زهرا فاخر عجب شیر

This study investigates the relative effectiveness of online dynamic assessment (DA) compared to the teacher’s explicit feedback in the acquisition of requests in an online learning environment. Thirty-four intermediate-level English as a foreign language (EFL) learners were randomly assigned to three groups: expert peer DA (PDA), teacher DA (TDA), and teacher’s explicit feedback (TEF). Following the metapragmatic instruction, the participants were provided with 15 discourse completion tests (three treatment sessions, five items for each session) to complete. Discourse completion tests depicted request scenarios and required the participants to write what they would say in those situations. The participants worked independently, and when the DA groups created poorly constructed requests, they were given online pre-established mediational hints. These hints were arranged from the most implicit to the most explicit, and were provided by either an expert peer (for the PDA group) or the teacher (for the TDA group). The TEF group, on the other hand, received the teacher’s explicit feedback on any pragmatic deviations. The analysis of the pretest and post-test scores by series of t-tests and an ANCOVA showed that the best performance belonged to the PDA group, followed by TDA and TEF groups. The findings underscore the pedagogical value of DA and the superiority of expert peers’ mediation over teacher mediation in the development of L2 pragmatic competence.