Developing foreign language pragmatic competence in technology- enhanced classrooms and traditional classrooms: The case of Iraqi EFL learners

According to Bardovi-Harlig and Mahan-Taylor (2003), pragmatic failure or differences in language learners’ production is often misinterpreted and taken on a personal level; not as a result of the process of language learning (this is in contrast to grammatical mistakes). This kind of differences or failure in the comprehension or production of pragmatic norms may result in ineffective communication (Alsuhaibani, 2020).Research on developing pragmatic competence has strongly indicated the efficiency of pragmatics instruction to both L2 andforeign language learners (Belz, 2007; Eun & Tadayoushi, 2006; Rose, 2005). Considering the point that teaching has the potential to develop the learners’ pragmatic competence, one important question which is raised is which approach can better facilitate developing pragmatic competence among L2 learners (Alsuhaibani, 2020). In each group, there will be 25 learners. The participants will be male and female subjects from different language proficiency levels (classified eventually to twogroups of low-proficiency and high-proficiency for easier data analyses). All the subjects of this study are native speakers of Arabic and will be taking courses for learning English whose emphasis is on improving communication skills. In addition to 10 EFL students, two EFL teachers will also be interviewed to answer the qualitative questions of the study. Some expert users of English in Iraq and Iran will be invited to help the researcher in conducting the research. These experts will communicate with the learners in the experimental groups over the treatment period. As for the examiners, one IELTS expert will be invited to help the researcher in marking and analyzing oral performances.