), only to be cut off and replaced by a noun "cooking" in the next part of the turn. Here, the student stopped her utterance by cutting it off just after the syllable' ba-', marked with a dash at the end of the syllables. Then, she avoided the syllable' ba-' and uttered 'cooking'. She did not use any lexical resource to indicate that her first attempt was wrong. The cut-off is one of the self-initiators that speakers use to interrupt their ongoing utterance when they face something inappropriate.

In line 5, the teacher accepted the student's response to encourage her effort. In the same line, the teacher again asked the former question to push students to the central point of discussion. The student responded to the teacher's question as 'playing with his toys his new toys' in line 6. The student is not satisfied with his first attempt, so he inserted the adjective 'new' between the possessive pronoun 'his' and the noun 'toys' to specify his answer. Inserting is used as a strategy of self-initiated repair structure. Students who used this strategy repeated the previous utterance and inserted a word or an utterance to pinpoint information. It specifies that the inserted material modifies the original formula to identify a particular type or unique referent (van Hest, 1996). In this instance, the original formulation was not considered defective but rather lacking in specificity.

In line 7, the teacher indicated that what the student responded in line 6 is correct. The teacher showed his acceptance using the term 'yeah', which means 'I agree with your response'. It is an example of an acknowledgement mark; it acknowledges the learners' previous talk and prompts them to communicate further during their current turn. After that, the teacher articulated the expression 'He was doing umm who is Rahmet? 'At first, the teacher's start was something to tell students further information about Yoseph. However, the sentence 'he was doing' becomes a trigger, and (umm) is used as a self-initiating strategy.  The teacher detected that the idea is not what he wanted to utter, so he stopped the speech flow and finally uttered a different fact.  After he became aware that the first idea was not what he intended to transfer, he did not automatically break his utterances; instead, he used the editing signal (umm) until he substituted the appropriate idea. Finally, he succeeded systematically without creating a gap between him and the recipients.

In line 8, the student responded to the teacher's question. Nevertheless, the teacher treated line 8 as creating some problem, as displayed by his production of ehh? (line 9). The teacher used the quasi-lexical filler (ehh) because he could not hear the student due to acoustic reasons. This approach is not very accurate because it does not outline clearly what the exact trouble source is. In line 10, the student again forwarded as 'Yoseph father'. The student repeated the entire turn, possibly realizing that she failed to be heard by her teacher because of acoustic issues. Inquiries of this nature that pose a contingent requirement that a repair is produced in the next turn are called Next-Turn-Repair Initiators, or NTRIs (Schegloff et al.1977).

In line 10, after recognizing the student's response with "right", the teacher shapes the learner's contribution by restating as 'Yoseph's father'. This repair strategy is said to be recasting (Lyster & Ranta, 1997). It is usually perceived as implicit feedback since no explicit indication is made that the utterance is ill-formed. Nevertheless, it manages to correct errors without embarrassing the students.

In this teacher's recasting, it is difficult to know whether or not students consider the correction into account because the teacher continued talking without giving the turn to students to check the repair. It may be that recasts fail to indicate to learners that they have produced a non-target utterance, and as a result, the learners do not take steps for repairing the error.

In this study, the purpose was to analyze the occurrence of other-initiated repair strategies in the context of EFL classroom interactions that deal with understanding problems. Additionally, the study aimed to examine the trouble sources that lead to the employment of other-initiated repair initiators. To achieve the first objective, instructors demonstrated differences in how they resolved understanding issues through initiating the repair. The students also used a limited number of initiation strategies to explain the problem they faced during their interactions. Based on the findings, there are three types of students' use of other-initiation: (a) word search; (b) seeking information; and (c) unspecified initiators. Among the sources of trouble, linguistic and meaning related difficulties were identified as major issues, leading instructors and students to resort to other initiative-based repair strategies. In the analysis, it was indicated that other initiation strategies were closest to the trouble spot. The study has pedagogical implications for language teachers that means the way how to address learners’ barriers in communication in the EFL context in facilitating learning.