Feasibility of Using a Task-Oriented Focus on Form Instructional Model for the Study of Request Speech Act

Instructed Interlanguage Pragmatics (IILP) is a subset of Interlanguage Pragmatics (ILP) that addresses how classroom language learners acquire pragmatic features in a second language (L2). For this study, 90 university students participated in an experimental study that incorporated a pretest, posttest, and delayed posttest observation to identify the effect of instruction on the acquisition of request speech act. For this purpose, a random sampling was used for the selection and assignment of participants into the experimental (EG) and comparison groups (CG). The two EGs received two types of form-focused instruction (FFI), namely task-oriented focus on form and focus on forms to help identify whether the type of instruction was a significant factor in the acquisition of the selected L2 pragmatic feature. The results of the study indicated an overall increase in the ability of the learners in the instructed group (IG) to produce request speech act. The study also indicated that the effect of instruction was not transient as the observed improvement was evident in the delayed posttest observation. The effect of instruction was also evident in the type of strategies that IGs used to make request proper after receiving the experimental treatments.