Enhancing Students’ Pragmatic and Self-efficacy Skills by Writing Emails

Nowadays, the importance of developing pragmatic skills and self-efficacy among students is growing. This study examines the pragmatic competence and self-efficacy skills of students by analyzing email inquiries. Pragmatic competence is the social context in which it is important for effective communication, which includes the understanding and appropriate use of language. Pragmatic competence has become an integral part of language acquisition, as good linguistic knowledge would not be enough to have successful communication. As e-mail communication becomes more common in academic and professional environments, it is important to develop students’ pragmatic and self-efficacy skills. Moreover, emailing has become an official communication tool between instructors and students in higher education. Students often use corporate mail for requesting, which might be in and out of educators’ responsibilities, such as asking for extra tasks, making personal appointments, and requesting recommendation letters. This means making requests tends to be a common discourse in higher educational institutions; however, it is still a face-threatening act for students. By considering power relations, cultural norms and other socio-linguistic factors, writing emails to teachers requires sufficient knowledge of pragmatics. This study explores students’ pragmatic competence and self-efficacy skills in the context of Kazakhstani higher education, provides valuable insights into the difficulties and offers suggestions for improving teaching writing skills.