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in pragmatic competence:
On the pre-test, it was clear that the experimental group students had
problems with the use of appropriate expressions in each situation. Most of them
used some memorized expressions without considering the situation or rolerelationships.
They were almost unaware of polite strategies to be used in each
situation. They mentioned also that the use of polite expressions was very difficult
for them.
On the posttest, students became able to fulfill a wide range of functions to
satisfy the goal of the task. They attempted to consider register and demonstrate
appropriate response. This may be due to the fact that pragmatic competence was
focused on throughout the whole task cycle. Firstly, the awareness-raising phase helped students indirectly improve their
functional ability as it sensitized them to context-based variation in language use.
It helped learners become familiar with the range of pragmatic devices in the
target language as well. It also encouraged them to become sensitive to purpose,
context and register in which language is used and how this can affect the use of
certain structures. In particular, it helped students notice (a) how language forms
are used to express different functions, (b) how, in a certain given situations, some
forms are considered appropriate while others are not according to the setting,
relationships between speakers and the topic, (c) how native speakers vary their
language to sound more appropriate and (d) how they show politeness and respect
to people who have higher status.
Secondly, teaching was considered a reflective phase which included
discussion about pragmatic features. At this phase, students learned more about how to use appropriate forms to achieve certain purposes and how to vary language
according to the situation, the participants and so on. This was done both explicitly
and indirectly through activities focusing on description, explanation, and discussion of different functions.
During planning, students got used to think not only of vocabulary or
grammar they needed in the task but of how to use appropriate expressions to satisfy their purpose on the one hand, and cope with the scoial context on the other hand. During the task stage, students were engaged in an experimental phase as
they took part in real role-play conversations including the target pragmatic features. Given adequate time to do the task, students were triggerd to plan on line to function appropriately and consider the situation characteristics.
At the post task stage, students engaged in an introspective phase as they
thought of their own and their peers' conversations and identified gaps resulting
mostly from pragmatic transfer from L1. This necessiated a comparison of the
expressions used in English and those used in Arabic. Through task repetetion also,
students could depend on themselves as far as possible to evaluate their use of
appropriate phrases and utterances to express task functions. They could decide
whether the utterances used were appropriate or not in the context in which they occurred and hence worked out a range of appropriate alternatives. Self and peer
evaluation was very effective as students competed together to look for mistakes and comment on their peers' performance.
Furthermore, activities presented after the students finished the task were
crucial in that domain. At this phase, students’ common errors in using appropriate
expressions were discussed and remedied through various activities.
With respect to different genres, students were engaged in different
communicative tasks representing various contexts and thus adopting a variety of
different social roles and speech events. Such tasks provided opportunities to
practice a wide range of pragmatic and sociolinguistic skills. For each social
situation, students were taught the specific characteristics or conversation routines
that constitute it. To perform the act of apologizing, for instance, they learned
appropriate expressions they can use to acknowledge responsibility, offer repair and give an explanation or excuse in a proper way. D. Specific factors that might have helped experimental group
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