Collaborative dialogue

This study investigated the comparative effects of audio-visually prompted collaborative dialogue on the listening comprehension development of symmetrical, asymmetrical, and asymmetrical teacher-fronted EFL learner groups. Besides, it explored the attitude of the participants of the groups concerning the effectiveness of collaborative dialogue for their listening comprehension improvement. The participants of the study were 120 Iranian female EFL learners who were conveniently chosen from several English language institutes and put into three experimental and one control groups, each with 30 learners. In the first experimental group, coequal learners engaged in collaborative dialogue. In the second experimental group, the expert peer(s) and less knowledgeable peers applied collaborative dialogue, and in the third experimental group, in addition to the peers, the teacher was involved in collaborative dialogue with the group members. As for the control group, the collaborative dialogue was abandoned and the participants worked individually. Quantitative and qualitative analyses revealed that collaborative dialogue in asymmetrical teacher-fronted, asymmetrical peer and symmetrical peer groups were respectively the most effective procedures for listening comprehension development of the EFL learners. Also, it was found that the participants of the asymmetrical teacher fronted group had a more positive attitude towards the efficacy of audio-visually prompted collaborative dialogue compared with asymmetrical and symmetrical peer groups. The findings underscore the cognitive and affective efficiency of a more knowledgeable source, either a teacher or a peer, in asymmetrical dyadic interactions for the less knowledgeable partners' ZPD sensitive development.   

Collaborative dialogue (CD) in developing L2 skills known as ‘knowledge-building dialogue’, in spite of its momentum in foreign language acquisition, has rarely been conjoined and empirically investigated with a Task-based approach. To this end, the present research was conducted with a two-fold aim: firstly, investigating the effect of task-based collaborative dialogue on English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ speaking ability, and secondly, exploring teachers’ and learners’ perceptions of the exercised treatment process. The participants of the study consisted of 100 Iranian B.A. TEFL and Translation Studies students were identified as relatively homogeneous with regard to their language proficiency through administering Oxford Placement Test (OPT) and ten Iranian EFL teachers. The experimental group was exposed to task-based collaborative dialogues, while the control group experienced conventional mainstream teaching the speaking skill. Upon completing the treatment, CD questionnaires were administered to the experimental group of learners and teachers to investigate their perceptions of implementing CDs in speaking classes. Subsequently, the teachers and 12 students from the experimental group attended the semi-structured interview sessions to explore their views regarding the efficiency of task-based CDs. The findings indicated that the experimental group outperformed the control one regarding speaking skill. The results of the questionnaires and the semi-structured interviews complemented each other and indicated that the teachers and the learners adopted positive views toward applying the task-based CD. The findings offer some implications for the stakeholders, including material developers, EFL learners, and teachers, to incorporate task-based collaborative dialogues in second language education.