Effects of Instructional Intervention on Raising L2 Pragmatic Awareness of EFL Learners

This study examines the efficiency of pedagogical intervention in raising L2 pragmatic awareness of the Iranian EFL learners. More specifically, it seeks to investigate the difference between explicit and implicit instructions in improving pragmatic appropriateness of the English refusals by adult Persian native speakers in an EFL classroom context. Fifty-four participants, with approximately the same level of linguistic proficiency, were randomly divided into three groups of Control, Explicit, and Implicit. As the Control group was provided with activities irrelevant to the objectives of the study, the two Experimental groups received two different instructional treatments. While the Explicit group was presented with metapragmatic explanations, direct feedback, and explicit awareness-raising instruction on pragmatic features of English refusals, the participants in Implicit group were provided with indirect instruction and implicit awareness-raising activities. All three groups took a multiple-choice discourse completion test (MDCT) as a pre and post test, before and after the six-session instructional period. The results revealed that instruction improves pragmatic appropriateness of the EFL learners' refusals. Explicit pedagogical approach, in particular, was proved to be more efficient in raising L2 pragmatic awareness of the Iranian English learners. The findings of this study may have helpful implications for material developers and teachers in EFL classrooms.