Pragmatic Development of Chinese EFL Learners—A Study on FL Suggestions

Abstract

While the number of studies on the pragmatic development of nonnative English speakers has been increasing, surprisingly little research has been conducted on the development of the ability of foreign language learners to perform the suggestion speech act, with even less taking Chinese EFL learners as the target group. The present study examines the development of Chinese EFL learners' pragmatic competence by investigating their performance of the suggestion speech act over time. Three sub-corpora representing three different periods of Chinese EFL learners' performance were selected from the SECCL (Spoken English Corpus of Chinese Learners) to discover the changes in the use of linguistic formulae as well as suggestion strategies by Chinese EFL learners. Their performance was then compared with that of native English speakers to find out whether there was evidence of improvement across the years. The results show that (1) changes were taking place in the use of linguistic formulae and suggestion strategies by Chinese learners from 1997 to 2003, with greater changes taking place from the year 2000 to 2003, and (2) there was evidence of increasing similarity between Chinese learners' performance of the suggestion speech acts and that of native English speakers. It can thus be concluded that Chinese learners' pragmatic ability in English improved to some extent over the years of the study.

Students’ Perceptions of Project-Based Learning as a Strategy to Learn About Cultures

“…Research studies have consistently demonstrated that the integration of culture within Project-based Learning (PjBL) helps induce positive attitudes towards the cultures under investigation and the pedagogical approach employed. For instance, Gu (2002) observed among Chinese participants a significant enthusiasm towards engaging in authentic and purposeful cross-cultural communication following the completion of their PjBL projects. Similarly, findings from an exploratory study conducted by Kwe and Kean (2014) suggested that Project-Based Instruction (PBI) serves as a more viable and effective instructional alternative for teaching culture, benefiting both students and their foreign language instructors.…”

“…These new roles generate a spectrum of attitudes ranging from acceptance to resistance. For example, Gu (2002) observed a high level of discomfort, particularly at the beginning of the project, to the extent that six students quit the class after the first week claiming it was too hard for them (p. 206). However, those who stayed expressed appreciation for the cooperative and collaborative nature of the learning strategy.…”

“…Incorporating the project-based learning strategy to learn about cultures in the context of foreign language education has been reported to induce positive attitudes towards the cultures being explored (e.g., Bouchouk, 2017;Bulach, 2003;Gu, 2002;Kim, 2019;Kwe & Kean, 2014;Hsu, 2014). While the existing research studies concluded that learners' attitudes were favorable for PjBL, none of the studies known to this researcher has explored students' perceptions of PjBL when combined with the cultural framework of the 3Ps (products, practices, and perspectives) to learn about cultures.…”

Effects of deductive and explicit‐inductive instruction on tertiary‐level Chinese learners’ use of English subjunctive as a pragmatic mitigator

“…Unlike previous research that has primarily focused on the deductive/inductive instruction on speech act performance (Glaser, 2016;Qi & Lai, 2017;Rose & Ng, 2001;Takimoto, 2008;Trosborg & Shaw, 1998), mitigation (Codina-Espurz, 2008;Yu, 2009), and conversational implicature (Kubota, 1995), the present quasi-experimental study distinguishes itself by comparing the immediate and long-term effects of deductive instruction and explicit-inductive instruction on the use of the English subjunctive as a pragmatic mitigator among 61 tertiary-level Chinese EFL learners. The aim of the study is not only to expand the instructional targets within the realm of L2 pragmatics but also to provide further empirical support for the relative advantages of both deductive and explicit-inductive instruction.…”

The effects of project-based writing instruction on writing ability and critical thinking skills of Thai EFL undergraduate students

“…Many educators such as Gu (2002) and Stoller (2006) report the benefits of projectbased learning as follows:…”