Teacher repair in a second language class for low-literate adults

• Few classroom repair studies consider the diversity of the L2 learner group.
• The learners’ low literacy affects the structure of the teacher repair.
• The learners’ low literacy affects the teacher's linguistic approach and decisions.
• Repair is highly rule-governed to facilitate access for the low-literate learners.
• The learners are in the process of identifying repair as a linguistic resource.

This paper complicates the practice of teacher repair in the second language (L2) classroom by specifically focusing on the subset of adult English learners who have a background of low literacy. Using Conversation Analysis, this study explores the interactional means locally available for the low-literate learners to deal with teacher repair in the activity of vocabulary introduction. The analysis shows that the organization of teacher repair is oriented to the learners’ state of literacy, which for the teacher holds priority over what the literature has found as repair strategies sui generis either inside or outside the L2 classroom. The teacher profitably tailors her (para)linguistic input for the learners to perceive and react to her repair, and this rule-governed turn construction helps them identify the pedagogical intent of each turn. These findings will enrich the discussion of whether our existing knowledge of L2 repair can be extended to all learners.