The Effects of Explicit Instruction on EFL Students’ Production and Perception of Requests

Asma Ben Abdallah

doi:10.17722/jell.v3i3.66

Abstract

As an exploratory study to expand the scope of pedagogical intervention to the teaching of pragmatics, the present research sought to examine the effects of explicit instruction on the learning of request forms. The effects were examined in two respects: the learners’ strategies in formulating request forms, and their perceptions of the pragmatic intervention. To this end, 50 third-year English students at the faculty of Arts and Humanities Sfax, Tunisia were exposed to explicit instruction in the form of awareness-raising tasks and written meta pragmatic feedback on the use of appropriate requests. They were required to take a pre-test, receive a one-month treatment, and take a post-test. In line with previous research, the study showed that learners’ production of requests benefited from the explicit instruction and the questionnaire data indicated that the explicit teaching has helped the learners understand the appropriate use of request strategies.

Highlights

In order to be successful in communication, it is essential for foreign and second language learners to know the grammar of the language, the text organization as well as the pragmatic aspects of the target language
The participants‟ written responses of request expressions were compared in terms of the types of strategies used in the Head Act portion
The coding methods used by the CCSARP project have been found effective in categorizing learners‟ expressions used for requests (Blum-Kulka et al, 1989)[11]

Summary

Introduction

In order to be successful in communication, it is essential for foreign and second language learners to know the grammar of the language, the text organization as well as the pragmatic aspects of the target language. In Thomas‟ (1983)[45] terms, “Pragmatic failure” refers to the speaker‟s production of wrong communicative effects through the faulty use of speech acts or one of the rules of speaking. Thomas (1983)[45] uses the term “pragmatic failure” to refer to the inability of the individual to understand what is meant by what is said. In her description of pragmatic failure, Thomas distinguishes between two types of failure: “pragmalinguistic” and “sociopragmatic”. Pragmatic competence is defined by Koike (1989)[26] as “the speaker‟s knowledge and use of rules of appropriateness and politeness which dictate the way the speaker will understand and formulate speech acts” (p.279)

Methods

Results

Conclusion