Pragmatic Comprehension Development through Telecollaboration

Pragmatic comprehension can be ideally developed through contact with target language speakers. This contact can be provided in English as Foreign Language contexts through telecollaboration. To test the actual effect of telecollaboration on the development of pragmatic comprehension, 30 Iranian undergraduates of English as a Foreign Language participated in an experimental study. The participants were divided into two groups of 15 students- control group which merely received pragmatic instructions and experimental group which had the opportunity to interact with target language speakers through internet-mediated communication tools besides receiving pragmatic instructions. The data were collected through a multiple choice pragmatic comprehension test, following a semester-long intervention. The comparison of the performance of the two groups assessed through the independent-samples t-test showed the significant positive effect of telecollaboration on the development of pragmatic comprehension. Pedagogical implications of the findings suggested organizing telecollaborative partnership environments to link English as Foreign Language students with university students in native English speaking countries.