Individual versus pair work on L2 speech acts: production and cognitive processes

Abstract

Abstract This study aims to examine the extent to which peer collaboration affects EFL learners’ speech act production and cognitive processes. Eleven EFL students in the individual group and 22 students (11 pairs) in the collaborative groups were asked to report their cognitive processes when working on a written discourse completion task (WDCT). The WDCT performances were rated on a five-point Likert-type scale, and the verbalizations were analyzed in terms of pragmatic-related episodes (PREs). Results showed that the individual group scored higher on content, whereas the collaborative group outperformed their counterparts on forms. Regarding the cognitive processes, the individual group tended to plan the general direction of their writing before writing the WDCT and paid more attention to sociopragmatic content while writing. In contrast, the collaborative group planned specific details before the task and attended to pragmalinguistic forms more often while writing.