Technology-Mediated Pragmatics Instruction: Learning Request-Making Through Game-Based Tasks in L2 Learners

Abstract

This study investigates the impact of technology-mediated pragmatic teaching on L2 learners. Through task-based games, we explored how to instruct English learners in China to learn the speech act of request-making. The game in this study showcases several scenarios to players, including virtual conversations between learners and professors, employers, and friends on a virtual American campus. 105 undergraduate students from a university in China participated in this study, covering 10 virtual request scenarios. They are supposed to choose the most appropriate expression in the context presented in the text and video. According to their choice, the corresponding video of the game will display real-time feedback from the interlocutor, which is the authentic reaction and consequence of the learner’s selection, that is, the other party’s response to the request, such as happily accepting, reluctantly accepting, or refusing the request. The results indicate that in game-based teaching, learners gain much more productive knowledge than receptive knowledge. The participants improved their productive knowledge of making requests after playing the game and maintained this gain at delayed post-tests, but their receptive knowledge remained almost unchanged. In addition, metapragmatic knowledge is positively correlated with the participants’ learning outcome of request-making.