The Effects of Explicit Instruction on EFL Students’ Production and Perception of Requests
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17722/jell.v3i3.66Keywords:
Teaching pragmatics, Requests, Request strategies, EFL learners, explicit instructionAbstract
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.
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