Learner initiative and very young learner talk have not been fully investigated despite the growing recognition of their importance in English education. Therefore, the present study examined the sequential development of talk-in-interaction observed in an after-school English program in a Korean kindergarten classroom by investigating how children contributed their behaviors to class participation using the methodological framework of conversation analysis. Data was collected from one intact classroom interaction between a native teacher and 28 seven-year-old children. The analysis highlighted a noticeable interactional phenomenon, learner initiative, which was revealed through children’s turn position in the Initiation-Response-Follow-up (IRF) sequence. In particular, this study presented evidence that learner initiative could be displayed through learners’ self-selected turns: initiating repair of the teacher’s previous utterance, asking a question, and displaying knowledge of words. These findings were discussed in relation to the view of learners as active agents through the process of interaction and suggested pedagogical implications of very young learners’ classroom interaction.

1. INTRODUCTION
2. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
    2. 1. IRF and Classroom Talk
    2. 2. Learner Initiative
3. RESEARCH METHOD
    3. 1. Research Setting 
    3. 2. Participants
    3. 3. Data Collection and Analysis
    3. 4.Transcription
4. RESULTS
    4. 1. Repair of the Teacher’s Previous Utterance
    4. 2. Asking a Question
    4. 3. Displaying Knowledge of Words
5. CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION
REFERENCES

• Soo Kyoung Kwak(Graduate student, School of English, Sookmyung Women, University)