Efficacy of Teaching Pragmatic Aspects on Improving Undergraduate English Major Students' Conversational Skills and Expressive Abilities in Authentic Situations

Abstract

This study aimed to highlight the effectiveness of teaching pragmatic aspects on the undergraduate students' conversational skills and expressive abilities in authentic situations at Al-a-lBayt University in Jordan. The participants consisted of 61 undergraduate English major students randomly chosen from two sections (182 students) registered for  Speaking Skills Course during the second semester in 2015/2016. They were divided into two groups; the experimental (31) was taught pragmatic speech acts and dialogues that allowed them to speak pragmatically in an authentic and educational context, while the control (30) was taught using the speaking skills textbook. A pre-post test was administered for both groups. Scores were tabulated for statistical analysis. A quantitative approach was applied to determine if teaching pragmatic aspects has any effect on the participants' communicative competence. The study also attempted to find out which pragmatic aspects of language functions (apologizing, requesting, inquiring, inviting, thanking or refusal) the participants developed the most. Besides, it tried to observe which expressive ability the participants improved the most (introducing, describing, imagining, commenting, criticizing or arguing) due to the effect of teaching pragmatic aspects. The findings revealed that there were significant differences between the mean scores of the experimental group and the control group in favor of the experimental group due to doing activities on pragmatic aspects. The results also indicated that teaching dialogues offered opportunities in the acquisition of pragmatic competence in different situations which has positive effect on the participants' expressive abilities. Accordingly, a set of recommendations were provided for those who are interested in helping students develop their intercultural communicative competence at all levels.

Keywords: pragmatic aspects, conversational skills, expressive abilities, authentic situations, intercultural communicative competence.