This study investigated the collaborative talk linked to high-level comprehension of a high-ability group and a low-ability group in terms of discussion proficiency during their dialogue about short stories. The two groups consisted of 4 adolescent EFL learners with different reading proficiency levels each. The data source was the last four weekly discussions of the two groups which were analyzed for discourse features linked to high-level comprehension, based on the criteria identified by Soter et al. [15]. The results demonstrated that both groups, to some extent, were able to incorporate all discourse features that indicate high-level comprehension of texts regardless of discussion proficiency. They learned to treat their utterances and those of others as thinking devices to facilitate high-level learning while undertaking group reading
tasks.

Published in: World Congress on Education (WCE-2018)

• Date of Conference: 15-18 July 2018
• DOI: 10.2053/WCE.2018.0017
• ISBN: 978-1-908320-91-9
• Conference Location: Dublin, Ireland