Abstract:
This study investigates the effectiveness of explicit pragmatic instruction on the speech act
awareness and the communicative competence of a sample of learners of English as a Foreign
Language (EFL) at university level and their need to learn English as communication. It also
assesses the degree of relationship between the learners’ pragmatic theoretical knowledge and
their speech act awareness and between the latter and communicative proficiency. The
hypotheses are, first, the students’ needs in learning English are perfectly compatible with the
communicative trend. Second, if students are more exposed to explicit pragmatic instruction
and communicative tasks, they will develop better their speech act awareness. Third, Students
speech act awareness increases their communicative proficiency. Fourth and last, students’
pragmatic theoretical awareness increases their speech act awareness. The sample answers a
needs analysis questionnaire before an experiment is carried out in which a control group
receives no explicit instruction and an experimental/teacher instruction group learns explicitly
through classroom interaction. Three test formats are administered to assess performance in
two speech acts (requests and apologies). The tools used have managed to measure the
learners' interlanguage pragmatic knowledge of English in an EFL context, specifically in
terms of the aforementioned two speech acts. The results show that students need English for
communication and interaction and, therefore, they favour the communicative approach to
language teaching. The first hypothesis is, thus, confirmed. The findings reveal that explicit
pragmatic instruction has a positive impact on the EFL learners’ speech act awareness, which
confirms the second hypothesis. The scores obtained indicate a weak degree of association between
the learners’ theoretical knowledge and their speech act awareness which disconfirms the third
hypothesis. Finally, the results of the communicative proficiency test show a close relationship
between the learners’ speech act awareness and communicative proficiency.
