چکیده:
The present study compared the impact of teacher-provided and peer-provided oral assistance in the acquisition of English wh-question forms. Participants were 90 female Iranian EFL learners who constituted the 3 groups of the study: teacher-assisted, peer-assisted, and a control group. Participants in the experimental groups received assistance either from the teacher or a peer during task-based performances to make wh-questions, whereas those in the control group performed the same tasks with no assistance. The study took a mixed-methods design. Results from the quantitative pre/posttest analysis showed that both teacher-assisted and peer-assisted groups significantly improved in receptive and productive knowledge of the L2 forms compared to the control group, but no significant difference was observed between the 2 groups' degree of language development. Results of the qualitative microgenetic analysis revealed that the peer-assisted group outperformed the teacher-assisted group at the first 2 time points of the experiment. The finding that peer-provided assistance was effective with equal or greater benefits as compared to the teacher-assisted group calls into question the traditional belief that L2 learners are incapable of assisting peers in EFL classrooms.
خلاصه ماشینی:
Peer-Assisted Performances and L2 Development: A Mixed Methods Approach1 Elham Sadri2 & Mohammad Hassan Tahririan3 Received: 14/01/2017 Accepted: 21/07/2017 Abstract The present study compared the impact of teacher-provided and peer-provided oral assistance in the acquisition of English wh-question forms.
Results from the quantitative pre/posttest analysis showed that both teacher-assisted and peer-assisted groups significantly improved in receptive and productive knowledge of the L2 forms compared to the control group, but no significant difference was observed between the 2 groups' degree of language development.
The present study was an attempt to examine and compare the process of teacher-assisted and peer-assisted performances by Iranian adult English language learners while performing picture tasks eliciting wh-question forms.
As opposed to the traditional conception of helping the learner in a unidirectional way in L2 activities in the form of corrective feedback, assistance refers to a joint effort constructed on the basis of the learner's need which is a function of the social interaction and collaboration of both the learner and the expert/peer operating within the learner’s ZPD (Nassaji & Swain, 2000).
6. Discussion The first research question of the present study aimed at examining and comparing the effect of teacher-provided or peer-provided assistance on the participants’ productive and receptive learning of the target forms by means of a pre/posttest measurement.
The analysis demonstrated that the participants in the teacher-assisted, the peer-assisted, and the control groups had comparable prior receptive/productive knowledge of the wh-question forms at the beginning of the experiment as measured by UGJT and QFT.