**1. Introduction**

The current study is guided by Vygotsky's sociocultural theory [1], which explains that learning occurs during social interaction. The zone proximal development (ZPD) Vygotsky's work notes the difference in what learners achieve alone and what they achieve cooperatively with other learners, which emphasise the importance of peer interaction as it develops learners' skills and lead to greater performance than learners working alone. Gass [2] emphasised the importance of social interaction and noted that as it is a tool for providing input for language learners.

In addition, social interaction has been said to develop learners learning by developing their reflective thinking, which may lead to higher levels of cognitive, social, moral development and critical thinking. These are all skills that are important for university level students. The most important skill for university student is critical thinking as it enables them to question and reflect their knowledge, which promotes higher order thinking skills. The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education in the UK states that students should be able to make critical judgements and evaluations [3]. for students to achieve critical thinking, it has been highlighted from previous studies that this can be successfully achieved by promoting more student-student interaction [4], which as noted by Moore [5] learners' interaction is a valuable resource for learning.

Many researchers have looked at the connection between interaction and learning [6–9]. Although there have been many studies on interaction and learning, the research on interaction in SOL remains limited. Considering the recent global pandemic learning has shifted to online learning, for this reason it is important to explore the online interaction.

As this study aims to examine how teachers can create space for learners' interaction in breakout rooms, it is very important to discuss the notion of classroom interactional competence (CIC). The main idea behind CIC is that interaction is closely connected with learning, so teachers gaining interactional knowledge will provide better learning opportunities for their learners [9]. As mentioned previously according to Vygotsky's theory of learning, social interaction supports learning. One main features of CIC that will be discussed here is that CIC "creates space for learning" [10]. One of the ways CIC accomplishes this is by allowing more planning time, which could be achieved online by giving more effective time for learner-learner interaction in breakout rooms [11]. This will be looked at in more detail later in the literature review.

This research sought to investigate the challenges faced by teachers in creating space for students' interaction. Why these challenges arise and how could teachers overcome these issues by exploring the appropriate use of affordance of Zoom. As well as how teachers can make use of existing affordances of Zoom to create space for effective learners' interaction. This study uses a qualitative methodology, adopting a focus group with 12 university Applied linguistics and TESOL international students and teachers. Followed by an individual teacher and student interview to gain rich and indepth data. As well as an observation video recording of a breakout room on ZOOM.
