The Effect of Bloom-based ILP Instruction on Iranian EFL learners’ Use of External and Internal Modification Strategies in the Speech Act of Request

Abstract

The way people perform a speech act differs across cultures. People from different cultures may have different perceptions of similar social factors and interpret them differentially. These differences can lead to cross-cultural miscommunications when language users perform a given speech act such as request. Based on the request analysis categories introduced by Blum-Kulka et al. (1989b) and Schauer (2009), the present study examined Iranian EFL learners' deviations in utilizing internal and external modifications from native speakers' norms and explored how Bloom-based instruction can contribute to the acquisition of internal and external modifications. To this end, a researcher-developed Written Discourse Completion Task (WDCT) was utilized to collect data from 61 participants: a. treatment group (20), b. control group (23), and c. native speakers (18). The data were categorized based on a framework adapted from Blum-Kulka et al. (1989b) and Schauer's (2009) coding schemes for internal and external modifications. The results suggested that, in the pretest, Iranian EFL learners’ use of request modification strategies differed significantly from native speakers’ norms. It was found that that after the Bloom-based ILP instruction, the treatment group progressed towards native speakers' norms in the application of several modification strategies. These findings imply that the employment of Bloom’s Taxonomy, with specific focus on high order thinking skills in the development of pragmatics tasks and activities can help EFL learners approach native speakers’ norms.