PRAGMATICS AT UNIVERSITY LEVEL? A SURVEY OF ITALIAN EFL STUDENTS’ PERCEIVED INSTRUCTIONAL EXPERIENCE AND LEARNING GOALS

Research into L2 pragmatics has investigated various aspects of language use conducive to the mastery of interactional skills, but without fully exploring L2 learners’ motivations, goals and awareness of their educational experience. This chapter considers students’ awareness of received instruction in pragmatics and conscious learning goals in English for General Purposes (EGP) university education. An online survey was conducted with 109 undergraduate English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students at Padua University. It examined the participants’ perceived experience of and interest in nine commonly taught initiating speech acts and ten responding ones, plus nine commonly used teaching methods/materials. A majority of the respondents stated they had received instruction about most of the above-mentioned pragmatic topics, but more frequently about initiating speech acts than responding ones. They also stated that they wished they could receive more instruction about such face-threatening speech acts as complaints and apologies, while expressing less interest in face-sustaining ones like greetings and responses to offers. The students also reported that the most extensively used teaching method, in their views, was feedback on correctness, and that what they desired the most in teaching was a focus on feedback on the effects of their discourse. Followup interviews with five students stressed an interest in receiving feedback on their language performance, especially its appropriateness. Our findings suggest that students who are not exposed to pragmatics-focused instruction may be aware of the relevance of pragmatics to their learning experience and goals; this supports the view that pragmatics should play a prominent role in the design of EGP syllabi.