Role Play and Iranian Male and Female EFL Learners’ Pragmatic Competence

Abstract

Although a large body of research now exists on pragmatic competence, relatively few researchers have explored the impact of role-play on the pragmatic competence. Therefore, the present study is designed to investigate the effect of role-play as a pragmatic development activity after the formal instruction on the development of Learners’ pragmatic competence. The participants included 40 EFL students (15 male and 25 female) that studied English at Maham institute in Tehran. Nelson proficiency test (Fowler & Coe, 1976) was used in order to select the sample out of the population of 90 students who agreed to take part in the study. Based on the results, 40 high intermediate students were selected as the sample of the study. They formed two mixed groups (male and female role play group A, male and female conversation group B). The instruction took place; group A did role play, and group B did conversation followed by free discussion techniques. Having finished the treatment, the two groups gave the similar posttest. The results show there is not any significant difference between male and female learner’s pragmatic competence when they received instruction through conversation and there is not any significant difference between male and female learner’s pragmatic competence they received instruction through role play.