Raising EFL Learners’ Pragmatic Competence via Teaching Compliments: The Case of Explicit vs Implicit Instruction in Focus
Subject Areas : Journal of Studies in Learning and Teaching English
Hossein Isaee
1
,
Hamed Barjesteh
2
1 - Department of English Language and Literature, Ayatollah Amoli Branch, Islamic Azad University, Amol, Iran
2 - Department of English Language and Literature, Ayatollah Amoli Branch, Islamic Azad University, Amol, Iran
Keywords: Compliment, Explicit Instruction, Implicit Instruction, Pragmatics, Pragmatic Competence,
Abstract :
Teaching the English language involves not only the lexical and grammatical systems but also the implicatures, implied meanings, and the influence of context/culture on interpretation (Tanduk, 2023), which are invisible and hard to teach. In effect, the researchers aimed to investigate whether explicit and implicit instruction of compliment speech acts could help EFL learners achieve pragmatic appropriateness in authentic communication. The study comprised 60 intermediate EFL learners, 21 males, and 39 females, from a private English language institute in Amol. Participants were divided into two groups of 30 learners each - explicit and non-explicit. The teacher-researchers taught both groups how to give and respond to compliments, using explicit techniques for one group and implicit techniques for the other. Participants received a Written Discourse Completion Task (WDCT) before and after the intervention to evaluate their pragmatic competence. The obtained data were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), and a noteworthy disparity between the pre-test and post-test scores of both groups was revealed. Although both methods enhanced the pragmatic competence of EFL learners, the explicit group demonstrated more significant improvement compared to the implicit group. Findings testify that appropriate instruction can lead to better outcomes.
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