The Study of Iranian Teachers’ and Learners’ Perceptions Towards Implicit and Explicit form - Focused Instruction of Speech Acts


 Pragmatic competence is an essential component in communicative competence (Bachman & Palmer, 2010; Canale, 1983). Therefore, teaching pragmatic knowledge plays an important role in a foreign language curriculum, particularly in teaching English as a ForeignLanguage (EFL). However, there exists a lack of literature about the teaching of pragmatics with little empirical research on teachers’ and learners’ perceptions in Iran. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of focus-on-form instruction (FFI) speech acts on Iranian EFL learners’ pragmatic competence. Cooperative grouping, role plays, and other pragmatically oriented tasks were used to promote the learning of the intended speech acts. To come up with conclusive and persuasive findings, 132 Iranian male and female learners, intermediate- above, served as the subjects. The Oxford Placement Test (OPT) was used to evaluate the participants’ language proficiency level. Teachers’ and students’ questionnaires about the instructions and teachers’ interview were used as the instruments in this study. Data collected by different instruments were analyzed and compared by way of a mixed method and. then was triangulated to enhance its validity and reliability. The finding of the study showed that explicitness leads to better pragmatic knowledge development than the implicit knowledge. This study showed that consciousness-raising at the metapragmatic level improved EFL learners’ pragmatic performance and variety of form-strategy use substantially; thus, it should be taken more seriously in L2 instruction and material development.


Introduction
Effective communication requires more than just knowing the linguistic knowledge of the language such as phonology, morphology, and syntax. It means that in order to make learners become communicatively competent in English language, there should be a shift from previous theoretical frameworks, which considered language as a formal system based on grammatical rules, toward a more communicative perspective (Martínez-Flor, 2004).
Teaching pragmatics as well as its components resulting in pragmatic learning development has been highlighted in educational contexts. One of these factors is the role of instruction on learners' awareness and production of speech acts which has generated a lot of interests in the eld of ILP (Alcón & Pitarch, 2010). According to Schmidt 's (1993) noticing hypothesis, the rationale for the need of instruction in pragmatics is that simple exposure to the target language is not enough for developing pragmatic competence. He believed that pragmatic functions and relevant contextual factors are often not salient to learners and thus not likely to be noticed even after prolonged exposure.
By the same token, Willis and Willis (1996) stated that through instruction, learners are provided with guidelines and, more importantly, with activities encouraging them to think about samples of language and to draw their conclusions about how the language works (p. 2). While working on the impact of C-R and teaching methodology factors, Sedighi and Nazari (2007, p. 22) noted that language awareness instruction also has instruction involved, but from using a less direct and more student-centered approach. Considering the literature, the present study investigated the effects of speci c instructional approaches on developing L2 pragmatic competence and the teachers' and learners' perception towards the explicit and implicit presentation of speech acts.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The majority of studies on the use of pragmatics have been conducted in settings where English is a second language (ESL) or in settings such as India, Malaysia, and Singapore, where there is abundant interaction between the locals and English speaking expatriates and hence the context of language learning very much approaches ESL situations. In other words, pragmatics mainly addresses ESL settings where learners' primary objective is having real-life interactions both inside and more importantly outside the classroom. ESL settings also privilege learners with native or near-native teachers together with high amount of exposure in the form of intensive courses. In Iran, however, the chance of using English outside the classroom is very limited and perhaps far less than many other EFL settings. The immediate objective of a great majority of English learners in Iran is not communication in real life situations but success in some kind of exam. Children and adolescents are headed for the centralized university entrance exam and many adults need to sit for some high-stakes tests such as IELTS or TOEFL for educational or immigration purposes.
Due to the consensus over the need to teach pragmatic competence, the main issue now centers on the question of how we should teach this competence in the most effective way. Therefore, the present study is to address the impact of focus-on-form instruction (FFI ) on implicit and explicit of speech acts on Iranian EFL learners' pragmatic competence, aims to investigate the relative effectiveness of consciousness-raising (C-R) on the development of the speech act.
Research questions 1-What are learners' perceptions regarding explicit versus implicit speech acts? 2-What are teachers' perceptions regarding explicit versus implicit speech acts?
3-What are the teachers' views, and experiences about their teaching English through Form Focused Instruction (FFI) in EFL classes?

Literature Review
Efforts to understand the acquisition of pragmatics have not provided a coherent picture of the process, and calls for more systematic investigations that encompass more of the complexity of the acquisition of L2 pragmatic competence have persisted from the early years of inter language pragmatic research (e.g., Thomas, 1983) to more recent efforts (e.g., Hassall, 2004). In order to understand developing L2 pragmatics more fully, it is helpful to situate the process within the larger second language acquisition (SLA) process (Kasper & Schmidt, 1996). Here, the goal of locating developing L2 pragmatic competence within SLA is addressed through an examination of the connections between SLA and communicative competence, SLA and pragmatic competence, and instruction and developing L2 pragmatic competence.
One important learning resource is classroom management, because in this activity language does not function as an object for analysis and practice but as a means for communication. From the studies reviewed earlier and from other theory and research of SL learning, we can distill a number of activities that are useful for pragmatic development. Such activities can be classi ed into two main types: activities aiming at raising students' pragmatic awareness, and activities offering opportunities for communicative practice.
Through awareness-raising activities, students acquire socio pragmatic and pragma linguistic information -for instance, what function complimenting has in mainstream American culture, what appropriate topics for complimenting are, and by what linguistic formulae compliments are given and received. Students can observe particular pragmatic features in various sources of oral or written 'data', ranging from native speaker 'classroom guests' ( Bardovi-Harlig, et al., 1991) to videos of authentic interaction, feature lms (Rose, 1997), and other ctional and non-ctional written and audiovisual sources.
Much research over the past several years has focused on the effects of various aspects of L2 instruction on learners' developing pragmatic competence (e.g., Liddicoat& Crozet, 2001; Tateyama, 2001).
Studies such as Kanagy's (1999) and Lyster's (1994) shed light on the general effects of formal instruction (immersion in particular) on child L2 pragmatic competence development, and have the added bene t of being analogous in terms of participants and the context of instruction to Swain (e.g., 1998) and Swain and Lapkin's (e.g., 1995) research into the role of output in the SLA processes of French immersion students.
Recently some research studies have been concerned with emphasizing the importance of coming up with uni ed and comprehensive rating criteria in pragmatic assessment in Iran. For example, Alemi (2012) investigated the criteria that native English teachers and non-native Iranian English teachers consider when rating EFL learners' pragmatic productions regarding the speech act of apology and refusal. Besides discovering the criteria of the raters, Tajedin and Alemi (2013) emphasized the existence of any bias among the raters.
Abolfathiasl and Abdullah (2015) examined the impact of pragmatic consciousness-raising activities on EFL learners' immediate and delayed performance of suggestions. Shokouhi & Amir Rezaei (2015) explored the importance of teaching pragmatics in the classrooms. Zangoei, Nourmohammadi and Derakhshan (2014) investigated the relative effectiveness of consciousness-raising listening prompts on the development of the speech act of apology. Birjandi and Derakhshan (2014) investigated the relative effectiveness of C-R video-driven prompts on the comprehension of three speech acts on Persian learners of English. Rahimi Domakani, Hashemian and Mansoori (2014) investigated the effect of bilingualism on pragmatic awareness and development among Iranian Turkish/Persian EFL learners. Bagheri and Hamrang (2013) worked on the effect of meta-pragmatic instructions on the interpretation and use of apology speech acts of English on Iranian intermediate EFL learners.

Design
The present study made use of sequential explanatory mixed method design and triangulated data to enhance the credibility and validity of the study. In the sequential explanatory design, priority, typically, is given to the quantitative approach because the quantitative data collection comes rst in the sequence and often represents the major aspect of the mixed-methods data collection process. The smaller qualitative component follows in the second phase of the research.

Participants
To come up with conclusive and persuasive ndings, 130 Iranian male and female students between 17 and 30 years of age were served as the subjects. They major in English language teaching and translation courses at the Islamic Azad University North Tehran, high school students, and those who study English in institution. All the participants were non-native and their language pro ciency levels were suggested to be intermediate above. They were divided into two groups. Each group contained 66 participants who received different treatments.

Materials and Instrumentation
The instruments used to gather data in the current study are as follows: 1-Oxford Placement Test (OPT) was used for the selection of homogeneous participants with regard to their level of language pro ciency.
2-The teachers' and students' questionnaires were used to evaluate perceptions regarding explicit versus implicit speech acts.
3-Teachers' interview, semi-structured interview, was administered to examine teachers' perceptions of pragmatics and their classroom teaching.

Procedure
The scope of this study was limited to the request, apology, and invitation speech acts. The rationales behind this selection was, rstly, the fact that these speech acts are observed most frequently in daily communications of any speaker. Secondly, these speech acts are the most empirically-explored speech acts in the cross-cultural or inter-language pragmatics literature.
The participants were homogenized in terms of their level of English pro ciency, Oxford Placement Test (OPT) was administered. So, 132 male and female intermediate-above learners took part in the virtual course of study.
Two intact groups were used to compare the effectiveness of C-R activities. One group (explicit group) was provided with a focus on forms instruction based on the use of explicit awareness-raising tasks on requests, apologies, invitations and provision of metapragmatic feedback. Another group (implicit group) received a focus on form instruction utilizing input enhancement on pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic factors involved in requesting, apologizing, invitations and made use of implicit awareness-raising tasks. Both groups were exposed to excerpts taken from the textbook Top Notch 1B (Saslow and Ascher, 2007) and another textbook Tactics for Listening (Richards, 2003) with the focus on requests, apologies, and invitations in 16 sessions, meeting a 90-minute session a week for the treatment. Also the book "Communicating in English, 1" (Matreyek, 1990) was applied as treatment for the explicit group to provide some metapragmatic explanation.
The piloting of the items in the questionnaire was believed to test the validity and reliability of the items. The students' questionnaire adopted by Hyekyeng Kim Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Seoul, Republic of Korea, and adapted by the researcher. It consisted of 23 questions which asked the degree of interest, motivation, helpfulness, importance, and di culty of learning the speech acts for each of the three speech acts on a four-point Likert scale with different semantic differential (e.g. Very interested; Fairly interested; Not much interested;. Not interested).
The teachers' questionnaire was used to evaluate perceptions concerning explicit versus implicit speech acts. The teachers' questionnaire adopted by the researcher and validity of the test was calculated by the panel of expert.
Also, it should be mentioned that before conducting the data collection, ethical considerations were adopted by the researcher. As well, learners were informed about the objectives of the present study and they were guaranteed that the results would be kept con dential and no other use would be done by their responses.
Apart from administering the questionnaire, the interview was relied upon for in-depth data collection. Interviewing is a most often used and powerful strategy for data collection to gain participants' insights into social phenomena (Dornyei, 2007;Fontana & Frey, 2003).
Teachers' interview was used as a last instrument in the study, adopted by the researcher and was piloted by ve teachers, some items were either reworded or omitted based on the teachers' comments. Semistructured interview was administered to examine teachers' perceptions of pragmatics and their classroom teaching. The semi-structured interview consisted of 10 questions covering the importance of teaching pragmatic and the strategies used in the constructs. Each interview session lasted between 15 and 20 minutes. All the procedure was audio-recorded for the data analysis. The last three questions target: a) importance of skills to learn, b) necessity of learning speech acts, and c) how movies facilitated learning speech acts. Thus the main results will be discussed under six subsections. Table 1 displays the frequencies, percentages and descriptive statistics for the rst four items related to "interest in learning speech acts" being taught using an explicit method. Based on these results it can be concluded that EFL learners believed that they were most interested in explicit learning of speech act of request (Mean = 3.92). This was followed by explicit learning of invitations (Mean = 3.88), apologies (Mean = 3.85) and learning pragmatic features of speci c speech acts (Mean = 3.71). The frequencies and percentages further supported the descriptive statistics discussed above. The results indicated that 92.4 percent of EFL learners believed that they were very interested in explicit learning of speech act of request. This was followed by 87.9% who were interested in learning speech act of invitation, 84.8% for learning apology and 71.2 percent for learning pragmatic features of speci c speech acts. Table 2 displays the frequencies, percentages and descriptive statistics for the rst four items related to "interest in learning speech acts" being taught using an implicit method. Based on these results it can be concluded that, unlike the explicit method, EFL learners believed that they were most interested in implicit learning of speech act of invitation (Mean = 3.92). This was followed by implicit learning of requests (Mean = 3.86), apologies (Mean = 3.74) and learning pragmatic features of speci c speech acts (Mean = 3.67).        Table 6 compares the EFL learners' perceptions towards the explicit vs. implicit learning of pragmatic features of speech acts of request. The results indicated that the EFL learners were more interested in learning the pragmatic features of the speech acts of request explicitly (Mean = 3.92 vs. Mean = 3.86).

Interest in Implicit Learning of Speech Acts
The frequencies and percentages also supported the preference of explicit method over the implicit one. The EFL learners claimed that they were more interested in explicit learning of pragmatic features of speech acts of request (Very Interested = 92.4 % vs. 86.4 %). Despite preference implicit learning of invitation; the results of independent-samples t-test (t = 1.128, p = .262) indicated that the difference between two means were not statistically signi cant.  Table 7 displays the frequencies, percentages and descriptive statistics for the rst four items related to "usefulness of learning speech acts" being taught using an explicit method. Based on these results it can be concluded that EFL learners believed that they were interested in explicit learning of speech acts. Since all of the students selected the "very useful" choice for all four items, means for explicit learning of pragmatic features of speech acts, invitations, apologies and request were equal to 4. In other words, the participants unanimously agreed with the idea that explicit learning of speech acts is useful. The frequencies and percentages further supported the descriptive statistics discussed above. The results indicated that the EFL learners, without exception, believed that they were very interested in explicit learning of speech acts.

Usefulness of Implicit Learning of Speech Acts
As displayed in Table 8, the EFL learners, without opposition, believed that they implicit learning of speech acts was very useful. The mean scores for the pragmatic features of speech acts, speech acts of invitations, apologies and requests were all equal to 4. The frequencies and percentages further supported the descriptive statistics discussed above. The results indicated that 100 percent of EFL learners believed that the implicit learning of speech acts was useful for them.

Comparing Usefulness of Explicit vs. Implicit
Learning of Pragmatic Features of Speech Acts Table 9 compares the EFL learners' perceptions towards the explicit vs. implicit learning of pragmatic features of speech acts. The results indicated that the EFL learners, with an accord, believed explicit (Mean = 4) and implicit (Mean = 4) learning of pragmatic features of speech acts were very useful. The percentages also supported this conclusion. All participants (100 %) believed that explicit and implicit learning of pragmatic features of speech acts were useful. Consequently, the results of independentsamples t-test indicated that there was no difference between two means (t = 0.00, p = 1.00).  believed that speech acts invitations were useful irrespective of the method of teaching. The mean score for both explicit and implicit learning of the pragmatic features of the speech acts of invitations were 4.
That is to say, the participants unanimously agreed that learning speech acts of invitations were very useful. The frequencies and percentages further supported this conclusion. All EFL learners (100%) selected the "very useful" choice when asked about the usefulness of the learning of speech acts of invitation. Consequently; the results of independent-samples t-test indicated that there was no difference between two means (t = 0.00, p = 1.00). The seventh item of the questionnaire asked EFL learners how useful they believed learning the pragmatic features of speech acts of apologies was. All 66 students believed that explicit and implicit learning of the pragmatic features of speech acts of apologies was "very useful". That was why the results displayed in Table 11 indicated that 100 percent of respondents agreed with the usefulness of the explicit vs. implicit learning of speech acts of apologies. The results of independent-samples t-test; consequently, indicated that there was no difference between two means (t = 0.00, p = 1.00).  learning of pragmatic features of speech acts of request. The results indicated that the EFL learners believed that speech acts of request were useful irrespective of the method of teaching. The mean score for both explicit and implicit learning of the pragmatic features of the speech acts of request were 4. That is to say, the participants, without any opposition, agreed that learning speech acts of request were very useful. The frequencies and percentages further supported this conclusion. All EFL learners (100%) selected the "very useful" choice when asked about the usefulness of the learning of speech acts of request. Consequently; the results of independent-samples t-test indicated that there was no difference between two means (t = 0.00, p = 1.00). Items 9 to 12 of the students' questionnaire targeted how motivating it was to learn pragmatic features of speech acts in general, and also speci c speech acts of invitations, apologies and requests. The following will discuss the results related to stimulation in explicit vs. implicit learning of speech acts. Table 13 displays the frequencies, percentages and descriptive statistics for the items related to "stimulation in explicit learning of speech acts". Based on these results it can be concluded that all EFL learners believed that the explicit learning of pragmatic features of speech acts (Mean = 4), speech acts of invitation (Mean = 4) and speech acts of requests (Mean = 4) were "very motivating". However, they were not unanimous on their motivation regarding the explicit learning of speech acts of apologies (Mean = 3.67). Naturally, 100 percent of respondents believed that explicit learning of speech acts in general and speech acts of invitations and request were "very motivating"; however, 33.3 percent of respondents believed that explicit learning of speech acts of apologies was "fairly motivating", and another 66.7 percent found explicit learning of speech acts of apologies was "very motivating".

Motivation in Implicit Learning of Speech Acts
As displayed in Table 14, the EFL learners, without opposition, believed that they implicit learning of speech acts in general, and also speech acts of invitations and request were "very motivating". The mean scores for the pragmatic features of speech acts, speech acts of invitations and requests were all equal to 4. However, the EFL learners were not unanimous in implicit learning of speech acts of apologies. Their mean score was 3.80. Consequently, all respondents (100%) believed that implicit learning of speech acts in general and speech acts of invitations and request were "very motivating"; however, 19.7 percent of respondents believed that implicit learning of speech acts of apologies was "fairly motivating", and another 80.3 percent found explicit learning of speech acts of apologies was "very motivating".

Comparing Motivation in Explicit vs. Implicit
Learning of Pragmatic Features of Speech Acts Table 15 compares the EFL learners' perceptions towards the motivation in explicit vs. implicit learning of pragmatic features of speech acts. The results indicated that the EFL learners, with an accord, believed explicit (Mean = 4) and implicit (Mean = 4) learning of pragmatic features of speech acts were "very motivating". The percentages also supported this conclusion. All participants (100 %) believed that explicit and implicit learning of pragmatic features of speech acts were motivating. Consequently, the results of independent-samples t-test indicated that there was no difference between two means (t = 0.00, p = 1.00).  learning of pragmatic features of speech acts of invitations. The results indicated that the EFL learners believed that speech acts invitations were motivating irrespective of the method of teaching. The mean score for both motivation in explicit and implicit learning of the pragmatic features of the speech acts of invitations were 4. That is to say, the participants unanimously agreed that learning speech acts of invitations were "very motivating". The frequencies and percentages further supported this conclusion. All EFL learners (100%) selected the "very motivating" choice when asked about the motivation in the learning of speech acts of invitation. Consequently; the results of independent-samples t-test indicated that there was no difference between two means (t = 0.00, p = 1.00). The results displayed in Table 17 indicated that the EFL learners believed that implicit learning of speech acts of apologies was more motivating (Mean = 3.80) than the using an explicit method (Mean = 3.67). The frequencies and percentages further supported EFL learners' preference over an implicit method. The results showed that 19.7 percent of respondents believed that implicit learning of apologies was "fairly motivating", and another 80.3% agreed with the idea that implicit learning of apologies was "very motivating"; while the percentages for the explicit learning were 33.3 and 66.7. Despite the differences discussed above, the results of independent-samples t-test indicated that there was not any signi cant difference between two means (t = 1.78, p = .077).  learning of pragmatic features of speech acts of request. The results indicated that the EFL learners believed that learning speech acts of request was motivating irrespective of the method of teaching. The mean score for both explicit and implicit learning of the pragmatic features of the speech acts of request were 4. That is to say, the participants, without any opposition, agreed that learning speech acts of request were "very motivating". The frequencies and percentages further supported this conclusion. All EFL learners (100%) selected the "very motivating" choice when asked about the motivation in the learning of speech acts of request. Consequently; the results of independent-samples t-test indicated that there was no difference between two means (t = 0.00, p = 1.00). learning of speech acts show signi cant differences between the two methods; whose results are discussed below. Table 19 displays the frequencies, percentages and descriptive statistics for the items related to di culty of explicit learning of speech acts, and speech acts of invitations, apologies and requests. Based on these results it can be concluded that majority of the EFL learners (60.6%) believed that it was "not very di cult" to learn speech acts. Another 39.4 percent claimed that it was "not at all di cult" to learn speech acts. The mean for the students' perception on di culty of learning speech acts was 1.91. The results displayed in Table 20 are opposite to the ones discussed above for the explicit learning of speech acts. Majority of the EFL learners (65.2%) believed that it was "fairly di cult" to implicitly learn pragmatic features of speci c speech acts. Another 34.8 percent estimated implicit learning of pragmatic features of speci c speech acts as "very di cult". Their mean score was 3.35.
Regarding the implicit learning of speech acts of invitations, the results indicated that majority of the EFL learners (98.5%) believed that it was "fairly di cult" to learn pragmatic features of speech acts of invitations implicitly. Another 1.5 percent estimated implicit learning of pragmatic features of speech acts of invitation as "very di cult". Their mean score was 3.02. The results displayed in Table 4.30 also indicated that majority of the EFL learners (66.7%) believed that it was "very di cult" to learn pragmatic features of speech acts of apologies implicitly. Another 31.8 percent estimated implicit learning of pragmatic features of speech acts of apologies as "fairly di cult". Their mean score was 1.70.
Regarding the implicit learning of speech acts of request, the results indicated that majority of the EFL learners (80.3%) believed that it was "fairly di cult" to learn pragmatic features of speech acts of request implicitly. Another 19.7 percent estimated implicit learning of pragmatic features of speech acts of requests as "very di cult". Their mean score was 3.20. The percentages also supported this conclusion; while EFL learners believed that it was "not at all di cult" (39.4 %), and "not very di cult" (60.6 %) to learn speci c speech acts explicitly, majority of them believed that it was "fairly di cult" (65.2 %) and "very di cult" (34.8 %) to learn speci c speech acts implicitly. The results of independent-samples t-test (t = 20.58, p = .000) indicated that it was signi cantly easier to learn speci c speech acts explicitly.  3.02). The percentages also supported this conclusion; while EFL learners believed that it was "not at all di cult" (39.4 %), and "not very di cult" (60.6 %) to learn speech acts of invitations explicitly, almost all of them believed that it was "fairly di cult" (98.5 %) and "very di cult" (1.5 %) to learn speech acts of invitations implicitly. The results of independent-samples t-test (t = 22.55, p = .000) indicated that it was signi cantly easier to learn speci c speech acts explicitly. The results displayed in Table 23 indicated that the EFL learners believed that explicit and implicit learning of speech acts of apologies was almost equally di cult (Mean = 1.61 vs. Mean = 1.70). The frequencies and percentages further supported the results. Majority of the EFL learners (60.6%) believed that explicit learning of speech acts of apologies was "not very di cult". The percentage for the implicit learning of apologies was 66.7%. The participants almost equally believed that it was "not at all di cult"

Comparing Di culty of Explicit vs. Implicit Learning of Pragmatic Features of Speech Acts
to learn speech acts of apologies explicitly (39.4%) nor implicitly (31.8). Despite these minor differences, the results of independent-samples t-test indicated that there was not any signi cant difference between two means (t = 1.05, p = .292).   Items 17 to 20 of the students' questionnaire targeted how important it was to learn pragmatic features of speech acts in general, and also speci c speech acts of invitations, apologies and requests. The following will discuss the results related to importance of explicit vs. implicit learning of speech acts.  The frequencies and percentages further supported the descriptive results discussed above. Regarding the explicit learning of pragmatic features of speci c speech acts, and speech acts of invitations and apologies, 87.9 percent of respondents believed that they were "very important". Furthermore, another 12.1% attached "fairly important" to these speech acts.
However, the percentages for the explicit learning of speech acts of requests were a bit different. Majority of the EFL learners; i.e. 89.4 percent claimed that explicit learning of speech acts of requests was "very important", and another 10.6 percent estimated it as "fairly important".   believed that explicit learning of pragmatic features of speci c speech acts were "very important", while the same percentage for the implicit method was 80.3. Despite these minor differences, the results of independent-samples t-test indicated that there was no difference between two means (t = 1.18, p = .237).  %) believed that explicit learning of pragmatic features of speech acts of invitations were "very important", while the same percentage for the implicit method was 80.3. Despite these minor differences, the results of independent-samples t-test indicated that there was no difference between two means (t = 1.18, p = .237).  Table 29 compares the EFL learners' perceptions towards the importance of explicit vs. implicit learning of pragmatic features of speech acts of apologies. The results indicated that the EFL learners believed explicit learning of speech acts of apologies (Mean = 3.88) was more important than its implicit method (Mean = 3.80). The percentages also supported this conclusion. A higher percentage of participants (87.9 %) believed that explicit learning of pragmatic features of speech acts of apologies were "very important", while the same percentage for the implicit method was 80.3. Despite these minor differences, the results of independent-samples t-test indicated that there was no difference between two means (t = 1.18, p = .237).  Table 30 compares the EFL learners' perceptions towards the importance of explicit vs. implicit learning of pragmatic features of speech acts of requests. The results indicated that the EFL learners believed explicit learning of speech acts of invitation (Mean = 3.89) was more important than its implicit method (Mean = 3.80). The percentages also supported this conclusion. A higher percentage of participants (89.4 %) believed that explicit learning of pragmatic features of speech acts of apologies were "very important", while the same percentage for the implicit method was 80.3. Despite these minor differences, the results of independent-samples t-test indicated that there was no difference between two means (t = 1.45, p = .077).  Table 31 it can be concluded that majority of the respondents believed that "grammar and speaking" were the most important topics/skills to be learnt in English classes both explicitly (83.3%) and implicitly (74.2%). This was followed by "pragmatics and grammar"; i.e. 16.7% explicitly and 25.8% implicitly. None of the respondents attached importance to "vocabulary & reading"

Importance of Implicit Learning of Speech Acts
and "listening and writing". Item 22 of the students' questionnaire targeted if learning pragmatic features of the speci c speech acts in English class was necessary. The results, as displayed in Table 32 indicated that the EFL learners believed that explicit learning of pragmatic features of the speci c speech acts was more necessary (Mean = 3.85) than the implicit one (Mean = 3.74). The percentages also supported these conclusions. A higher percentage of respondents (84.8% vs. 74.2%) believed that explicit learning of pragmatic features of the speci c speech acts was "very necessary" than the implicit one. The results of independentsamples t-test (t = 1.51, p = .133); however, indicated that the differences were not statistically signi cant. The results, as displayed in Table 33 indicated that the EFL learners believed that movies were more appropriate in explicit classes (Mean = 3.85) than the implicit one (Mean = 3.75). The percentages also supported these conclusions. A higher percentage of respondents (84.8% vs. 74.2%) believed that movies were more appropriate in explicit classes. The results of independent-samples t-test (t = 1.35, p = .177); however, indicated that the differences were not statistically signi cant. A questionnaire with 24 items were distributed among six university teachers. The questionnaire included three sections; demographic information (5 items), perceptions towards teaching and learning pragmatics (13 items) and methods and techniques used in classes (6 items).
The results of the demographic section of the questionnaire indicated that all six participants were female, one of them had a teaching experience less than ve years, another one between 6 to 10 years, two had teaching experiences between 10 to 15 years, and other two had taught more than 15 years. Two of the teachers had M.A., and the rest were Ph.D. holders. None of them studied overseas and all of them received knowledge on pragmatics during their studies. Table 34 summarizes the information discussed above. 1: Regarding the rst question as "I believe learning English means learning grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation" the respondents were divided into two groups; 50% agreed with the idea, while another 50% strongly disagreed.
2: On second question as "I think that linguistic knowledge is as important as the knowledge of how to use the language", all participants agreed or strongly agreed with it.

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3: Answering the third question as "I often correct the mistakes my students make when they use inappropriate words although the sentences are grammatically correct", 66.7% of teachers agreed and another 33.3% were neutral.
4: When answering the fourth question as "I don't think I know how to provide students with cultural knowledge and appropriate language use" majority of the teachers; i.e. 83.3% disagreed and strongly disagreed and only 16.7% agreed with this idea.
5: Regarding the fth question as "I think raising students' awareness of getting information on culture and appropriate language use is more useful than teaching speci c pragmatic knowledge" majority of the teachers (66.7%) agreed or strongly agreed, while 33.3% disagreed with this idea.
6: On the sixth question as "I want my students to speak English like native speakers" 66.7% were neutral and another 33.3% disagreed.       In the current study, the researcher used thematic analysis to classify themes with the data. Based on Ezzy (2002) coding is a process of "disassembling and reassembling the data" (p. 94). In this procedure, the data should be broken into small units of texts. Then, the researcher rearranges the units by naming and categorizing them to have a clear data interpretation.
In the initial coding procedure, the researcher read and re-read the transcripts to improve the general meaning and sense of interpretation. Next, the investigator labeled key phrases that revealed the perceptions of the participants. Once the data was broken into small components, the investigator could recognize the patterns easily (Ezzy, 2002). In the third step, the investigator identi ed recurring key phrases and grouped them together according to semantic connotation. In the fourth step, regarding each group of phrases, the investigator assigned a code that re ected a shared meaning among all of the phrases. The code was a word, a short phrase or a sentence that was extracted from the participants' responses (Creswell & Piano Clark, 2007).
In the current research, the frequency of the occurrence of each code was offered and maintained through citation of exact quotes from the respondents.
Regarding teaching pragmatic knowledge to students, interviewees' beliefs were investigated. In this regard, all of the teachers 100% believed in teaching pragmatic knowledge in EFL classes. They highlighted that context plays a key role in teaching pragmatic knowledge and students should know how to use the language correctly in classes. Besides, 66.7% of the teachers considered pragmatic knowledge as an integral part of one's communicative competence.
Concerning request strategies that teachers primarily teach in their classes, 50% of them considered direct instruction of strategy for beginners. Additionally, 50% of teachers highlighted indirect teaching of strategy to intermediate and advanced level students.
According to the interviewees' beliefs, majority of interviewees 66.7% believed in suggestory strategy for teaching "request construction" in their classes.
Additionally, concerning the di culties or challenges when teaching students non-conventionally indirect strategies of request, 84% faced challenges while teaching elementary students.
Concerning the number of the apology strategies teachers provided in their classes, 50% of the interviewee mentioned that they apply ve apology strategies such as understanding, verbal avoidance, explanation, offer of repair and acknowledgment of responsibility, in their classes. Besides, 50% mentioned that they use merely "statement of alternative" and "suggesting a repair" as an apology strategy in their classes.
Besides, concerning application of "explanation" or "acknowledgement of responsibility" as two factor of apology strategy, majority of interviewees 66.7% believed in acknowledgement of responsibility strategy and minority of them 33.3% highlighted explanation strategy as an effective factor in their language classes.
Further, regarding the application of repair strategy for teaching apology in English classes, majority of teachers 84% speci ed use of this type of strategy speci cally in their speaking classes.
In addition, concerning the order of teaching invitation strategy "Genuine or ostensible" and the challenges teachers face while teaching these invitation strategy, the ndings showed that all of the teachers, 100% favored teaching "Genuine" strategy primarily and teaching "Ostensible" one as a secondary alternative. Besides, all of them highlighted that they didn't face any challenges concerning teaching invitation strategy of speech act in English classes.
In the current study, the researcher asked two experinced instuctors in Islamic Azad University of Iran, North branch, (inter-coders) to identify the codes of qualititive data regarding interview transcripts. The kappa measure of agreement was computed in order to probe the reliability of the two raters who rated the participants' interviews. The results (Kappa = .586, p = .002) indicated signi cant agreement between the raters.

Results And Discussion
As the results of the study indicated, there was a signi cant difference between explicit group and implicit group on the pragmatic comprehension of the speech act of apology, request and invitation. The ndings revealed that meta-pragmatic awareness-raising group was more successful than other group since socio-pragmatic and pragma-linguistic features were implicitly taught to them. Materials accompanied by C-R activities could signi cantly improve the perception of the intended speech acts. In this regard, the ndings are in line with previous studies that have demonstrated the advantages of explicit instruction (Fordyce, 2013;Takahashi, 2001). Similarly, the results are consistent with the ndings of two metaanalysis studies conducted by Norris and Ortega (2000) and Spada and Tomita (2010) indicating that explicit types of instruction were more effective than implicit ones.

Conclusion
The ndings have contributed to our understanding of the role of instruction on the effect of pragmatics development for intermediate-above learners of Iran. Data collected from questionnaires and semistructured interview provided rich, insightful information about students' and teachers' concerns and challenges about instructions. The collected data were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively according to the importance of the gathered data, from most to least important.
The result of the rst research question indicated that the Iranian EFL learners were more interested in explicit learning of pragmatic features of speech acts. Overall, the results from the data analysis supported the claim that explicit meta-pragmatic instruction facilitates inter-language pragmatic development. Although this study did not deal with the 'sequence' of acquiring speech act patterns and strategies, it showed that explicit meta-pragmatic instruction makes signi cant contributions to the learners' speech act comprehension processes.
The ndings of the second research question suggest the necessity of incorporating consciousnessraising activities in the classroom. Majority of the teachers claimed that, in order to teach English use, they used awareness raising activities in their classes.
And nally, regarding the result of the third research question, all of the teachers 100% believed in teaching pragmatic knowledge in EFL classes. They highlighted that context plays a key role in teaching pragmatic knowledge and students should know how to use the language correctly in classes.
The obtained results in the present study have a proposal for syllabus designers and material writers to have a new intuition to the content of syllabi and textbooks especially for EFL contexts.
In conclusion, a replication and extension of this study is needed. Although this study has some limitations: 1) results only focused on intermediate-above learners of Iranians, and 2) only request, apology, and invitation speech act were tested in the study. Until more is known about how other levels of learners react to those variables, I suggest pragmatic instruction in the foreign language classroom at all levels.
Abbreviations EFL: English as a Foreign language.
OPT: Oxford placement Test, ESL: English as a second language, C-R: Consciousness-raising Declarations Figure 2 Percentages of interest in implicit learning of speech acts   Percentages of usefulness of explicit vs. implicit learning of pragmatic features of speech acts Percentages of motivation in implicit learning of speech acts Percentages of di culty of explicit learning of speech acts Page 58/65

Figure 20
Percentages of di culty of implicit learning of speech acts Percentages of importance of implicit learning of speech acts Percentages of necessity of learning pragmatic features of speech acts by groups Figure 33 Percentages of suitability of movies in learning pragmatics by groups Percentages of teachers' perceptions towards pragmatics