A Meta-analysis of the Effectiveness of Second Language Pragmatics Instruction

Abstract

Abstract This study investigates the effects of instruction on second language (L2) pragmatic competence and the factors that moderate the effectiveness of pragmatics instruction. A comprehensive literature search yielded 29 primary studies that involved 1,898 L2 learners, generating 54 effect sizes for between-group contrasts. Aggregated results showed that pragmatics instruction had a large, positive effect on the development of pragmatic competence, g =1.656 (95% CI: 1.387–1.924). Subsequent moderator analyses demonstrated that explicit instruction yielded larger effects than implicit instruction, but the difference was not significant; pragmatics instruction was more effective in foreign language settings than in second language settings; longer treatments yielded larger effect sizes than medium and short treatments; and teaching pragmatics at the high-school level produced the largest mean effect size among all institutional levels. In addition, the outcomes measured by written discourse completion task generated the largest effects, followed by oral production tasks, while multiple-choice tasks yielded the smallest effect sizes. We discuss the results by consulting previous meta-analytic studies and the methodological characteristics of the synthesized studies.