The paper was an interesting read. It showed the long history behind the existence of interactionist theory. The paper first goes into an overview of the historical background of the interactionist approach. Then it discusses the core issues surrounding it and examines some of the ways in which data are collected in this are of SLA. Lastly it explores the practical applications of the approach and addresses directions for future research. As a whole, the paper goes very deep towards the roots of interactionist approach and tries to show the fruits that it has produced.

According to the paper the roots of the interactionist approach can be traced to several lines of research that began in the 1970s. it all started when researchers became very interested in the types of discourse patterns found in native speakers and learner conversations. This led to focus on input and comprehensibility due to modifications such as repetition and syntactic simplifications. This focus was later also found in Krashen’s Input Hypothesis, as this hypothesis states that comprehensible input was the driving force behind language acquisition. But interaction between native speakers and learners did not hold any special place in his theories. However from the late 1970s, researchers began to accord more importance to interaction itself. Drawing upon these researchers, Long formulated his initial version of what became known as the interactionist hypothesis.

Early research using the interactionist approach framework sought to describe the frequency and types of interactional modifications used in native speaker-learner and learner-learner pairings. Several of the researchers pointed out this early research to be tending to be descriptive and did not seek to provide direct evidence that interaction was casually linked to L2 acquisition. Early versions of the interaction hypothesis incorporated Krashen’s claims about comprehensible input being necessary and sufficient for development in L2. But later after the out comes from White’s Output hypothesis, the idea of comprehensible input became insufficient. But later the interactionist approach took into account how learners receive information about incorrect utterances.

Till the early 1990s, many other extensions of interaction hypothesis grew out. And drawing upon these researches, Long presented a reformulated version of the interaction hypothesis in 1996, which states that “Negotiation for meaning, and especially negotiation that triggers interactional adjustments by the native speaker or more competent interlocutor, facilitates acquisition because it connects input, internal learner capacities, particularly selective attention and output in productive ways”