Pragmatic competence is considered one of the principal elements of second/foreign language learners' communicative language ability. However, in comparison to other components of communicative language competence, learners' pragmatic competence is far less researched. Of many components of this ability, ample research studies have been centered…

Adopting a direct approach to contrive sufficient focus on form (accuracy) would facilitate interlanguage development without decreasing the naturalness of communication that communicative tasks can generate. This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of a proposed task-based instruction programme within a cognitive approach in fostering…

Teaching L2 pragmatics is often not covered in teacher education programs, and is an excellent area for continuing professional development. As part of a larger project on instructed interlanguage pragmatics, volunteer instructor participants were asked to teach a series of lessons on pragmatics to university-aged (19-23) ESL learners in ESL and…

In this article we present the results of a qualitative research study on the pedagogical factors that influence English teaching in four public schools of Medellín, Colombia. Twelve teachers were interviewed regarding three linguistic principles: communicative competence, native language effect, and interlanguage. The data analysis led to the…

This study investigates the effects of classroom interactions between a) students and students and b) students and teachers on the learning of English passivization by L1 Chinese adult learners of English as a foreign language during the language input and output treatments. In phase 1, both groups were asked to read and underline the input…

The aim of this study is to investigate the act of apologizing with subjects from two different levels of English proficiency to find out whether there are similarities and differences between these groups and whether they approach native speaker apology norms. 20 subjects in intermediate level, 20 subjects in advanced level and 5 native speakers…