DSpace at VNU: Teaching email requests in the academic context: a focus on the role of corrective feedback

This article was downloaded by: [ECU Libraries] On: 24 April 2015, At: 21:54 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Language Awareness Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rmla20 Teaching email requests in the academic context: a focus on the role of corrective feedback a b c Thi Thuy Minh Nguyen , Thi Thanh Ha Do , Anh Tuan Nguyen & b Thi Thanh Thuy Pham a English Language and Literature Academic Group, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Nanyang Walk, 637616, Singapore b Click for updates Faculty of Linguistics and Cultures of English-Speaking Countries, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Pham Van Dong, Cau Giay, Hanoi, Vietnam c Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Pham Van Dong, Cau Giay, Hanoi, Vietnam Published online: 17 Apr 2015 To cite this article: Thi Thuy Minh Nguyen, Thi Thanh Ha Do, Anh Tuan Nguyen & Thi Thanh Thuy Pham (2015): Teaching email requests in the academic context: a focus on the role of corrective feedback, Language Awareness, DOI: 10.1080/09658416.2015.1010543 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09658416.2015.1010543 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis The accuracy of the Content should 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Thuy Minh Nguyena*, Thi Thanh Ha Dob, Anh Tuan Nguyenc and Thi Thanh Thuy Phamb a English Language and Literature Academic Group, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Nanyang Walk, 637616, Singapore; bFaculty of Linguistics and Cultures of English-Speaking Countries, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Pham Van Dong, Cau Giay, Hanoi, Vietnam; cFaculty of English Language Teacher Education, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Pham Van Dong, Cau Giay, Hanoi, Vietnam (Received 25 July 2014; accepted 19 January 2015) As email requests from students to professors have become increasingly common in academic settings, research has also shown second-language (L2) students’ unfamiliarity with email etiquette in L2 has adversely affected their communication with their professors The present study examines whether giving corrective feedback on students’ performance during pragmatics-focused activities leads to their subsequent improvement in producing and recognising pragmatically appropriate email requests in the above context Two intact classes of Vietnamese EFL (English as a foreign language) intermediate level students were randomly assigned to either direct-feedback condition or meta-pragmatic feedback condition, but received similar explicit pragmatic preinstruction Another intact class was randomly selected as a control group Students’ pragmatic performance was measured by means of a pre-test, an immediate and delayed post-tests, which consisted of a production and a recognition task The results indicate that the treatment groups performed significantly better than the control group in the production task, but there was no significant difference between the two treatment groups On the other hand, students who received meta-pragmatic feedback significantly outperformed those receiving direct feedback and the control group in the recognition task These findings indicate the varying effects of the two types of written corrective feedback on different areas of L2 pragmatic competence Keywords: meta-pragmatic feedback; direct feedback; meta-pragmatic instruction; email requests; pragmatic awareness; pragmatic production Introduction Previous studies of intercultural and interlanguage pragmatics have repeatedly indicated that learning to comprehend and produce speech acts in a second language (L2) can be a challenge for many L2 learners, including those with relatively advanced grammatical competence (Nguyen, 2008, 2013) Difficulties arising from cross-cultural variations that exist between learners’ first language (L1) and L2 often cause miscommunication (Thomas, 1983), and, in many cases, ‘carry serious social complication’ (Blum-Kulka & Olshtain, 1986, p 169) Prior interlanguage pragmatics research has also shown that although some aspects of L2 pragmatics can be acquired naturally (Taguchi, 2007, 2008), many other aspects may not be noticeable enough for learners to acquire without the *Corresponding author Email: thithuyminh.nguyen@nie.edu.sg, thuyminhnguyen@gmail.com Ó 2015 Taylor & Francis Downloaded by [ECU Libraries] at 21:55 24 April 2015 T.T.M Nguyen et al benefits of pedagogical interventions (see Kasper & Rose, 2002; Rose & Kasper, 2001) It has been therefore argued that pragmatic instruction is necessary to raise learners’ pragmatic consciousness, particularly in foreign-language contexts where learners generally have limited opportunities for pragmatic input, and classrooms therefore serve as the only regular source of target language (TL) pragmatic knowledge (see Rose, 2005) Since it is understood that the necessary condition for pragmatic learning to happen is attention to pragmatic information to be acquired, a key issue is how to best facilitate this attention through classroom instruction Previous studies examining the different effects on learning of more than one type of instruction have generally indicated that explicit teaching (i.e instruction including the provision of meta-pragmatic information) can better draw learners’ attention to target pragmatic features than implicit teaching (i.e instruction withholding meta-pragmatic information) (for a full review, see Jeon & Kaya, 2006; Kasper & Rose, 2002; Rose, 2005) Some recent attempts have also been made to investigate how a range of corrective feedback (CF) techniques may be used during classroom instruction to trigger learners’ noticing of formÀfunctionÀcontext mappings in the TL (e.g Koike & Pearson, 2005; Nguyen, Pham, & Pham, 2012) Along this line of research, the present study looks into the effectiveness of two written feedback options when combined with explicit meta-pragmatic instruction to improve a group of Vietnamese EFL learners’ production and recognition of pragmatically appropriate email requests addressing authority figures in the academic context These feedback options include direct feedback (i.e involving the provision of the correct answer, but without explaining the answer) and meta-pragmatic feedback (i.e involving the provision of meta-pragmatic comments on the nature of the error, but without providing the correct answer) The learners constitute a cohort of TEFL (teaching English as a foreign language) student-teachers who have had quite limited exposure to English use outside formal instruction time In relation to our focus on pragmatic instruction, one thing to note is that traditionally the goal of pragmatic competence was seen by many teachers and researchers in terms of approximation to NS competence, and therefore variations from NS norms were often treated as instances of deficiency (for a further discussion on this point, see McKay, 2002) However, this view has been increasingly challenged in recent scholarship as it has been observed that not every L2 learner may be willing to adopt NS pragmatic norms, particularly when these norms are found to clash with the learner’s own system of cultural beliefs and values (Ishihara, 2010) In this respect, the learning of pragmatics may be different from that of grammar and lexis because deviations from NS usage may not be caused simply by L1 interference but also by learners’ exercise of agency that is guided by their cultural identity and subjectivity (Taguchi, 2011) In light of this discussion, suggestions have been made that instead of an insistence on NS approximation, pragmatic competence should include the notion of learners’ awareness of differences between their own pragmatic norms and those of their interlocutors and the capacity to negotiate such differences (Basturkmen & Nguyen, in press) This awareness and capacity are of particular importance to successful intercultural communication in the era of English as an international lingua franca In this context, language learners are assumed to encounter not only the NS but rather a diversity of cultural communities, resulting in various pragmatic norms that need to be constantly negotiated among speakers (House, 2010; McKay, 2003) In order for learners to develop intercultural awareness and the capacity to negotiate subjectivity as said above, it has been suggested that pragmatic instruction should provide a range of realistic pragmatic options in the TL for learners to critically evaluate the extent to which they would feel comfortable accommodating to these norms as well as to weigh the possible benefits and risks of their pragmatic decisions (Taguchi, 2011) Language Awareness Concurring with this view, we argue that, as future English teachers, the participants in our study need to be equipped with TL pragmatic knowledge so that they can assist their learners in making informed choices that both fit their systems of values and not break down communication Downloaded by [ECU Libraries] at 21:55 24 April 2015 Rationales for the study There are two main rationales for the present study First, the last two decades have witnessed a move in the medium of studentÀfaculty interaction, from comprising mainly conventional face-to-face office hour consultations to including increasingly more ‘cyber-consultations’, e.g through email correspondence (Biesenbach-Lucas, 2006) Since email communication ‘represents a similar speech event, yet occurring within a different [written] medium’ (Biesenbach-Lucas, 2006, p 81), it is often seen as a hybrid form of communication (i.e an interface between spoken and written language) that may span great stylistic variations (Harvey, 2013) Hence, as email communication has become a more regular practice in academic contexts, research has also shown that the diversified registers afforded by this medium have presented many students with considerable uncertainties regarding making stylistic and pragmatic choices appropriate for the hierarchical studentÀprofessor relationship (Biesenbach-Lucas, 2006, 2007; Chen, 2006; Economidou-Kogetsidis, 2011) For L2 learners, the above challenge may even be accentuated due to their limited linguistic proficiency, lack of pragmatic sophistication as well as incognisance of how discourse shapes and reflects power relations in the TL culture (Chen, 2006) As pointed out in previous research, discourse addressing interlocutors with greater authority is expected to demonstrate high formality, politeness, and conformity with conventional norms (Biesenbach-Lucas, 2007) In academic settings, this may be translated into interaction that is pitched at an appropriate level of directness or that is adequately mitigated when request speech acts are involved (Biesenbach-Lucas, 2006; Economidou-Kogetsidis, 2011) Nonetheless, email requests written by L2 students are often described by their professors as status-incongruent, i.e either inappropriately straightforward or overly casual, thus capable of pragmatic failure and risking to be turned down (Akikawa & Ishihara, 2010; Biesenbach-Lucas, 2006, 2007; Chen, 2001, 2006;Economidou-Kogetsidis, 2011; Hendriks, 2010) While it has become clear that L2 learners need to be made aware of language forms and socio-cultural norms required for successful email writing in the above context, there has been surprisingly little research devoted to examining the effectiveness of such an intervention to inform classroom pedagogy (Ford, 2006) This is in stark contrast to the substantial body of literature that has documented the effectiveness of teaching L2 oral requests (e.g Alcon-Soler, 2005, 2007; Li, 2011; Martınez-Flor, 2008; Safont, 2003; Salazar, 2003; Takahashi, 2001, 2005, Takimoto, 2006, 2009) The present study is therefore conducted to address this gap The present study is also of particular relevance to the population of L2 learners under inquiry As reported in prior research, since politeness strategies in requesting operate differently in Vietnamese and English (see Nguyen & Ho, 2013, 2014), this cross-cultural variation may cause considerable difficulty to Vietnamese learners learning to make requests in English In particular, because requests are understood to pose a threat to the hearer’s negative face, i.e the freedom of action and freedom from imposition (Brown & Levinson, 1987), a value that is strongly emphasised in the Anglo-Saxon tradition (Wierzbicka, 1985), it is important that requests in English are realised by means of conventional indirectness and distancing elements (such as modal structures and hedging devices) to give the hearer optionality (Barron, 2008; Blum-Kulka & Olshtain, 1984; Ogiermann 2009; Downloaded by [ECU Libraries] at 21:55 24 April 2015 T.T.M Nguyen et al Searle, 1975; Woodfield, 2008) In contrast, due to a lack of emphasis on negative politeness but rather a focus on values such as involvement, bond, and interdependence in the Vietnamese culture, Vietnamese speakers have been found to prefer a high level of directness in making requests and to rely more considerably on supportive elements with politeness effects such as address terms, honorifics, and alignment markers for maintaining social harmony (Nguyen & Ho, 2013; Vu, 1997, 1999) Arguably, Vietnamese EFL learners hence need to be made aware of the L1ÀL2 difference so that they can function effectively in real-world communication The second rationale for the study lies in that, despite the pivotal role of giving CF in language pedagogy, relatively few studies have been devoted to investigating how feedback may be used in complementary to instruction to promote various areas of L2 pragmatic development As a result, whereas the benefit of explicit meta-pragmatic instruction has been documented in previous research (e.g see Jeon & Kaya, 2006; Rose, 2005; Takahashi, 2010; Takimoto, 2012), it remains little known how its combination with the different types of feedback impacts L2 pragmatics learning As pointed out by Lyster, Saito, and Sato (2013), feedback and instruction may be best seen as complementary in pedagogical terms Thus, it can be argued that the question of whether feedback provided in conjunction with instruction enhances the effectiveness of learning can be a worthwhile investigation Also crucial is the question of which type of feedback is more effective while at the same time meaningful to learners and manageable to teachers (see Hartshorn et al., 2010) In this respect, the two written feedback options under inquiry in our study serve to provide learners with different types of linguistic evidence While meta-pragmatic feedback provides negative evidence (i.e information about what is not possible in the TL), direct feedback provides both positive (i.e exemplars of TL forms) and negative evidence (because due to its explicitness, learners can perceive direct feedback as an indication of the presence of an error) (see Lyster et al., 2013) Thus, it can be hypothesised that these two types of feedback engage learners in different levels of cognitive processing, thus possibly leading to different learning outcomes (see Schmidt, 2010; Sheen, 2007) Pedagogically, some previous studies have indicated students’ preference for feedback types that afford them opportunities for guided learning and problem solving (i.e indirect feedback such as metalinguistic feedback) rather than feedback that simply supplies them with corrections (i.e direct feedback) (see Ferris, 2010) However, taking time to write down meta-pragmatic explanation may be burdensome for the teacher who may already have several teaching duties at hand to complete It would therefore be useful to understand how comparatively the two types of written feedback outlined above work in tandem with instruction in order to assist teachers in making informed classroom decisions that both fit their classroom needs and their own timetable This line of inquiry would also fit well with the current call for ‘CF research invested with educational value’ discussed in the review article of research on the role of CF in second-language classroom by Lyster et al (2013, p 2) Literature review As noted above, a general agreement has been reached in previous L2 pragmatics research that explicit instruction (i.e typically including teacher-fronted instruction on pragmalinguistic forms or/and sociopragmatic rules of the TL community) is more effective than implicit instruction (i.e typically including learners’ induction and self-discovery of target features from given input) in improving learners’ use and comprehension of a range of pragmatic features such as discourse markers, pragmatic routines, speech acts, and conversational implicatures (for a review, see Jeon & Kaya, 2006; Rose, 2005; Downloaded by [ECU Libraries] at 21:55 24 April 2015 Language Awareness Takahashi, 2010) Some recent studies have also indicated that explicit instruction that includes some sort of input enhancement (that is, in the sense of Sharwood Smith [1993], externally induced techniques used to increase the salience of target features such as consciousness-raising, input processing, and CF) can make target pragmatic features more salient for learners to notice (e.g Martınez-Flor, 2008; Rose & Ng, 2001; Takahashi, 2001; Takimoto, 2006, 2009) For example, Martınez-Flor (2008) employed an inductiveÀdeductive teaching approach to teaching request modifiers The participants were engaged in guided discovery activities and classroom discussion as well as receiving teacher explanation on requests Results of the study show an improvement in learners’ production of both external and internal request modifiers Similarly, Takimoto (2006) has demonstrated that processing instruction engaging L2 learners in structured input tasks (i.e tasks that require learners to process and understand pragmatic formÀmeaning connections) proves effective in raising learners’ awareness of English request modifiers In addition to the above studies, a limited but growing body of L2 pragmatics research has also pointed to the facilitative role of CF in promoting L2 pragmatics acquisition Koike and Pearson (2005) studied the comparative effects of explicit and implicit CF on acquiring suggestions and suggestion responses in L2 Spanish in four different treatment conditions: (1) explicit pre-instruction plus explicit feedback, (2) explicit preinstruction plus implicit feedback, (3) implicit pre-instruction plus explicit feedback, and (4) implicit pre-instruction plus implicit feedback Explicit instruction included the provision of meta-pragmatic information, whereas implicit instruction comprised simple engagement with pragmatic input via consciousness-raising exercises Explicit feedback involved the provision of correct answers, accompanied by meta-pragmatic explanation, and implicit feedback took the form of clarification requests (questions seeking clarification of meaning, e.g ‘What was that?’) Results of the immediate post-test indicated that the learners in the first treatment condition significantly outperformed their peers in the other treatment conditions and the control group with respect to the recognition task The students in the fourth condition, on the other hand, fared significantly better in the production task Such gains, however, were no longer evident when measured by the delayed post-test, although students in the first condition were found to score slightly better than other peers in the recognition task while students in the second condition were slightly better in the production task Taken together, these findings suggest the beneficial effects of CF, either explicit or implicit, on L2 pragmatic development In another study, Nipaspong and Chinokul (2010) compared the relative effects of explicit correction versus prompts (a form of implicit correction) on the recognition of appropriate refusals by a group of Thai EFL learners Explicit correction involved the provision of correct answers plus metalinguistic or sociopragmatic information (e.g ‘You should say “I had booked it” It’s the past perfect tense’) while prompts comprised elicitation (e.g ‘How we say that in plural?’), repetition (e.g ‘I were told?’), and metalinguistic cues (e.g ‘Do we say “scaring” in English?’) The two treatment groups were exposed to the same instructional materials and learning activities and compared against a control group who received delayed explicit correction to provide baseline data Findings from the post-test indicated that the learners who received prompts developed greater awareness of the target pragmatic features than those in both the explicit and control groups These findings are consistent with those of L2 grammar studies that show the superiority of output-prompting feedback, i.e feedback that requires students to produce language, over feedback that does not require such production (Lyster & Saito, 2010) On the other hand, there have also been studies that report no effect for CF Takimoto, in the above-mentioned 2006 study, compared the efficacy of explicit feedback in Downloaded by [ECU Libraries] at 21:55 24 April 2015 T.T.M Nguyen et al conjunction with instruction versus instruction alone for teaching L2 English request modifiers One treatment group was given explicit feedback (e.g ‘No, the appropriateness score here should be four or five because the request is very polite with the use of lexical/ phrasal downgraders’) alongside structured input instruction, but the other treatment group received only the above instruction While both of the treatment groups significantly outperformed the control group, neither of the two treatment groups did better than the other The results led the researcher to conclude that opportunities for in-depth processing of input may be more important for L2 pragmatic learning than CF alone Overall, although a topic of both theoretical and practical interest, the role of CF is under-researched in the field of L2 pragmatics This is in contrast to the substantial literature on the effects of CF in L2 grammar acquisition (see a review in Li, 2010; Lyster & Saito, 2010; Lyster et al., 2013; Russell & Spada, 2006; Sheen, 2010) The results of the few available studies are also conflicting as to whether CF is necessary for fostering L2 pragmatic knowledge, and, if yes, which type works more effectively Further research is required for a better understanding of the role of a range of CF in L2 pragmatic acquisition (Lyster et al., 2013) Methodology Research questions The present study is conducted with a view to contributing additional insight into the role of CF in the teaching and learning of L2 pragmatics, particularly regarding the underresearched speech act of writing email requests to professors in the academic context as discussed above We aim to explore the efficacy of each of two CF types under inquiry (i.e direct and meta-pragmatic feedback) as well as their comparative effects on both pragmatic production and awareness that constitute important aspects of L2 pragmatic competence (Basturkmen and Nguyen, in press) In particular, we seek to answer the following research questions: (1) What are the short- and long-term effects of each type of feedback, provided in conjunction with explicit meta-pragmatic instruction, on L2 learners’ production of pragmatically appropriate email requests? (2) What are the short- and long-term effects of each of the two aforementioned treatments on L2 learners’ recognition of pragmatically appropriate email requests? (3) Which type of treatment produces more effects À both in short and longer termsÀ on learners’ production of pragmatically appropriate email requests? (4) Which type of treatments produces more effects À both in short and longer termsÀ on learners’ recognition of pragmatically appropriate email requests? Participants This study adopted a quasi-experimental, pre-test/post-test design with a control group The study was set in a teachers’ college in a large city in Vietnam Three intermediatelevel EFL writing classes (N D 64) were recruited The participants, all females, aged between 19 and 20, were pre-service EFL teachers studying in the first year of English major at the time of data collection Their lengths of studying English varied between six and nine years None of them had ever resided in an English-speaking country They had had restricted exposure to English in their daily lives and limited opportunities to use Downloaded by [ECU Libraries] at 21:55 24 April 2015 Language Awareness English for intercultural communication outside the classroom For admission into this four-year teacher education programme, the students had to pass a national university entrance exam that tested them on English grammar and reading comprehension (alongside math and literature in Vietnamese) Although the students received heavily grammar-based English instruction prior to university studies, they were trained in all four language skills in the current programme Concerning learners’ prior knowledge of requests in the TL, they had learned a range of basic forms for making requests in grammar and communicative skills classes Nonetheless, they were unfamiliar with the pragmatics of email requests, particularly for addressing authority figures in academic contexts, due to a lack of emphasis on this genre in their syllabus Furthermore, since pragmatic instruction was given less attention than instruction in other aspects of English language learning (such as grammar, lexis, pronunciation, and four language skills), the students may have possessed greater linguistic competence than pragmatic competence The three classes were randomly assigned to one of these conditions: control (N D 25), meta-pragmatic feedback (MF; N D 16) and direct feedback (DF; N D 23) Instructional procedures for the treatment and control groups are described below Given the fact that the study included a gender- and age-biased sample, the results should be generalised with caution Choice of target features Three email request scenarios, including requests for face-to-face appointments with the professor, requests for feedback on work-in-progress sent in an attachment, and requests for extension of a due date for an assignment, were the focus of our study These scenarios were selected because they were found commonly occurring in studentÀprofessor email communication, yet challenging for L2 learners as reported in the literature (see Biesenbach-Lucas, 2007) The scenarios described an unequal power (CP), familiar (¡D) social relationship The imposition level (R) of the requests can be said to vary along two dimensions: across request types and within request types Across request types, requests for an appointment represent the lowest level of imposition Requests for teachers’ feedback are considered more imposing than requests for an appointment, but less imposing than requests for extension of a due date Within request types, requesting an appointment on the same day may cause more inconvenience than requesting an appointment later in the week or next week, but less than requesting cancelling a scheduled appointment and rescheduling it Similarly, asking for teachers’ feedback on the first draft is less inconvenient to teachers than asking for further feedback on the revised draft or on more than one draft Requesting an extension before the due date is also considered more likely to be granted than requesting an extension after the due date (BiesenbachLucas, 2007) Request forms and politeness strategies included in the instruction were based on corpora of pragmatically appropriate email samples collected by Akikawa and Ishihara (2010) and Biesenbach-Lucas (2007) Request forms consisted of both direct strategies (such as ‘I would like to meet you’ or ‘Please let me know what you think/if you have any comments/ suggestions’) and conventionally indirect requests (such as “Could I meet with you’ or ‘Would it be a problem if I turned it (assignment) on ’) Politeness strategies included showing consideration for the teacher (such as “if you are busy’ or ‘if you feel that this notice is too short”), giving the teacher enough time (avoiding phrases that emphasise the temporal aspects of the request such as ‘I need your advice immediately’), putting the teacher in a positive mood (such as ‘I’m enjoying the class T.T.M Nguyen et al immensely” ), explaining reasons for the requests (such as ‘because I was sick last week’) and other syntactic devices with politeness effects such as past tense (I wondered), progressive (I was wondering), embedding (I would appreciate it if ) and interrogative (Would it be possible ?) Apart from the above pragmatic features, discourse features such as the organisational structure of emails were also taught Downloaded by [ECU Libraries] at 21:55 24 April 2015 Instructional procedures Meta-pragmatic pre-instruction was implemented for each of the two treatment groups for a total of approximately six hours over a four-week course The instruction comprised three major components: (1) Consciousness-raising: this component, lasting approximately 45 minutes, aimed to raise students’ awareness of formÀfunctionÀcontext mappings in making requests as well as to give them an opportunity to think about the request from the perspective of both the requester and addressee In particular, the students reflected on their past experience and challenges in writing email requests to professors in the three scenarios described earlier, the professors’ reaction to their emails, and the way in which they would have liked to improve their past emails The students also worked on different samples of the three types of email requests mentioned above Using a set of guiding questions provided to them, the students compared the samples in terms of discourse structure, formality, directness, and politeness, and commented on the possible reaction of the addressee based on their understanding of the P, D, and R factors in each email The samples were constructed based on the empirical data reported in Chen (2001, 2006) and Biesenbach-Lucas (2007) (2) Meta-pragmatic explanation: this component, also lasting approximately 45 minutes, aimed to provide the students with explicit instruction in email discourse as well as language forms for making requests and politeness strategies (see section Choice of target features for examples of the target features) Another aim was to debrief the students on how the P, D, and R variables may influence various linguistic choices in English The students also reflected on the operation of the three contextual variables in their L1, discussed the politeness strategies they would like to adopt, and evaluated the possible consequences of these pragmatic decisions (3) Communicative practice: this component was conducted over three weeks, each focusing on the practice and revision of one type of email requests that was taught to the learners earlier The procedure was the same in each week In the first 30-minute session, the learners were guided to analyse the contextual factors in the given email scenario and then, based on this analysis, produced an email request that was subjected to three subsequent rounds of teachers’ feedback and revision In each round that lasted approximately 20 minutes, the learners received feedback from teachers on their first drafts, revised these drafts accordingly, and resubmitted the revised work for the next review cycle (see the next section for further details) The total approximate amount of time allocated for the practice component was therefore four and a half hours (90 minutes £ weeks) The two treatment groups participated in identical instructional activities (described above) and worked on identical materials, only differing in the type of CF they received on their email samples (see Table 1) As both treatment groups received Language Awareness 13 Table Descriptive statistics (DCT data) Pre-test Downloaded by [ECU Libraries] at 21:55 24 April 2015 Control MF DF N 20 15 18 M 7.5 7.33 8.06 SD 1.15 1.5 1.43 Immediate post-test M 7.45 10.4 10.67 SD 94 1.35 1.02 Delayed post-test M 7.95 10.67 11.0 SD 1.14 1.23 1.23 Results from the MCQ With respect to within-group contrasts, results of the one-way repeated measures ANOVA conducted for each group revealed a significant difference across the three MCQ tests for both of the treatment groups (MF: F(2,12) D 44.36, p < 001, hp2 D 88; DF: F(2,18) D 19.43, p < 001, hp2 D 68) as well as the control group (F(2,18) D 22.31, p < 001, hp2 D 71) The pairwise comparison conducted for each of the three groups showed that, for the DF group, the statistically significant difference was located between the pre-test and the immediate post-test (p < 001) and between the pre-test and the delayed post-test (p < 001) but not between the two post-tests (p > 05) On the other hand, for the MF and control groups, the difference was located between the pre-test and the delayed post-test (p < 001) and between the immediate post-test and the delayed post-test (p < 001) but not between the pre-test and the immediate post-test (p > 05) (see Table and Figure 3) With respect to between-group contrasts, due to a significant difference in the MCQ pre-test scores of the three groups (F(4,89) D 8.88, p < 001), their post-test scores were submitted to one-way ANCOVAs After adjusting their pre-test scores, results revealed a statistically significant difference among the three groups with regard to their delayed post-test scores (F(3,49) D 11.0, p < 001, hp2 D 31), but not regarding their immediate post-test scores (F(2,49) D 1.29, p > 05, hp2 D 05) The pairwise comparison for the 12 11 10 Control MF DF Time Time Time Figure The three groups’ performance on the DCT pre-test and two post-tests 14 T.T.M Nguyen et al Table Descriptive statistics (MCQ data) Pre-test Downloaded by [ECU Libraries] at 21:55 24 April 2015 Control MF DF N 20 13 20 M 7.3 7.53 5.30 SD 1.17 1.05 1.34 Immediate post-test M 7.05 8.15 7.60 SD 2.0 3.18 1.67 Delayed post-test M 10.6 12.9 8.65 SD 1.76 1.70 2.53 three groups’ delayed post-test scores showed that the significant difference was located between the control group with each of the treatment groups (p < 001), and also between the two treatment groups (p < 001) Table and Figure show that the MF group had the highest mean score (M D 12.9), followed by the control group (M D 10.6), whereas the DF group lagged behind both of the former groups (M D 8.65) Taken together, the above analyses illustrate three important results of the MCQ: (1) while the DF group displayed a significant improvement from the pre-test to both of the post-tests, the control group and MF group showed only improvement in the delayed posttest; (2) the three groups did not significantly differ in the immediate post-test; (3) however, the MF group significantly outperformed both of the DF and control groups in the delayed post-test, while the DF group scored lower than both of the MF and control groups Discussion The research questions asked the short and long-term effects of each of the two CF treatments (research questions 1À2) and their comparative effects (research questions 3À4) on the students’ production and recognition of pragmatically appropriate email requests addressing authority figures in the academic context Findings regarding learners’ improvement in each aspect of their pragmatic performance are discussed separately below 14 13 12 11 10 Control MF DF Time Time Time Figure The three groups’ performance on the MCQ pre-test and two post-tests DF (N D 18) MF (N D 15) Group Well below or close to mean (i.e between and out of 15 points; N D 11) Well above mean (i.e out 15 points and above; N D 4) Well below or close to mean (i.e between and out of 15 points; N D 16) Well above mean (i.e 10 out of 15 points and above; N D 2) Pre-test ND3 ND3 ND7 ND1 ND0 ND0 ND1 By 1À2 points ND0 No gain ND0 ND7 ND1 ND6 By 3À4 points Gains in immediate post-tests Table Variations in individual gain scores for pragmatic production ND0 ND2 ND0 ND2 By 5À6 points ND0 ND0 ND0 ND0 No gain Downloaded by [ECU Libraries] at 21:55 24 April 2015 ND2 ND6 ND2 ND1 By 1À2 points ND0 ND8 ND2 ND7 By 3À4 points Gains in delayed post-test ND0 ND2 ND0 ND3 By 5À6 points Language Awareness 15 Downloaded by [ECU Libraries] at 21:55 24 April 2015 16 T.T.M Nguyen et al Effects of the two feedback treatments on learners’ pragmatic production Research questions regarding the efficacy of the two CF treatments for improvement in learners’ pragmatic production can be answered by examining the results of the within-group and between-group comparisons of the learners’ DCT test scores In the first respect, we found that, overall, students in both of the treatment groups significantly increased their DCT scores after the treatment sessions and that this increase was retained when measured again four weeks later On the other hand, the control group, who received explicit instruction of request forms in other social scenarios but did not receive feedback on their pragmatic performance, showed no gains in their post-test scores Regarding the between-group comparison, we found that both of the treatment groups fared significantly better than the control group regarding their post-test results; however, there was no difference between the two treatment groups in this respect The above results are validated further by looking at how individual learners in each group fared in the two post-tests as compared to their performance in the pre-test Among the three groups, the control group displayed much greater variability in their DCT posttest scores than the two treatment groups Out of 20 students in the control group, scored lower in the immediate post-test than in the pre-test, scored the same, and only scored higher When comparing the pre-test and delayed post-test, out of 20 students in the control group scored lower, scored the same, and scored higher These results are in stark contrast with the MF group in which 100% of the students showed gains from the pre-test to each of the post-test The patterning of scores for the DF group was also fairly highly consistent, with 17 out of 18 students showing gains and only one showing decrease in the immediate post-test, but 100% of the students showing gains in the delayed post-test These findings seem to suggest a clear pattern, which is a general gain in pragmatic production scores by the individual learners in both treatment groups, as opposed to the fluctuation from one time to the next for the control group In other words, the findings attest to the general benefits of giving written CF for improving L2 pragmatic production, regardless of whether or not the feedback contains accompanying meta-pragmatic explanation While additional follow-up tests may be required to affirm whether our observation regarding the lack of difference between the two CF treatments is stable over a more extended period of time, a possible explanation for this finding lies in the design of our treatment procedures that allowed the learners to engage in multiple rounds of drafting and revision of their works Arguably, going through this process may have afforded the learners several opportunities to receive corrections of the same problematic features, as well as extensive and repeated practice of the target features (see Hartshorn et al., 2010) As hypothesised by the skill-acquisition theory, such opportunities are necessary for proceduralising declarative knowledge, thus leading to increased automatisation (DeKeyser, 2007) Moreover, the revision component of our interventions can be argued to serve as a means for eliciting students’ modified output, which is believed to aid the acquisition of the target forms by promoting students’ noticing of the mismatch between their own output and the TL form, thereby heightening their metalinguistic awareness of the form (Swain, 1995) It may be due to receiving equal opportunities for output modification that the students in both treatment groups have improved to a more or less similar extent Apart from studying the general tendencies in the results of the treatment groups, we also examined individual variations in order to understand the impact of the treatments on different learners This is due to our observation that, despite an overall improvement over time as a whole group (see above), the learners did not necessarily make similar gains at the individual level In fact, the individual gains in both groups varied greatly (i.e between one and six points in the DF group and between two and six points in the Downloaded by [ECU Libraries] at 21:55 24 April 2015 Language Awareness 17 MF group) Given that some learners scored relatively higher than others in the pre-test, it is questioned whether some prior knowledge of the target features may constitute an advantage Nonetheless, a close look at individual pre- and post-experimental scores showed that this is not necessarily the case Specifically, it was found that in both treatment groups, those learners with a pre-test score well above the mean (M D 7.33 for MF and 8.06 for DF À see Table 2) tended to display smaller pre-to-post-test gains than those who had a pre-test score close to or well below the mean (see Table 5) In other words, in contrary to our assumption, it was those learners who had little prior knowledge of the target features that seemed to benefit more from the treatments than those who had already had some knowledge While these findings may suggest a ceiling effect for the learners with higher pre-existing pragmatic competence (i.e they were unable to transcend their current level), at the same time, the findings also indicate that the treatments worked effectively even for learners with lower pragmatic competence to start with Taken together, the findings raise an important question for future research to explore further; that is how a particular instructional method works for different proficiency groups of learners when learning a particular pragmatic feature (see a further discussion on this point in R€ over, 2009; Taguchi, 2011; Takahashi, 2010) Such studies can benefit from a design that carefully manipulates the above independent variables Finally, we also examined whether the learners made different gains in scenarios with varying degrees of imposition To this end, we compared the effect sizes of pre-to-posttest gains for learners’ performance in each of the three requesting scenarios À ‘appointment’, ‘feedback’, and ‘extension’ The results indicate slightly larger effect sizes in lower imposition scenarios compared to higher imposition scenarios for both learner groups (see Table 6) This suggests that learners made more gains when performing in scenarios that may require less face-work, for example ‘appointment’, as opposed to scenarios that may require more extensive mitigation, for example ‘extension’ Nevertheless, the effect sizes produced in all three scenarios were considered large (see Cohen, 1988), suggesting a large impact of both CF treatments Effects of the two feedback treatments on learners’ pragmatic awareness Research questions regarding the efficacy of the two CF treatments for improvement in learners’ pragmatic awareness can be answered by examining the results of the withingroup and between-group comparisons of the learners’ MCQ test scores First, the results of the within-group contrast demonstrate that, while the DF treatment led to significant gains in students’ pragmatic awareness scores in both of the post-tests (with 65% of the group showing higher scores in the immediate post-test and 75% in the delayed post-test), the gains of the MF group were only evident by the time of the delayed post-test (with only 46% of the group showing gains in the immediate post-test, but 100% in the delayed post-test) The two treatment groups’ results seem to suggest that, while learning based on both positive and negative evidence may produce an immediate effect, learning based on Table Partial eta square effect sizes of pre-to-post-test gains for pragmatic production Increasing imposition ÀÀ ÀÀ! MF DF Appointment Feedback Extension 87 74 72 76 78 61 Downloaded by [ECU Libraries] at 21:55 24 April 2015 18 T.T.M Nguyen et al negative evidence alone may take a longer time to show the effect This is because of the fact that, compared to the DF group which basically received the answer from the teacher’s feedback, the MF group had to work harder for the answer and hence their improvement may have taken some time to manifest (C R€ over, personal communication, November 28, 2014) Nonetheless, these results must be corroborated in future research before a firm conclusion can be generated Interestingly, also, the control group, while displaying no improvement in the immediate post-test (with only 35% of the group scoring higher), significantly increased their pragmatic awareness scores in the delayed post-test (with 95% of the students scoring higher) The control group’s results may have reflected the gradual effect of the explicit pragmatic instruction that they received on heightening their pragmatic awareness Comparing the results of the within-group contrast for the control and DF groups, it seems to indicate that while explicit instruction alone may gradually lead to increased pragmatic awareness, instruction that is further supported by direct feedback may bring about more immediate changes This observation is triangulated by considering the fact that, while 65% of the students in the DF group scored higher in the immediate posttest than in the pre-test, only 35% of those in the control group did so However, does the faster improvement displayed by the DF group as compared to the other two groups necessarily mean greater improvement for this group in the long run? This question will be answered by comparing the three groups’ post-test results below Turning to the between-group comparison, our findings, however, demonstrate a clear advantage of the MF group over both of the DF and control groups in improving learners’ pragmatic awareness scores in the long term The DF group, on the other hand, while showing improvement immediately after the treatment sessions, lagged far behind both of the MF and control groups in the delayed post-test These findings are supported further by the fact that, out of 20 students in the DF group, only 15 (75%) scored higher in the delayed post-test Three students scored the same while two scored lower In contrast, 100% of the students in the MF group showed gains in the delayed post-test and 19 out of 20 (95%) students in the control group did so While we are unable to find an explanation for the superiority of the control group over the DF group (which result we did not expect), the superiority of the MF group over the DF group, nonetheless, can be explained by the different levels of awareness promoted by each CF type It can be argued that since DF provides only the correction without forcing the learner to attempt to generate the underlying rule of use, DF only serves to lead learners to notice the TL form, but whether or not they may develop an understanding of the principles governing the form is not known On the other hand, the provision of metalinguistic explanation in the MF option promotes not only the noticing of the TL exemplars but also the understanding of the rule governing their use (see Schmidt, 2010; Sheen, 2007) According to Schmidt (2010), between the two levels of awareness, understanding represents a deeper level of learning than noticing (also see Bloom [1956] for a similar discussion of knowledge, i.e the recognition of information, and comprehension) This would help explain why the learners who received meta-pragmatic explanation in our study fared better in the recognition tasks than the learners who did not Our explanation, in fact, can be validated by looking at the types of qualitative comments that the learners in each treatment groups wrote in the MCQ task to support their ratings of the sample requests We coded those comments according to whether the comments showed the learners’ pragmalinguistic awareness (i.e awareness concerning the degree of directness and formality of the request strategies), sociopragmatic awareness (i.e awareness concerning the context of interaction and the interactants’ role relationship), or awareness of pragmalinguisticsÀsociopragmatics connections (i.e awareness of formÀfunctionÀcontext mappings) (see Table 7) Our Language Awareness 19 Table Examples of students’ comments in the MCQ task Downloaded by [ECU Libraries] at 21:55 24 April 2015 Pragmalinguistic awareness (concerning the degree of directness/formality of request strategies) Sociopragmatic awareness (concerning the context of interaction and writers’ role relationship) Awareness of pragmalinguistics-sociopragmatics connections (formÀ function–context mappings) MF DF À Informal À Direct À Not polite À Rude À Her language is formal and polite À Strongly imposing on the professor À Sounds like an order À She used ‘ASAP’ (as soon as possible) À She stated the request in the first line (i.e without prefacing the request) À She gave a reason for her request À He sounds polite He says ‘I wonder if’ and ‘when you are available’ so that the request is easier to be accepted by the professor À Abbreviation is not suitable for formal context À ‘Can’ is not formal À ‘I wonder if’, ‘when you are available’ shows that the request is indirect À She shows that she has a lower status than the professor À Sounds like they are two friends À Sounds like she has a higher social status than the professor À The professor has a higher status À Lack of status congruence À Their relationship is close enough for an informal style À Since the professor and the student are on good terms, the student’s request is acceptable À Very direct À Impolite À Inappropriate language À Much imposing on the professor À Should be more formal, e.g ‘could’, ‘would’ À Shouldn’t say ‘please advise’ À Shouldn’t use short forms (e.g abbreviations/ contracted forms) À Shouldn’t sound like a command À He gave the professor options À Lack of respect for the professor findings reveal that, while the DF group displayed pragmalinguistic awareness in most instances, they demonstrated less sociopragmatic awareness and awareness of pragmalinguisticÀsociopragmatics connections The MF group, in contrast, generally showed greater awareness in all three aspects These findings seem to further affirm our speculation about the advantage of giving meta-pragmatic feedback in raising L2 pragmatic awareness Finally, looking at the varying effects of the feedback treatments on individual learners’ improvement in different requesting scenarios, we found generally greater preto-post-test gains for learners with lower pre-test scores compared to learners with higher pre-test scores in both groups (see Table 8) These findings echo those regarding Pre-test MF (N D 13) Well below or close to mean (i.e between and out of 20 points; N D 11) Well above mean (i.e out 20 points and above; N D 2) DF (N D 20) Well below or close to mean (i.e between and out of 20 points; N D 16) Well above mean (i.e out of 20 points and above; N D 4) Group Gains in delayed post-test ND1 ND1 ND3 ND1 ND5 ND1 ND2 ND3 ND0 ND8 ND0 ND2 ND0 ND3 ND0 ND3 ND0 ND4 ND0 ND0 ND2 ND2 ND1 ND0 ND2 ND4 ND0 ND5 ND0 ND6 ND1 ND6 No By By By No By By By points gain/decrease 1À2 points 3À4 points points and above gain/decrease 1À2 points 3À4 points and above Gains in immediate post-tests Table Variations in individual gain scores for pragmatic awareness Downloaded by [ECU Libraries] at 21:55 24 April 2015 20 T.T.M Nguyen et al Language Awareness 21 Table Partial eta square effect sizes of pre-to-post-test gains for pragmatic awareness Increasing imposition ÀÀ ÀÀ! Downloaded by [ECU Libraries] at 21:55 24 April 2015 MF DF Appointment Cancellation Feedback Extension 66 19 82 34 85 81 63 66 individual variations in terms of pragmatic production, indicating a need for future research to investigate the three-way relationship between instructional success, types of target features, and types of learners (see R€ over, 2009; Taguchi, 2011; Takahashi, 2010 for a further discussion on this point) It was also found that learners made different gains in scenarios with varying degrees of imposition, although the degree of differences was not similar across the two treatment groups (Table 9) For example, while the MF group’s gains were only slightly greater in the ‘feedback’ and ‘appointment cancellation’ scenarios than in ‘appointment’ and ‘extension’ scenarios, the DF group obtained considerably higher gains in the ‘feedback’ and ‘extension’ scenarios These findings tend to suggest that the performance of the DF group seemed far less regular across scenarios than that of the MF group In other words, the DF group’s ability to recognise appropriate requests was more likely to be severely affected by the variable of degree of imposition Again, the findings seem to point to the overall greater pragmatic awareness achieved by the MF group as compared to the DF group, as discussed earlier Nonetheless, since the effect sizes produced in all three scenarios by both treatment groups were considered large (see Cohen, 1988), this suggests large impact of both CF treatments Conclusion Our study sought to examine the comparative effects of two types of written feedback provided in conjunction with meta-pragmatic instruction on developing L2 learners’ competence in producing and recognising pragmatically appropriate email requests in studentÀfaculty communication The major findings of our study indicate that, while providing either of the two CF techniques generally led to significantly higher gains in the students’ performance in the productive task than not providing feedback, neither of the feedback options is more efficacious than the other in improving pragmatic production Nonetheless, the provision of meta-pragmatic feedback led to significantly higher gains in the students’ performance in the recognition task than the provision of direct feedback In contrast, the provision of direct feedback was not found more beneficial than no provision of feedback The lack of difference between the two treatment groups regarding their production scores has been explained by the benefit of the multiple revision rounds that both of the treatment groups are engaged in It has been argued that going through multiple revisions has afforded the learners opportunities for repeated corrections of the same problematic features, thus better aiding their internalisation of these features The advantage of the revision component becomes clear when considering the fact that the treatment groups have more advantage over the control group in the production tasks than in the recognition task While receiving pragmatic instruction has gradually heightened the control Downloaded by [ECU Libraries] at 21:55 24 April 2015 22 T.T.M Nguyen et al groups’ pragmatic awareness, not receiving CF has deprived them of opportunities for modified output, thus putting them at disadvantage as compared to the treatment groups when it comes to pragmatic production On the other hand, the long-term advantage of meta-pragmatic feedback over direct feedback for improving learners’ pragmatic awareness has been explained by the different levels of learning that each CF technique seems to engage learners in While the provision of meta-pragmatic explanation is effective in helping learners understand the pragmalinguisticsÀsociopragmatics connection, the simple provision of correction may only draw learners’ attention to pragmalinguistic forms without necessarily alerting them to the sociopragmatic rules underlying these forms According to Schmidt (2010), noticing is a phenomenon that happens at the surface level, but understanding concerns a deeper level of abstraction that involves the learning of rules Thus, awareness at the level of understanding may contribute more strongly to later learning (Sheen, 2007) Put together, the major findings of our study, while pointing to the general benefits of giving CF in fostering L2 pragmatic knowledge, also suggest the varying effects of the two types of CF under inquiry on different areas of pragmatic competence If the above findings hold true for future research, we believe that some pedagogical implications may be offered That is, relating to the usefulness of the written CF in the classroom, questions such as which CF types are effective, yet at the same time meaningful to students and manageable to teachers, have been asked (see Hartshorn et al., 2010) In light of the above discussion of our findings, we believe that choices of CF types to be used must rest on the careful consideration of the actuality of the particular classroom While one may argue that the ideal solution might be a balanced mix of both direct and meta-pragmatic feedback to achieve the best of both worlds, each feedback type might also be useful in a unique way When enhancing learners’ pragmatic awareness is the primary goal, meta-pragmatic feedback may be a plausible choice, given its importance for learning sociopragmatic distinctions On the other hand, direct feedback may be a helpful choice to address learners’ need for improvement primarily in pragmatic production (i.e when pragmatic awareness is no longer a concern), particularly when accompanied by opportunity for learners’ revision This is because while direct feedback proves as effective as meta-pragmatic feedback in developing pragmatic production, direct feedback is yet less onerous for the teacher than meta-pragmatic feedback In relation to our pedagogical recommendations outlined above, some words of caution are nonetheless in order First, as pointed out by many scholars, the efficacy of different CF techniques may depend on the particular instructional context, group of learners (Hyland & Hyland, 2006), and targeted form (Bitchener & Knoch, 2008) Indeed, the findings of our study seem to suggest some individual variations in terms of prior pragmatic knowledge and its effect on post-treatment gains Thus, it should only be plausible to emphasise that our findings should not be generalised without carefully considering possible intervening variables as mentioned above Looking forward, we call for further research into the role of CF in L2 pragmatics development, given the limited amount of current work in this area In particular, future research may continue to explore to what extent CF works for a wider range of pragmatic features and for different proficiency levels Future research would also well to include additional posttests (e.g at six months or more after the treatment) to allow more extensive investigations of the durability of different CF techniques, thus enabling the current body of research to better inform classroom pedagogies Another important implication of our study lies in its contribution to raising teachers’ awareness of the usefulness of teaching email requests in the L2 classroom Downloaded by [ECU Libraries] at 21:55 24 April 2015 Language Awareness 23 As shown, although writing email requests to authority figures may present considerable difficulty to L2 learners as this speech act requires high pragmatic competence and awareness of e-politeness (Economidou-Kogetsidis, 2011), learners’ skills in using this speech act can be effectively enhanced via formal pragmatics-focused instruction Our study thus makes a strong case for addressing learners’ needs for instruction in email literacy Because of their unfamiliarity with email etiquette in the L2, learners may face abundant uncertainties regarding choices of styles and politeness strategies that are appropriate in hierarchical relationships where power asymmetry needs to be maintained (Chen, 2006) Thus, they should be offered guidance in writing status-congruent requestive emails that would help them not only to achieve their communicative goals but also to avoid friction in interpersonal interaction, and to maintain comity Such instruction is particularly important in the foreign-language context where learners have minimal opportunities for TL pragmatic input To inform instructional materials, larger corpora of pragmatically appropriate, naturally occurring email requests may be contributed by future research Future research may also aim to improve a number of outstanding issues in teaching email discourse For instance, how the interactive nature of emails, i.e intertextuality with teachers, affects how students perceive each party and modify their language accordingly is not addressed in the present study due to our focus on an initiating rather than a responding speech act However, this feature may be dealt with in further studies on such speech acts as responses to requests or invitations Finally, pragmatic proficiency is understood to include not only pragmatic knowledge (that is evident in the accuracy of learners’ production and awareness) but also pragmatic fluency (that is automatic control of pragmatic knowledge for effortless use in real-time communication) (see Taguchi, 2011 for a further discussion on this point) Although a substantial body of studies have explored how pragmatic instruction works to improve L2 pragmatic knowledge, hardly any studies have investigated the question of fluency development (e.g Li, 2011) The current study is no exception Therefore, it would be useful for future research to address this question by exploring testing instruments that allow for measuring pragmatic proficiency in terms of both controlling and automatic processing skills, an issue that the current study has overlooked Disclosure statement No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors Supplemental data The underlying research materials for this article can be accessed at here Notes on contributors Nguyen Thi Thuy Minh is an assistant professor in the English Language and Literature Academic Group at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore Her research interests and recent publications include pragmatics and language learning, language pedagogy, and language teacher education Do Thi Thanh Ha is a lecturer at Faculty of Linguistics and Cultures of English Speaking Countries at the University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi Her 24 T.T.M Nguyen et al professional and research interests are language testing, pedagogic linguistics, pragmatics and language learning, second language acquisition, and teacher education Nguyen Anh Tuan is a lecturer at Faculty of English Language Teacher Education at the University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi His research interests include language pedagogy and language teacher education Pham Thi Thanh Thuy is a lecturer at Faculty of Linguistics and Cultures of English Speaking Countries at the University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi Her research interests include language testing, language pedagogy, curriculum, and language teacher education Downloaded by [ECU Libraries] at 21:55 24 April 2015 References Akikawa, K., & Ishihara, N (2010) ‘Please write a recommendation letter’: Teaching to write email requests to faculty In D Tatsuki & N Houck (Eds.), Pragmatics: Teaching speech acts (pp 47À66) Alexandria, VA: Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages Alcon-Soler, E (2005) Does instruction work for learning pragmatics in the EFL context? 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comments... showed greater awareness in all three aspects These findings seem to further affirm our speculation about the advantage of giving meta-pragmatic feedback in raising L2 pragmatic awareness Finally,... performance in the MCQ task, with representing the highest level of pragmatic awareness and the lowest Note that the marking was based on both the quantitative ratings and qualitative explanations