Verbal evidence of task related strategies: Child versus adult interactions

Tasks with adult learners have been discussed extensively in the language learning literature whilst studies about children using tasks are less widespread. Children’s ability to interact on tasks with each other grows steadily with age. This paper reports on the differences observed in the interactions of 10-year-old children and adult learners. The paper explores the task-related strategy use of both adults and children who interacted in pairs using a classic Spot the differences task in English at a low level of competence in an EFL setting. The evidence from the data suggests that adults have controlled the task in a different way and handled the demands of the task at hand more effectively. Implications are drawn about the specific needs of 10-year-old children in relation to working with referential tasks and about using observation and recording task performances as an initial tool in classrooms to explore learner strategy use on tasks.