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”

In second semester, Sunday is supposed for Applied Linguistics. And I was plainly surprised to see Laudari sir as it has been only few months that he has arrived in Nepal. But I am definitely looking forward to having him guide us in this subject.

Although he said that we do not have to write reflection but after the experience of first semester, I do think that it is very helpful. It is helpful not only for future reference but also to revise the contents and ones frame of mind at that moment, which can be really helpful to get the hang of things.

Frankly telling the only thing I am sure about myself is my diligence. And the only way I am going to be able to keep up with the class is to do the best I can. I really feel hard to get the theoretical things into my mind so I need things to be referenced and quoted and then repeated again. So I guess that is what I am going to do. I am going to have to take one more step than prescribed for my own betterment.

As far as today’s class went, I can say that at least I understood that applied linguistic is a growing area which is starting to include many things related to language, the recent one being assessment which was not part of applied linguistics until few years ago. As stated by Cook (2003) “Applied linguistics sets out to investigate language related problems in the world in which language is implicated”. And that it has emerged as an attempt to provide a theoretical basis for the activities of language teaching.