Iranian Journal of Applied Linguistics (IJAL), Vol.18, No.2, September 2015, 109-140 *Corresponding author: Department of English Language and Literature, Allameh Tabataba‟i University, Sa'adat Abad, Tehran,Iran. Email address: sm.baqerzadeh@iau-naragh.ac.ir The Effect of Explicit and Implicit Instruction through Plays on EFL Learners’ Speech Act Production Mohammad Khatib Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics, Allameh Tabataba’i University, Tehran, Iran Mohammad Baqerzadeh Hosseini* Ph.D. Candidate of Applied Linguistics, Allameh Tabataba’i University, Tehran, Iran Received 6 February 2015; revised 28 July 2015; accepted 5 August 2015 Abstract Despite the general findings that address the positive contribution of teaching pragmatic features to interlanguage pragmatic development, the question as to the most effective method is far from being resolved. Moreover, the potential of literature as a means of introducing learners into the social practices and norms of the target culture, which underlie the pragmatic competence, has not been fully explored. This study, then, set out to investigate the possible contribution of plays, as a medium of instruction, to the pragmatic development through either explicit or implicit mode of instruction. To this end, 80 English-major university students were assigned to four experimental groups: two literary and two nonliterary groups. One of the literary groups (Implicit Play) received typographically enhanced plays containing the speech acts of apology, request, and refusal and the other (Explicit Play) received the same treatment in addition to the metapragmatic instruction on the acts. The medium of instruction for the nonliterary groups were dialogs containing the given functions; they were also given either enhanced input (Implicit Dialog) or input plus metapragmatic information (Explicit Dialog). Analyses of the four groups‟ performance on a Written Discourse Completion Test (WDCT) before and after the treatment did not show any advantage for the literary [ DOI: 10.18869/acadpub.ijal.18.2.109 ] [ Downloaded from ijal.khu.ac.ir on 2023-02-12 ] 1 / 32