The effect of explicit teaching of English “thanking formulas” on Iranian EFL intermediate level students at English language institutes

Since the early 1980s, researchers have established that the foreign language learners’ development of various aspects of pragmatic competence may be facilitated by the instruction of pragmatic routines and strategies in the foreign language classroom (Kasper and Rose, 2001). Consistent with this line of research this study, using conversations compared the use of explicit and implicit instruction of English “thanking formulas” on Iranian EFL intermediate level students’ sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic awareness. The data collected for the present study, applying a DCT (discourse completion test) and four role-plays were analyzed at two distinct levels. First using descriptive statistics the mean and SD (standard deviation) of the data collected were estimated. Then using inferential statistics and applying independent samples T-test, the researcher investigated the (dis)approval of the hypotheses proposed for the study.The results obtained from the explicit instruction group indicated that instruction had an impressively positive effect on raising students’ sociopragmatic awareness as well as their hindrance of L1 pragmalinguistic transfer to L2 (second language). Also, comparing the level of English proficiency and age of the learners involved in Rose and Connie Ng’s study to our study, it can be concluded that younger students possessing lower levels of grammatical and sociolinguistic competence in the second language need explicit instruction both on sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic preferences of the NSs (native speaker); that is, they will not be able to understand the differences between the two languages without being exposed to instructions.