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The Korean Association for the Study of English Language and Linguistics
[ Article ]
Korea Journal of English Language and Linguistics - Vol. 25, No. 0, pp.1671-1689
ISSN: 1598-1398 (Print) 2586-7474 (Online)
Print publication date 31 Jan 2025
Received 26 Nov 2025 Revised 15 Dec 2025 Accepted 18 Dec 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15738/kjell.25..202512.1671

Exploring Teacher-Student Interaction: Teacher Repetition as an Interactional Resource

Euen Hyuk (Sarah) Jung
Professor, English Department Yonsei University 50 Yonsei-ro, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul 03722, Republic of Korea junge@yonsei.ac.kr


© 2025 KASELL All rights reserved
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Teacher repetition has been disregarded as a redundant form of “teacher echo” in the language teaching field. This study reinvestigates the instructional role of repetition by closely examining how it functions in L2 teacher-student discourse. Using Conversation Analysis of adult beginner ESL classroom interaction, it explores the value of teacher repetition as interactional and pedagogical resource. The present findings show that repetition plays multiple roles in classroom discourse. First, teacher repetition scaffolds learning through active listening. It provides learners with additional processing time and opportunities to notice and internalize linguistic forms. Second, it serves as a turn-management device that structures the participation framework and maintains the pedagogical trajectory of talk. Third, it operates as a student-empowering device, extending the interactional floor and co-constructing learning through mitigated positive feedback. Fourth, the teacher’s self-repetition with humor fulfills an affective function, which reduces student anxiety and encourages active student participation. Lastly, serving as implicit corrective feedback, repetition helps learners develop both fluency and accuracy while preserving the communicative flow in classroom discourse. This study demonstrates that teacher repetition is not a mechanical feature of teacher talk, but a strategic practice with pedagogical value that contributes to more interactive classroom discourse.

Keywords:

second language classroom discourse, teacher-student interaction, teacher repetition, scaffolding, feedback

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