Abstract:
Socioculturally oriented developmental Interlanguage Pragmatics (ILP) studies
have just recently drawn the Second Language Acquisition (SLA) researchers'
attention, and the role of concepts like peer scaffolding, and the Zone of Proximal
Development (ZPD) in ILP development are among rich areas in need of attention.
The present study investigates the significance of the effect of expert peers' ZPDwise,
co-equal peers' ZPD-insensitive and teacher fronted ZPD-insensitive
scaffolding on EFL learners' pragmatic development. The number of students who
participated in this study was 85 of which 27 were male and the rest were female.
They were organized into three experimental and one control groups. The subjects
in the experimental groups were given either explicit ZPD-wise or implicit ZPD-
wise scaffolding by the expert peers, or ZPD-insensitive scaffolding by their coequals,
while the subjects of the control group received ZPD-insensitive teacher
scaffolding. The study reveals that the expert peers' ZPD-wise explicit and implicit
scaffolding are more effective than the other two intervention types for the ILP
development, however, the co-equals' scaffolding proved to be the third effective
procedure for the subjects' co-construction of ZPD and ILP development. An
implication of the study is that different forms of peer scaffolding are relatively
effective for the EFL learners' ILP development.
Machine summary:
"Q4: Does the teacher's ZPD-insensitive pragmatic instruction and feedback have any significantly different effect from that of the explicit peer scaffolding, implicit peer scaffolding and co-equals scaffolding on the lower intermediate EFL learners' development of the three speech acts of complaint, apology and request?
Concerning the first research question, the results indicated that the expert peers' explicit scaffolding in the lower intermediate subjects' ZPD had significantly superior effects on both WDCT and MDCT test performances of the subjects compared with teacher fronted ZPD-insensitive instruction and feedback, and co- equals' ZPD-insensitive scaffolding.
Co-equals' explicit/implicit ZPD- insensitive scaffolding's effect proved to be the third effective procedure among the four intervention types and the classic teacher fronted ZPD-insensitive instruction and feedback proved to be the least effective of all for the pragmatic development of the lower intermediate subjects considering the recognition or MDCT test results.
g. Koike & Pearson, 2005; Martinez-Flor & Fukuya, 2005; Alco'n, 2005; Takahashi, 2005; Ohta, 2005) have revealed that providing learners with explicit meta-pragmatic instruction yields more effective learning outcomes than providing them with implicit target input, however, the present study revealed that the teachers' explicit metapragmatic instruction and feedback was placed in the fourth rank in it's effects on the pragmatic comprehension and production of the lower intermediate subjects compared with the expert peers' ZPD-wise explicit or implicit instruction and feedback, and co-equal's ZPD-insensitive scaffolding."