The effects of explicit feedback and form–meaning processing on the development of pragmatic proficiency in consciousness-raising tasks

The present study evaluates the relative effectiveness of two types of input-based instruction, consciousness-raising instruction (the consciousness-raising task only) and consciousness-raising instruction with feedback (the consciousness-raising task + reactive explicit feedback) for teaching English polite requestive forms, involving 45 Japanese learners of English. Treatment group performance was compared to that of a control group on the pre-tests, post-tests, and follow-up tests: a planned discourse completion test, a planned role-play test, an unplanned listening judgment test, and a planned acceptability judgment test. The results of data analysis indicate that the two treatment groups performed better than the control group, and that the explicit reactive feedback was not always indispensable in the consciousness-raising task.