The Effects of Planned Instruction on Iranian L2 Learners' Interlanguage Pragmatic Development

L2 research has shown that instruction in L2 pragmatics is necessary. The current study evaluated the impact of explicit instruction on EFL learner's awareness and production of three speech acts of request, apology, and complaint. It also probed whether learners’ language proficiency plays any role in incorporating pragmatic instruction into the L2 classroom. Iranian undergraduate students majoring in English with low and high levels of proficiency participated in the study. The instruction lasted for about 12 weeks. Achievement in L2 pragmatics was assessed based on a pretest-posttest plan using Multiple-Choice Discourse Comprehension Test (MDCT) and Written Discourse Completion Test (WDCT). The significant gains made by the experimental groups receiving instruction support the claim recently made by instructional pragmatics that explicit instruction does facilitate the development of pragmatically appropriate use of language. Yet, learners’ level of language proficiency had no significant role in the incorporation of the instruction. Further theoretical issues are also discussed.