Exploring foreign language learners' GenAI-coexisted peer argumentation

Argumentation has been widely used as a discussion activity in the English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom. Nevertheless, peer argumentation combined with generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) remains limited despite increasing recognition of GenAI usage among EFL learners. To address this gap, we adopted the pragmatic-dialectic approach to argumentation and the proposition of intersubjectivity, and explored the argumentation process of six Chinese undergraduate students in their English newspaper reading course. A qualitative case study was used to analyze transcripts of peer argumentation, responses to an open-ended questionnaire and screenshots of chats with GenAI. Findings showed that students' peer argumentation was at a dynamic continuum, shifting from GenAI-dominated pseudo-argumentation with lowly dialogic moves to GenAI-coexisted authentic argumentation with highly dialogic moves. The study also yielded explanations for the changes, which involved the reciprocal awareness of human and/or GenAI, the outcome and the process of constructing a shared new understanding among heterogeneous interlocutors. The findings provided insights for the educational significance of the argumentative activities centered on the intersubjectivity in GenAI-coexisted language learning settings.