Learner Proficiency and Pragmatic-Related Episodes during Collaborative Tasks

Collaborative dialogue proposed by Swain (2000) has been grounded on co-construction of knowledge by L2learners drawing upon their shared resources. Thus far, most of the studies on collaborative dialogue havefocused on micro-level grammatical and lexical aspects, and they have rarely focused on discoursal andpragmatic macro-level aspects. The current study investigates the collaborative dialogue produced by IranianEFL learners during collaborative tasks on L2 pragmatics. The purpose was to identify the effect of collaborativedialogue on acquisition of request and apology speech acts. Moreover, the study explored whether the frequencyand resolution of pragmatic-related episodes (PRE) s during collaborative problem-solving tasks differed acrossHigh-High, High-Low and Low-Low dyads. The participants were 89 EFL learners who were assigned to High-High, High-Low and Low-Low dyads based on their L2 pragmatic proficiency. The dyads were engaged incollaborative problem-solving tasks for seven sessions during which samples of their collaborative dialogueswere audio recorded and analyzed in terms of the frequency and outcome of PREs. Findings revealed the positiveeffect of collaborative dialogue on development of L2 pragmatics in all dyads. Also, H-H dyads were found toproduce PREs more frequently than H-L and L-L dyads. Regarding the outcome of PREs, H-H dyads resolvedmost of PREs correctly while the number of incorrectly solved episodes was roughly similar in production of HLand L-L dyads. The findings offer pedagogical implications to EFL teachers and educators on how to best pairlearners in collaborative activities.

کلیدواژه ها:

Collaborative Dialogue ، Pragmatic-Related Episode (PRE) ، L2 Pragmatic Competence ، Proficiency Pairing ، Sociocultural Theory (SCT)