Pragmatic instruction in EFL contexts

This study investigates the effect of instruction on the acquisition of pragmatic routines for expressions of agreement, disagreement, and clarificationamong Iranian EFL learners.Forty learners, including an experimental and acontrol group consisting, N=20 in each, participated in the study. The experimental group received instruction across five 35-minute lessons. Input consisted of authentic language samples extracted from the MICASE corpus; the instruction included noticing of expressions in context, explicit metapragmatic information concerning use, and opportunities for production. Pretest and posttest were administered through a computer-delivered oral-production test, which allowed for free production in a researcher-controlled context (Bardovi-harlig, Mossman&Vellenga, 2015a). The task included 30 items, including 10 agreement, 10 disagreement, and 10 clarification scenarios. A one-way ANCOVA revealed that production of both speech acts and target expressions increased significantly in the experimental condition whereas the control group did not show any significant changes. The results show that instruction has a significant positive effect on the use of pragmatic routines in speech acts and target expressions, as measured by oral production in conversation simulations

Keywords:

Formulaic Sequences , Pragmatics , Pragmatic Routines , Pragmatic Competence , Speech Acts