L2 DEVELOPMENT AND PERCEPTIONS OF MIXED VS. SAME-AGE PEER INTERACTIONS

An increasing number of primary schools mainly in western European countries set up mixedage (M-A) classrooms due to the belief of the teaching community in the pedagogical and social benefits of this approach (Smit & Engeli, 2015). The main argument for setting up mixed-age (M-A) second language classrooms is that they allow for differentiated instruction and individualized approach (Thurn, 2011). In the area of foreign language teaching, the M-A approach has gained popularity, particularly at a primary school level (Heizmann, Ries & Wicki, 2015). However, the benefits of this approach are not clear and the research is scarce. Drawing from multiple data sources, this classroom-based study investigated to what extent do peer interactions among M-A and same-age (S-A) pairs aid L2 development and how students perceive their interactions. In this study, the same learners (N=24) aged between 10 and 12 interacted with the same and different age partners during common classroom lessons in two EFL classrooms. The results suggest that both S-A and M-A peer interactions aided L2 development. Although S-A pairs outperformed M-A pairs on the post-test, the results are not statistically significant. The analysis of students’ perceptions revealed that the majority of students prefer working in S-A to M-A pairs. In addition to age/proficiency differences, factors such as students’ relationships and perceptions of one’s own and partner’s proficiency greatly impact how they interact with one another.