The Effects of Strategy Instruction on Chinese EFL Learners’ Pragmatic Awareness and Pragmatic Motivation

Abstract

This study examines the effects of strategy instruction on Chinese EFL learners’ pragmatic awareness and pragmatic motivation. It further explores whether the increase in learners’ pragmatic awareness (if any) is correlated with a corresponding increase in their pragmatic motivation (if any). A total of 188 university students participated in this study. Before and after instruction, they completed a motivation questionnaire to measure their pragmatic motivation, and a perception questionnaire to assess their perceptions of email politeness in student-faculty communication. They were also asked to comment on the tested emails and justify their evaluations by referring to specific linguistic features from the email messages. The 12-hour strategy instruction, conducted over one month, introduced learners to various cognitive and metacognitive pragmatics learning strategies. Results revealed that strategy instruction significantly enhanced both learners’ pragmatic awareness and pragmatic motivation. Qualitative results further indicated that the instruction enabled learners to draw on a broader range of sociopragmatic factors to scaffold their pragmatic evaluations. However, no correlation was found between the increases in pragmatic awareness and pragmatic motivation, suggesting that motivation did not directly contribute to the development of pragmatic awareness.