An attempt to raise Japanese EFL learners’ pragmatic awareness using online discourse completion tasks

Abstract

This practical paper discusses the effect of explicit instruction to raise Japanese efl learners’ pragmatic awareness using online discourse completion tasks. The five-part tasks developed by the authors use American tv drama scenes depicting particular speech acts and include explicit instruction in these speech acts. 46 Japanese efl college students enrolled in an English grammar course received explicit instruction and completed the tasks in five consecutive classes using an e-portfolio system that allows them to share their learning outcomes. Their pragmatic awareness was measured by pre- and post-instruction pragmatic judgment tasks. The results showed that the participants’ pragmatic awareness developed significantly after the instruction. The learners evaluated the awareness raising activities as effective; however, their learning outcomes reveal challenges in developing grammatical and lexical knowledge together with pragmatic knowledge. This paper will discuss the effects of the instruction, the participants’ perception of the usefulness of the tasks, and their actual responses to the tasks to further identify the challenges that Japanese efl learners should meet to develop well-balanced communicative competence in the language.