The effects of explicit/ implicit instructions on the development of advanced EFL learners' pragmatic knowledge of english: Apology speech act

One of the important elements of communicative competence is pragmatics and one of the effective ways for an efficient communication is by keeping pragmatic competence vital. Despite the fact that pragmatics has drawn attention in foreign language learning, it has been largely neglected in foreign language classrooms. The current study explored the effects of explicit and implicit instructions on the development of advanced EFL learners' pragmatic knowledge in terms of apology speech act. A total of 10 English native speakers and 40 advanced EFL students participated in this study. The Iraqi Kurdish EFL learners were selected from grade 12 in British International School in Erbil/ Iraq and their level was determined by a proficiency test called the Oxford Quick Placement Test (OQPT). These 40 participants were divided randomly into two; explicit group (EG) who was taught various ways to apologize explicitly through warm-up activities at the beginning of each lesson, exercises, short videos and movies, pictures, songs and direct feedback, whereas the participants of the implicit group (IG) were taught apology strategies through the same materials but with a different technique of implicit teaching, receiving indirect feedback and without receiving warming-up activities. They were provided a pre-test called Multiple-choice Discourse Completion Test (MDCT) which consisted of 10 different situations of apology and were based on the participants' real-life situation, each situation included 3 options and only one answer could be selected which they believed is the best. The aim was to show if there were any significant differences between EG and IG. The English native speakers were given the same (MDCT) and were asked to choose the most appropriate answers. After the treatment, (EG) and (IG) were provided the same MDCT as a post-test. The findings revealed that the results of EG and IG were significant and they showed improvements after the treatment, and the EG outperformed the IG. In post-test both groups of EG and IG received the same MDCT as a delayed-test. The findings showed that, the results of both groups were significant but EG stayed at the same level and outperformed the IG meanwhile IG showed reduction of their progress.