iranian efl learners’ production of online english requests: effects of task-based language teaching

Scant attention has been paid to training efl learners in request speech act production in online spaces despite its significance. therefore, this quasi-experimental study scrutinized the impact of technology-mediated tblt in an online collaborative and individual efl learning environment on the development of l2 pragmatic competence of 20 male and female b.a. students of tefl in terms of the production of request.the participants were randomly divided into two equal individual and collaborative experimental groups to receive online video-prompt task-based instruction on request speech act production in six distinct situations defined based on different contextual variables including the degrees of formality, distance, power, and imposition. two similar versions of video-prompt discourse completion tests (dcts) focusing on six situations covered in online classes were also prepared in advance as a pre-test and post-test to explore the extent to which the participants made progress in each group.the result of the paired-samples t-tests indicated that both groups’ request speech act production improved significantly after the intervention. however, the independent sample t-test revealed no significant difference between the performance of the two groups. it was then concluded that both techniques are facilitative in boosting students’ pragmatic competence; however, more time is required to find out the extent to which these techniques differ in terms of their productiveness. the finding of this study has some implications for teacher educators, teachers, and material developers to devise some plans to raise efl learners’ awareness of request speech act production and for students to try to enhance their knowledge of pragmatics.