The Effect of Peer s Collaborative Dialogue on Developing Iranian EFL Learners L2 Pragmatic Knowledge

Building upon the sociocultural theory of Vygotsky, this study explored the effect of peer s collaborative dialogue on Iranian EFL learners comprehension and production of requests and apologies. Based on their pretest scores, the participants level of L2 pragmatic proficiency was measured and they were randomly assigned to the control and experimental (collaborative) groups. Both groups received metapragmatic instruction on requests and apologies; however, the collaborative group was engaged in collaborative problem-solving tasks and jointly worked out their appropriate alternatives to the items including sociopragmatic deviations. Following the treatment, an immediate and delayed posttest were administered the results of which revealed the outperformance of the collaborative group compared with the control group in both measures of comprehension and production of speech acts. The pragmatic gains were also found to be durable over the period of a month. The findings have implications in language teaching and pedagogy and suggest that L2 pragmatic knowledge is likely to emerge from assisted performance.