Inductive or Deductive? The Impact of Method of Instruction on the Acquisition of Pragmatic Competence in EFL

This book presents a longitudinal, quasi-experimental classroom study into the effects of inductive and deductive instruction on the acquisition of pragmatic competence in adult English-as-a-Foreign-Language learners. Set within the explicit teaching paradigm, it presents the first systematic analysis of the contrast between inductive and deductive teaching methods in instructional pragmatics. Two learner groups were taught about disagreement and offer refusal, and their pragmatic skills were measured before and after the instruction via Discourse Completion Tasks and role plays. In addition, the learners' perspective was captured extensively through a classroom questionnaire and through an essay task during their subsequent sojourn abroad. The results suggest the advantage of the inductive approach, both for language production and pragmatic awareness. The book is a valuable resource for researchers and teachers alike. Researchers will find a detailed description of the speech act realizations in terms of turn-level strategies, semantic strategies, adjuncts and modality markers, including detailed taxonomies of realization strategies for both speech acts. In addition, the book provides a novel perspective on the relationship between lexico-grammatical and pragmatic proficiency as influenced by explicit instruction. Teachers will appreciate the detailed descriptions of the pragmatic lessons for both teaching approaches, as well as the teaching materials provided in the appendix. Moreover, the questionnaire and essay data present valuable insights into how foreign language learners perceive pragmatic instruction and its applicability in real-world contexts.