ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the practices of repair in talk-in-interaction (e.g., Schegloff et al., 1977). In ordinary conversation, repair is not symptomatic of a disfluent or incompetent speaker but an important component of one’s interactional competence. The recurring practices of repair remain, for the most part, not widely known by language teachers, at least not at the level of explicit knowledge (McCarthy, 1998; Nakamura, 2008). Language instructors need to develop a solid understanding of these practices in order to reach out to learners in a variety of ways. We discuss the concept of repair by considering dichotomies such as repair initiation vs. repair outcome and selfrepair vs. other repair. We also describe the different types of repair: selfinitiated self-repair, self-initiated other-repair, other-initiated self-repair, and other-initiated other-repair. We use naturally occurring talk for illustration. Pedagogical relevance is noted throughout the chapter. We conclude with suggested awareness-raising and practicing activities that teachers can use to help learners develop the ability to address problems of speaking, hearing, or understanding in real conversation.
