Investigating Teachers’ Perceptions and Instructional Practices Regarding Form- Focused Instruction of Speech Acts in Iranian EFL Context

Abstract

This study aims to investigate Iranian EFL teachers’ perception and instructional practices towards form-focused instruction of speech acts specifically request, apology and invitation. To this aim, through sequential explanatory mixed methods design the researchers used criterion sampling and 30 English language instructors in Islamic Azad University (IAU) of North Tehran Branch served as the subjects. To attain general perception and teaching practices of instructors towards form-focused instruction of speech acts, they were asked to answer a pragmatic questionnaire. Besides, in order to achieve an enhanced awareness concerning instructors’ perceptions and practices regarding form-focused instruction a semi-structured interview was conducted for the same 30 English language instructors. Finally, six classes were observed by the investigators through convenience sampling. Likewise, through the triangulation approach, the investigators studied and merged the required data. The statistical results of the quantitative and qualitative data analysis revealed that form-focused instruction of speech acts is mostly focused by the Iranian EFL instructors. Most of them agreed with the use of explicit strategies for instructing request, apology and invitation speech acts rather than implicit strategies. Additionally, the explicit strategies were used by most of the instructors in EFL classes. The results of the current study are beneficial for syllabus directors and scholastic administrators to have a different outlook towards the curricula and textbooks' content, particularly for EFL settings.