Bridging the gap

Abstract

The inclusion of the new mediation scales in the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) has fostered the role of second-language (L2) learners as multilingual social agents performing mediation activities that can build bridges between distant entities. However, even though mediation has become a fashionable topic in scholarly debate, there are still very few studies based on empirical evidence that support the theory. This study provides an empirical approach to mediation processes in the L2 classroom, more specifically in a context with Spanish-speaking first-language (L1) students enrolled in a German course in a Colombian university. The mediation processes are analyzed during two activities in which the students had to interact to fulfill the task. The aim of the study is twofold: (1) to measure the proportion of the types of mediation acts used in each activity; and (2) to provide specific examples of the strategies deployed in the mediation acts. The quantitative analysis confirms the presence of three types of mediation proposed by the CEFR – linguistic, communicative and cognitive – but records a low proportion of mediations performed in the L2, which reflects the difficulty associated with cognitively demanding tasks.