Enhancing EFL learners' Pragmatic Performance: The Case of Suggestions
الموضوعات :Ali Fath Pour Pakzad 1 , Mehdi Sarkhosh 2
1 - English Department, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Urmia University, Urmia, Iran
2 - English Department, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Urmia University, Urmia, Iran
الکلمات المفتاحية: Speech Act, Discourse completion task, Pragmatic performance, Role play with discussion, Suggestion,
ملخص المقالة :
The present study aimed to explore whether Iranian English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ pragmatic performance of making suggestions improve after receiving discourse completion task (DCT) and role-play with discussion. One Hundred twenty intermediate Iranian EFL learners whose scores ranged between 41 and 59 at the Oxford Proficiency test were selected for participation in the study from several Iranian language schools through convenience sampling. They were assigned to the control group receiving no treatment and discourse completion group, and role plays with the discussion group. Before the treatments, the experimental groups received instruction on the exemplar forms, conversational practice, and performance of suggested activities in the book "Function." After the familiarity of the participants with various suggestion forms and their appropriate use, the first experimental group was provided with a discourse completion task and the second one received role play with discussion. The learners were provided with an explicit explanation of formality, and status as socio-pragmatic factors influencing the selection of appropriate suggestion forms. Then, they were supposed to act out the scenarios and discussed and evaluated the appropriateness of the responses. After the two treatments, the participants took a post-test with 4 sample conversations. The findings were indicative of the effectiveness of the two treatments. The conclusion drawn from the results was that EFL learners could benefit from pragmatic instruction via pragmatic awareness-raising tasks in their pragmatic performance.
Abolfathiasl, H., & Nadzimah Abdullah, A. (2015). Pragmatic consciousness-raising Activities and EFL Learners’ Speech Act Performance of ‘Making Suggestions.’ Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 6(2), 333-342.
Alco´n Soler, E. (2005) Does instruction work for learning pragmatics in the EFL context? System 33, 417-435.
Alsuhaibani, Z. (2020). Developing EFL students’ pragmatic competence: The case of compliment responses. Language Teaching Research, 1-20.
Aminifard, Y., Safaei, E., & Askari, H. (2014). Speech Act of Suggestion Across Language Proficiency and Gender in Iranian Context. International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature, 3(5).
Bachman, L. F., Savington, S. J. (1990). Fundamental considerations in language testing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bachman, L. F., & Palmer, A. S. (1996). Language testing in practice: Designing and developing useful language tests. USA: Oxford University Press.
Bardovi-Harlig, K. (1996) Pragmatics and language teaching: Bringing pragmatics and pedagogy together. Pragmatics and Language Learning, 7, 21-39.
Bardovi-Harlig, K. (2001). Evaluating the empirical evidence: Grounds for instruction in pragmatics? In K. R. Rose & G. Kasper (Eds.), Pragmatics in language teaching (pp. 13‒32). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bardovi-Harlig, K., & Griffin, R. (2005) ‘L2 pragmatic awareness: Evidence from the ESL classroom.’ System, 33, 401-415.
Beebe, L. M., & Takahashi, T. (1989) “Do you have a bag?” Social status and patterned variation in second language acquisition. In: Susan M. Gass, Carolyn G. Madden, Dennis Preston and Larry Selinker (eds.), Variation in Second Language Acquisition: Discourse and Pragmatics (pp.2-13). Clevedon: Philadelphia
Canale, M., & Swain, M. (1980). Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second language teaching and testing.’ Applied Linguistics, 1(1), 1-47.
Derakhshan, A., & Arabmofrad, A. (2018). The impact of instruction on the pragmatic comprehension of speech acts of apology, request, and refusal among Iranian intermediate EFL learners. English Teaching & Learning, 42(1), 75-94.
Derakhshan, A., & Shakki, F. (2020). The effect of implicit vs. explicit metapragmatic instruction on the Iranian intermediate EFL learners’ pragmatic comprehension of apology and refusal. Journal of Language Research, 12(37), 151-175.
Eslami-Rasekh, Z. (2005) ‘Raising the pragmatic awareness of language learners.’ ELT Journal, 59(3), 199–208.
Fakher, Z., & Panahifar, F. (2020). The effect of teachers’ scaffolding and peers’ collaborative dialogue on speech act production in symmetrical and asymmetrical groups. Iranian Journal of Language Teaching Research, 8(1), 45-61.
Ghaedrahmat, M., Alavi Nia, P., & Biria, R. (2016). The effect of explicit vs. implicit instruction on mastering the speech act of thanking among Iranian male and female EFL learners. Latin American Journal of Content and Language Integrated Learning, 9(2), 401-425.
Ghavamnia, M., Eslami-Rasekh A. and Dastjerdi, V. H., (2014) ‘The effects of input-enhanced instruction on Iranian EFL learners’ production of appropriate and accurate suggestions.’ Language Learning, 46, 114-131.
House, J. (1996). ‘Developing pragmatic fluency in English as a foreign language: Routines and meta-pragmatic awareness.’ Studies in Second Language Acquisition 18, 225–252.
Ishihara, N. (2004). Exploring the immediate and delayed effects of formal instruction: Teaching, giving and responding to complements. Minnesota TESOL/WITESOL Journal, 21, 37-71.
Ishihara, N. (2007). ‘Web-based for pragmatic instruction in Japanese as a foreign language: An explicit awareness-raising approach. Language Awareness, .16(1), 21-40
Jeon, E. H. & Kaya, T. (2006) ‘The effect of L2 instruction of inter pragmatic language development: a meta-analysis.’ In: J. M. Norris and L. Ortega (Eds.), Synthesizing research on language learning and teaching. Philadelphia. PA: John Benjamin. 105-211.
Kasper, G. (1997) ‘Can pragmatic competence be taught?’ Retrieved November 2008, from the World Wide Web: http: //nflrc. Hawaii. Edu /Networks/ Nwo6/.
Kasper, G. (2000). Four perspectives on pragmatic development. Plenary address, Annual Meeting of the American Association of Applied Linguistics, Vanquer, British Colombia, March.
Kasper, G., & Rose, K. (2002). Pragmatic development in a second language. Oxford: Blackwell.
Kim, H. (2016). An investigation into EFL learners’ perception towards L2 pragmatic instruction. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 6, 452–462.
Koike, D. A., & Pearson, L. (2005) ‘The effect of instruction and feedback in the development of pragmatic competence.’ System, 33, 481-501.
Kramsch, C. (1993). Context and culture in language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lado, R. (1961) ‘Linguistics and foreign language teaching’ Language Learning, 11, 29–52.
Long, M. H. (1981). Input, interaction and second language acquisition. In H. Winitz (ed.), Native language and foreign language acquisition (pp. 259-278). Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.
Long, M.H. (1983a). Native speaker/non-native speaker conversation and the negotiation of comprehensible input. Applied Linguistics, 4, 126-41.
Long, M.H. 1996: The role of the linguistic environment in second language acquisition. In W.C. Ritchie & T.K. Bhatia (eds.), Handbook of second language acquisition (pp. 413-68). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Martinez-Flor, A. (2005). A theoretical review of the speech act of suggesting: Towards a taxonomy for its use in FLT. Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses, 18, 167-187.
Martínez-Flor, A., & Soler, E. A. (2007) ‘Developing pragmatic awareness of suggestions in the EFL classroom: A focus on instructional effects.’ Canadian Journal of Applied Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique appliquée, 10(1), 47-76.
Mirzaee, A., & Esmaeili, M. (2013). The effects of planned instruction on Iranian L2 learners' interlanguage pragmatic development. International Journal of Society, Culture & Language, 1(1), 89-100.
Narita, R. (2012) ‘The effects of pragmatic consciousness-raising activity on the development of pragmatic awareness and use of hearsay evidential markers for learners of Japanese as a foreign language.’ Journal of Pragmatics 44(1), 1-29.
Ogiermann, E. (2009a). On apologizing in Negative and Positive Politeness Cultures. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Olstein, L., &. Cohen, A. D. (1990) ‘The learning of complex speech act behavior.’ TESL Canada Journal 7, 45-65.
Polio, C. (2007) ‘A history of input enhancement: defining an evolving concept.’ Assessing the impact of input enhancement in second language education, 1-17
Rose, K. R. (1994) ‘Pragmatic consciousness-raising in an EFL context.’ In: L.
Rose, K., & Kasper, G. (Eds.) (2001). Pragmatics and Language Learning. Cambridge, NY: CUP.
Rose, K.R. & Ng, C.K., (2001) ‘Inductive and deductive teaching of compliments and compliment responses in: K.R. Rose and G. Kasper (eds.) Pragmatics in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 145–170.
Schmidt, R. (1993) ‘Awareness and second language acquisition.’ Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 13(1), 206-226.
Schmidt, R. (2001). ‘Attention.’ In: P. Robinson (ed.) Cognition and second language instruction 1st Ed. New York: Cambridge University Press. 3-32.
Schmidt, R., Richard, Shimura, A. and Hy-sook, J. (1996) ‘Suggestions to buy: Television commercials from the U.S., Japan, China, Korea.’ In: S. M. Gass & J. Ned (eds.) Speech acts across cultures. Berlin: Mauton de Gruyter. 285-315.
Sharwood Smith, M. (1993). Input enhancement in instructed SLA: theoretical bases. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 15, 165–179.
Swain, M. (1985). Communicative competence: some roles of comprehensible input and comprehensible output in its development. In S.M. Gass & C.G. Madden (eds.), Input in second language acquisition (pp. 235-53). Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
Swain, M. (1995) Three functions of output in second language learning. In G. Cook & B. Seidlhofer (eds.), Principle and practice in applied linguistics: Studies in honor of H. G. Widdowson (pp. 125-144). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Taguchi, N. (2015). Instructed pragmatics at a glance: Where instructional studies were, are, and should be going. Language Teaching, 48, 1–50
Takahashi, S. (2001) ‘The role of input enhancement in developing pragmatic competence.’ In: Rose, K. and Kasper, G. (eds) Pragmatics in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 171–199.
Takahashi, S. (2005) ‘Noticing in task performance and learning outcomes: a qualitative analysis of instructional effects in interlanguage pragmatics.’ System, 33, 437-461.
Takimoto, M. (2012) ‘Metapragmatic discussion in interlanguage pragmatics.’ Journal of Pragmatics, 44(10), 1240-1253.
Thomas, J. (1983) ‘Cross-cultural pragmatic failure’ Applied Linguistic 4, 91-112.
Truscott, J. (1998) ‘Noticing in second language acquisition: A critical review.’ Second Language Research, 14(2), 103-135.
