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Agreeing to disagree: The effect of task repetition on Colombian EFL students’ pragmatic competence

Title:

Agreeing to disagree: The effect of task repetition on Colombian EFL students’ pragmatic competence

García Fuentes, César Augusto (2015) Agreeing to disagree: The effect of task repetition on Colombian EFL students’ pragmatic competence. Masters thesis, Concordia University.

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Abstract

Research has confirmed the benefits of pragmatics instruction for a variety of speech acts such as suggestions and requests (Gu, 2011; Halenko & Jones, 2011; Martinez-Flor & Alcón-Soler, 2007; Takimoto, 2012); however, less is known about instruction of proper disagreements, which are face threatening acts as they intentionally establish a point of view that runs against the other speaker’s opinion. Additionally, little is known about the effects of instructional tasks used as part of pragmatics instruction. The current study explored the effect of explicit instruction with task repetition on Colombian EFL learners’ (N = 40) use of politeness strategies when disagreeing. Over a two-week period, the control class (n = 11) received explicit instruction only, while the task repetition classes received both instruction and practice tasks. Whereas the procedural repetition class (n = 15), repeated the same task procedure four times with new content, the content repetition group (n = 14) repeated the same content with different task procedures (Patanasorn, 2010). The participants carried out a pretest, immediate and delayed posttests which consisted of discourse completion tasks (DCT) and role-playing. Results from Friedman tests, non-parametric repeated-measure ANOVAs, indicated that the procedural repetition group significantly performed better in the posttests in both DCTs and role-playing. Meanwhile, the content group and the control group did not show significant differences. Results are discussed in terms of implications for pragmatics research and pedagogical implications in EFL settings.

Divisions:Concordia University > Faculty of Arts and Science > Education
Item Type:Thesis (Masters)
Authors:García Fuentes, César Augusto
Institution:Concordia University
Degree Name:M.A.
Program:Applied Linguistics
Date:15 March 2015
Keywords:Pragmatic competence, task repetition, disagreements
ID Code:979841
Deposited By: CESAR AUGUSTO GARCIA FUENTES
Deposited On:09 Jul 2015 13:45
Last Modified:18 Jan 2018 17:50

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