The Immediate and Delayed Effects of Structured Input Instruction Versus Consciousness-Raising Instruction on EFL learners’ Development of Pragmatic Performance in Terms of Accuracy

This research investigated the immediate and delayed impacts of two types of input instruction , structured input instruction(SII) and consciousness-raising instruction (CRI) , on the pragmatic performance of EFL learners in terms of accuracy. For this purpose, 90 intermediate-level students of a language center in Karaj , Iran were selected based on convenience sampling and their performance on Oxford Placement Test (OPT). The participants were then randomly assigned into three groups. Next, after administering a written discourse completion test (WDCT) as their pretest, the participants in the two experimental groups ( structured input and consciousness-raising ) had eight sessions of treatment. This was followed by an immediate WDCT posttest, and after a two-week time interval by a delayed WDCT posttest to assess their pragmatic accuracy. Two raters scored the participants` pragmatic accuracy on the pre-test, immediate post-test, and delayed post-test. Three repeated-measures two-way ANOVAs were used to analyze the data. The results showed that the participants of the experimental groups performed significantly better on immediate and delayed post-tests regarding pragmatic accuracy. However, no significant difference was found between the structured input instruction and consciousness-raising instruction on improving the EFL learners’ pragmatic accuracy. Discussion of the findings, implications of the results and suggestions for further studies have all been presented at the end of the work.