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The effects of input enhancement and
recasts on the development of second
language pragmatic competence
a

b

b

Minh Thi Thuy Nguyen , Hanh Thi Pham & Tam Minh Pham
a

English Language and Literature, National Institute of Education,
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore
b

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Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, University of
Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University,

The effects of input enhancement and recasts on the development
of second language pragmatic competence

Downloaded by [University of Nebraska, Lincoln] at 05:33 09 April 2015

Minh Thi Thuy Nguyena*, Hanh Thi Phamb and Tam Minh Phamb
a
English Language and Literature, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological
University, Singapore, Singapore; bFaculty of English Language Teacher Education, University of
Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, Viet Nam

(Received 29 October 2014; accepted 28 February 2015)
This study investigates the combined effects of input enhancement and recasts on a
group of Vietnamese EFL learners’ performance of constructive criticism during peer
review activities. Particularly, the study attempts to find out whether the instruction
works for different aspects of pragmatic learning, including the learners’ sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic knowledge, as well as their frequency of externally
and internally modifying their criticism. Over a course lasting approximately seven
instructional hours, the learners received visually enhanced pragmatic input and
recasts of their errors of form and meaning. The learners’ pre-to-posttest improvement
was investigated using three production tasks, namely a discourse completion task, a
role play, and an oral peer-feedback task. The findings show there is potential for input
enhancement and recast in teaching different aspects of second language pragmatics
and are discussed with implications for classroom practices and future research.
Keywords: pragmatic competence; input enhancement; recast; speech acts; second
language acquisition; interlanguage pragmatics

1. Introduction
Pragmatic competence is the knowledge of how to express one’s meanings and intentions
appropriately within a particular social and cultural context of communication. This
knowledge involves both having linguistic resources for expressing meanings and

questions: the teachability of L2 pragmatics, the benefits of instruction versus mere
exposure, and the relative effects of different teaching approaches. Generally, the findings
of these studies have attested to the teachability of pragmatic features and overall benefits
of instruction in developing L2 pragmatic competence (see Jeon and Kaya 2006; Kasper
and Rose 2002; Rose 2005; Roever 2009; Taguchi 2011; Takahashi 2010, for a
comprehensive review). Findings have also suggested that explicit instruction (i.e.
instruction that serves to direct learners’ attention to the target forms with the aim of
discussing those forms) may work more effectively than implicit instruction (i.e.
instruction that allows learners to infer rules without awareness), particularly in teaching
sociopragmatics (Jeon and Kaya 2006; Takahashi 2010). However, findings in this area
may need to be treated with caution (see Ellis 2008; Jeon and Kaya 2006). First, because
current research has focused predominantly on relatively ‘well defined’ speech acts such
as requests and suggestions (e.g. Alcón-Soler 2005; Ghavamnia, Eslami-Rasekha, and
Vahid-Dastjerdi 2014; Eslami, Mirzaei, and Dini 2014; Fuykuya and Zhang 2002; Koike
and Pearson 2005; Martínez-Flor and Fukuya 2005; Safont 2003; Salazar 2003;
Takahashi 2001, 2005; Takimoto 2009), it has remained much less known whether
instruction works for less clearly defined speech acts or speech act sets such as
constructive criticism that has no predetermined form and thus may cause even more
problems to L2 learners (see Nguyen 2013; Nguyen, Pham, and Cao 2013; Nguyen,
Pham, and Pham 2012). Thus, it is important that further research expand the range of
learning targets under inquiry. Second, due to a limited number of studies that have
examined the impact of implicit instruction on L2 pragmatic development, their findings
must be corroborated in further research to strengthen the body of evidence (Jeon and
Kaya 2006; Nguyen, Pham, and Pham 2012).
Another limitation, as pointed out by Fuykuya and Zhang (2002), lies in the
inadequate conceptualization of implicit instruction in many earlier pragmatics studies. In
contrast to explicit instruction that is well aligned with a focus on forms approach
(involving intentional learning of form via presentation and consolidation of rules in
increasingly communicative practice), implicit instruction seems to be a less developed
area both conceptually and methodologically (Fuykuya and Zhang 2002, 2–3, but see

briefly addresses learners’ difficulty in using the target form (see Ellis 2008). Because of
its unobtrusiveness, this instructional approach may be a suitable option for teaching form
in meaning-based contexts where the primary focus is maintained on content of
communication. In the framework of this paradigm, the present study, therefore, examines
the combined impact of two instructional techniques, i.e. provision of textually enhanced
input and recasts, given during a writing class to draw students’ attention to language
form needed for giving pragmatically appropriate constructive criticism on a peer’s
written work. Since much focus-on-form literature addresses L2 grammatical development, more research is needed in the area of L2 pragmatic development (Fuykuya and
Zhang 2002; Koike and Pearson 2005; Martínez-Flor and Fukuya 2005).
The study reported in this article is part of a larger-scale project that sets out to
investigate the relative effectiveness of explicit and implicit form-focused instruction on
the acquisition of the speech act of constructive criticism by a group of Vietnamese EFL
learners (see Nguyen, Pham, and Pham 2012). While the comparative effects of the above
two instructional approaches on the learners’ overall pragmatic performance were
discussed in Nguyen, Pham, and Pham (2012), the present article focuses on examining
how the implicit approach works for different aspects of pragmatic learning that has not
yet been explored in the earlier article (i.e. Nguyen, Pham, and Pham 2012). It is hoped
that by offering an in-depth analysis of the different aspects of the learners’ performance,
the present article would be able to provide insights into questions such as what aspects
of pragmatics are amenable or resistant to instruction and therefore would provide useful
information to guide classroom practices. In particular, one of the questions that the
present article seeks to answer is whether implicit instruction improves learners’
performance in both areas of sociopragmatic appropriateness (conformity to sociocultural
code of language use) and pragmalinguistic accuracy (accurate usage of linguistic
resources for expressing the intended meaning). The reason for an examination of this
question is that despite that grammar is distinctive from pragmatics (see Bachman 1990;
Canale 1983; Canale and Swain 1980), grammar ‘serves as a resource for encoding
different kinds of meaning,’ including pragmatic meaning (Ellis 2008, 195). Learners’
limited grammatical competence may restrict their capacity to produce linguistic actions
effectively (see Nguyen 2008). This is particularly the case in a foreign language context

bold-facing) with an attempt to induce learners’ noticing in an implicit and unobtrusive
manner (Doughty and Williams 1998). This idea is based on the assumption that noticing
is a prerequisite for intake (see Gass 1988; Schmidt 1990, 1993; Sharwood Smith 1981)
and that without being prompted to attend to target forms in language input learners
generally lack sensitivity to them, particularly if these forms lack perceptual salience
(Sharwood Smith 1993). A number of empirical studies have been conducted to
investigate the effects of input enhancement on L2 learning (e.g. Doughty 1991; Izumi
2002; Leeman et al. 1995; White 1998; Wong 2003). Their outcomes are inconclusive,
however. For example, while some studies found significant results (e.g. Alcón-Soler
2005; Doughty 1991; Leeman et al. 1995; Martínez-Flor 2006; Martínez-Flor and AlcónSoler 2007; Martínez-Flor and Fukuya 2005; White 1998), others found limited or no
effects (e.g. Izumi 2002; Fukuya and Clark 2001; Wong 2003). Han, Park, and Combs
(2008) attribute this lack of congruence to methodological idiosyncrasies of the earlier
studies, for example, different choices of target structures (meaningful vs. nonmeaningful) and learners (with vs. without prior knowledge of the target form), nature and lengths
of treatment, and types of enhancement (used with vs. without other attention-getting
devices). Han, Park, and Combs (2008) also point out that despite the mixed results,
previous studies, nonetheless, have shown that although input enhancement may induce
the noticing of form, particularly if the form is meaningful, whether or not it leads to
acquisition depends largely on whether or not the learner has prior knowledge of the form
(also see Sharwood Smith 1981). Further, input enhancement combined with other
attention-getting devices such as corrective feedback may be most effective in causing the
learner to process the form at a deeper level.
Recasts as a type of corrective feedback have been an area of inquiry of great interest
to SLA. Recasts are generally defined as the reformulations of erroneous utterances into
more target-like versions while preserving the original meaning (see Long 1996; Lyster
2004). From the interactionist perspective, recasts are considered useful because they
occur during interaction and the process of negotiation of meaning, thus causing learners
to attend to linguistic form while maintaining their primary focus on meaning (Long
1996). Saxton (1997) also hypothesizes that recasts from caregivers to children learning
their first language enable the latter to make cognitive comparison of their own output
with the adults’ version, thus providing them opportunities to learn the correct form.

evidence of learning or lack of learning. For example, sometimes opportunities for uptake
to occur are impossible. In other cases, repairs might simply be a sign of ‘mimicking.’
Therefore, it has been argued that the evidence of learning should be measured more
reliably by means of carefully designed experimental research.
Unlike in mainstream SLA research, the role and effects of textually enhanced input
and recasts have been scarcely investigated in L2 pragmatic research (e.g. Alcón-Soler
2005; Fukuya et al. 1998; Fukuya and Clark 2001; Fuykuya and Zhang 2002; MartínezFlor and Fukuya 2005). Findings of these studies are also relatively mixed. For example,
whereas Fukuya et al. (1988) found no effects for recasts in teaching sociopragmatic
aspects of L2 requests, Fuykuya and Zhang (2002) reported relatively large impact of
recasts on improving learners’ performance of requests in terms of both sociopragmatic
appropriateness and pragmalinguistic accuracy. Fukuya and Clark (2001) failed to find
positive effects for textual input enhancement in teaching request modifiers. On the other
hand, Alcón-Soler (2005) and Martínez-Flor and Fukuya (2005) found significant
combined effects of textual input enhancement and recasts on the acquisition of L2
requests and suggestions, respectively. See also the positive impact of combining input
enhancement and input flooding in Ghavamnia, Eslami-Rasekha, and Vahid-Dastjerdi’s
(2014) investigation of suggestions and input enhancement and recasts in Eslami,
Mirzaei, and Dini’s (2014) investigation of requests.
Despite their contributions in terms of offering a more developed definition of
implicit instruction compared to earlier works (for a review, see Jeon and Kaya 2006), the
above studies nevertheless have exclusively focused on requests and suggestions, thus
leaving unanswered the question of how implicit teaching works for other speech acts.
Further, most of the above studies employed only a single outcome measure task, thus
limiting the validity of the data (e.g. Alcón-Soler 2005; Fukuya et al. 1988; Fukuya and
Clark 2001; Fuykuya and Zhang 2002). Finally, due to the absence of a delayed posttest


6

M.T.T. Nguyen et al.

the provision of corrective feedback in tandem with instruction is generally supported as
they are deemed complementary in pedagogical terms (see Lyster, Saito, and Sato 2013).
Further, research has shown that employing multiple instructional strategies may produce
more positive learning effects than the adoption of a single teaching strategy (see
Izumi 2002).
Regarding the learning target under inquiry, the present study defines constructive
criticism as a negative assessment of an individual’s work in progress with the aim of
improving current or future performance. This speech act usually involves the
identification of a problematic action, choice, or product as well as advice on how to
change or correct the problem (Nguyen 2005). The use of constructive criticism as a
means of improving L2 learners’ writing skills has been generally supported in the
literature for ‘its social, cognitive, affective and methodological benefits’ (Rollinson
2005, 23). However, due to its face-damaging nature, providing constructive criticism to
a peer can become a daunting experience if learners lack training in it. Research has
documented that students from certain cultures may feel uncomfortable criticizing their
peers’ work or worse yet face considerable difficulty in conveying their message
appropriately. For example, unlike the NS, Vietnamese learners of English tend to soften
their constructive criticism far less frequently while aggravating it far more often, using
modal verbs of obligation inappropriately (see Nguyen 2005). Given that constructive
criticism may pose a challenge to learners who are not familiar with the way it is
performed in the TL, this speech act deserves due pedagogical attention.


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3.2. Participants

result, they did not always put the forms to the correct pragmatic use, as can be seen in
their pretest performance.
The target features selected for instruction included two major criticism realization
strategies: (1) identification of problem and (2) giving advice. The pragmalinguistic
conventions for realizing identification of problem included three structures: (1) NP was
ADJ; (2) You V (past tense); and (3) You had (a/an) (ADJ) NP. The pragmalinguistic
conventions for realizing advice included 12 structures: (1) You can + V; (2) You could +
V; (3) You could have + V (past participle); (4) You may + V; (5) You might + V; (6) You
might want to + V; (7) (If I were you) I would; (8) It would be better if you + V; (9) It
would be better + V (infinitive); (10) If you + V, it may; (11) NP may be + V (past
participle); and (12) Why don’t you?
The target features also comprised two types of criticism modifiers: (1) external
modifiers, including compliments (e.g. It was an interesting paper), disarmers (e.g. You
had a few spelling mistakes here and there but I think that’s because you’re writing pretty
quick, nothing too major), and grounders (e.g. I think ‘it’ is better than ‘are’ there because


8

M.T.T. Nguyen et al.

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‘traffic’ is single) and (2) internal modifiers, including past tense (e.g. I thought it would
make more sense that way), modal verbs (e.g. may, might, could, would), modal adverbs
(e.g. maybe, perhaps, probably), expression of uncertainty (e.g. I wasn’t sure that was the
best phrase you could’ve used), hedges (e.g. sort of, kind of, seem), and understaters (e.g.
a bit, a little bit, quite, rather) (see details in Nguyen, Pham, and Pham 2012). The above
strategies, modifiers, and pragmalinguistic conventions were selected for teaching
because they were found to occur most frequently in NS criticism in equal power

Performance evaluation: For this activity, learners recorded their peer-feedback
conversation, listened to the recording, and evaluated their own performance,
using a set of guiding questions given to them (see Appendix).
Receiving recasts of both pragmatic and grammatical errors that arose out of
communicative tasks (see below). The recasts were also written on the
blackboard at the end of the lesson for students to note down.

Recasts were provided in the form of confirmation checks as these were assumed to
present a clearer corrective intention than the reformulation of errors alone (see Gass and
Alison 2007). Recasts were done as follows. First, the teacher, also the second author,
repeated the erroneous part of the utterance in a rising tone to attract students’ attention.
Then, the teacher said the appropriate utterance, preceded by ‘You mean’, also using a
rising tone. The corrected part was also stressed, as seen in the example below:
Student: You must pay attention to grammar.
Teacher: Must?↑ You mean ‘Perhaps you could pay more attention to grammar?’↑


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In order to decide what and how to recast, the framework proposed by Fuykuya and
Zhang (2002) was adopted. In particular, if an utterance is pragmatically appropriate but
grammatically inaccurate, the teacher recasts only the linguistic form (type 1). If an
utterance is pragmatically inappropriate but grammatically accurate, the teacher recasts its
illocutionary force by using one of the pragmalinguistic conventions for expressing
constructive criticism (type 2). Finally, if an utterance is neither pragmatically appropriate
nor grammatically accurate, the teacher recasts both of its form and illocutionary force
by using one of the pragmalinguistic conventions for expressing constructive criticism
(type 3). This procedure together with illustrative examples is presented in Figure 1.5

Inappropriate
but accurate
(e.g. You must
pay attention to
grammar)

Type 3
Inappropriate
and inaccurate
(e.g. Your
introduction are
too long)

Recasting
linguistic form
(e.g. If I were
you I would
revise it)

Recasting
illocutionary
force
(e.g. Perhaps
you could pay
more attention
to grammar it)

Recasting both
illocutionary
force and

order to analyze the frequency with which the learners in each group externally and
internally modified their constructive criticism, means and standard deviations of each
category of modifiers were computed. This was done by first calculating the number of
external and internal modifiers produced per criticism in each production task by
individual learners in each group and then averaging the outcomes of the three tasks for
each learner. Next, the average outcomes for individual learners in each group were
entered into an SPSS spreadsheet to compute the means and standard deviations for the
groups.
In order to assess the sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic aspects of the learners’
performance of criticism, two rating scales, which were adapted from Martínez-Flor and
Fukuya (2005), were employed. Each scale consisted of five points, with 0 representing
the lowest and five the highest possible score. Sociopragmatic appropriateness (henceforth ‘appropriacy’) was assessed in terms of knowledge of what to say to a particular
interlocutor in a particular context of situation. In this study, appropriacy was determined
by the choice of realization strategies and politeness devices from the list that was taught
to the students (see Section 3.3). These items were derived from an NS database of
constructive criticism between peers in the institutional context that was collected by
Nguyen (2005). Pragmalinguistic accuracy (henceforth ‘accuracy’) was assessed in terms
of knowledge of various expressions for conveying intentions and determined by the
correct usage of relevant linguistic structures, also from the aforementioned list. Note that
accuracy was to be scored only when appropriacy had been achieved. This is because the
ultimate goal of pragmatic instruction is to enable students to find socially appropriate
language for the situations that they encounter (Bardovi-Harlig and Mahan-Taylor 2003);
thus, only when learners can connect newly learned grammatical forms to the
corresponding pragmatic functions should the instruction be considered successful.
Also note that scores were given only when learners were able to use one of the target
forms which had been taught to them in the treatment (see Section 3.3).
The scoring procedure for appropriacy is as follows. If the student was able to employ
the realization strategy and at the same time modify its illocutionary force appropriately
according to the context, he or she would be awarded the full mark of 5. He or she,
however, would be awarded only 2.5 points if his or her utterance was lacking in

pretest to the immediate posttest of the treatment group were also compared with those of
the control group (i.e. between-group comparison). (Recall that delayed posttest data were
not available for the control group – see Section 3.5.) A repeated-measures multivariate
analysis of variance (MANOVA) was employed for the within-group comparison,
whereas a one-way MANOVA was employed for the between-group comparison.

4. Results
Table 1 presents the descriptive statistics for the treatment group, whereas Table 2
presents the descriptive statistics for the control group.
First, results of the repeated-measures MANOVA conducted for the treatment group
revealed a statistically significant multivariate effect [F(8, 11) = 10.5, p < .001, g2p =.89].
Within-group univariate analyses indicated a significant improvement on all four
measurements (that is, appropriacy and accuracy scores, external and internal modifiers)
between the pretest and the two posttest (see Table 3). Post hoc analyses with the Least
Significant Difference procedure showed that in both aspects of appropriacy and
accuracy, differences lay between results gained from the pretest with those from the
Table 1. Descriptive statistics of the treatment group.
Pretest

Appropriacy
Accuracy
External modifier
Internal modifier

Posttest 1

Posttest 2

Pre-to-posttest 1
gains

.50
.22
.12

2.18
2.52
.66
.24

.36
.38
.41
.15

2.1
2.48
.69
.15

.29
.35
.37
.09

.69
.56
.26
.12

.35


Pre-to-posttest 1 gains

M

SD

M

SD

M

SD

1.82
2.11
.56
.19

.46
.47
.32
.15

1.75
1.97
.59
.11


.55] and when the results were considered separately for each dependent variable
[appropriacy: F(1, 39) = 33.6, p < .001, g2p = .46; accuracy: F(1, 39) = 25.1, p < .001,
g2p = .39; external modifiers: F(1, 39) = 4.14, p < .05, g2p = .10; internal modifiers:
F(1, 39) = 19.1, p < .001, g2p = .33] (see Table 4).
5. Discussion
The present study sought to explore the combined effects of input enhancement and
recasts on four different aspects of the learners’ performance of constructive criticism in
English: (1) appropriacy, (2) accuracy, (3) external modifiers, and (4) internal modifiers.
In particular, the study addressed whether the instruction produced positive effects on all
of the four aspects, and whether the effects (if any) lasted beyond the immediate
postexperimental observation. To this end, short- and longer-term improvement of the
treatment group in the above aspects was measured in terms of the learners’ gains from
Table 3. Results of the within-group univariate analyses for the treatment group.
Measure
Appropriacy
Accuracy
External modifier
Internal modifier

Type III sum of squares

df

Mean square

F

Significance

Partial η2



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Table 4. Results of the between-group univariate analyses for the two groups.
Measure

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Appropriacy
Accuracy
External modifier
Internal modifier

Type III sum of squares

df

Mean square

F

Significance

Partial η2

5.92
5.01

the pretest to the immediate posttest of the treatment group were also compared with
those of the control group.
Regarding within-group contrasts, results indicate that the learners’ postexperimental
improvement was evident in all four investigated areas. Relatively strong partial η2 values
found for the learners’ pre-to-posttest gains in these areas (appropriacy: g2p = .72; for
accuracy: g2p = .54; external modifiers: g2p = .26; internal modifiers: g2p = .31) suggest
large magnitudes of impact of instruction on improving the learners’ performance over
time. Results also indicate that learners’ improvement in terms of their appropriacy and
accuracy scores as well as usage of external modifiers was retained by the time of the
delayed posttest, suggesting the durable effects of the instruction on these three aspects of
the learners’ pragmatic performance. On the other hand, there was a lack of sustained
improvement in the learners’ usage of internal modifiers, which indicated that
instructional effects on this aspect of the learners’ pragmatic performance were only
short-lived. While additional follow-up tests are needed to confirm whether the above
observations would be stable over a more extended period of time, the results of the
present study seem to suggest that internal modifiers seem less effectively responsive to
the type of instruction under inquiry than the other three areas of learners’ pragmatic
performance (see Table 5, which shows, on average, the effect size for internal modifiers
was the smallest). A possible account for the lesser responsiveness of internal modifiers
(as compared to external modifiers, for example) may lie in the fact that because internal
modifiers carry less transparent pragmatic meaning, their face-saving function may be
less readily noticeable, especially when not explicitly explained to the learners.
Alternatively, it could have also been explained that since the addition of internal
modifiers may increase the structural complexity of the speech act, thus requiring more
processing effort on the part of the learners, the ability to retrieve internal modifiers in
real-time communication requires a high degree of fluency in the TL (see Hassal 2001;
Nguyen 2008). However, due to the lack of sustained practice of giving peer feedback
beyond the present study, the treatment group might not have maintained their fluency in
Table 5. Cohen’s d effect sizes of the present study.


the immediate posttest was not retained in the longer term.
Concerning between-group contrasts, results of the present study indicate that the
treatment group gained significantly higher scores than the control group in all four
explored areas. Strong partial η2 values found for treatment-versus-control contrasts in the
areas of appropriacy (g2p = .46), accuracy (g2p = .39), and internal modifiers (g2p = .33) and
moderate partial η2 value found in the area of external modifiers (g2p = .10) revealed that
the sizes of these differences were relatively large between the instructed learners and
their uninstructed peers. Taken together, these results suggest that changes in the learners’
postexperimental performance can be safely attributed to the instruction under
investigation.
To interpret the overall effectiveness of the instructional approach employed in this
study as compared to instructional approaches used in previous studies, Cohen’s d effect
sizes were calculated for both within-group (i.e. pretest vs. posttests) and between-group
(i.e. treatment vs. control) analyses (see Table 5) and compared with the corresponding
figures reported by Jeon and Kaya (2006) in their meta-analysis of instructed L2
pragmatics studies, and by Fuykuya and Zhang (2002) and Martínez-Flor and Fukuya
(2005) (see Table 6).
The mean pretest-to-posttest effect size of the present study, calculated by averaging
all effect sizes for pretest vs. immediate posttest and pretest vs. delayed posttest, was
considered very large (d = 2.27). This was larger than the mean effect size of 1.01
reported in Jeon and Kaya (2006). Similarly, the mean treatment-versus-control effect size
in the current study, calculated by averaging all effect sizes for posttest contrasts, was
considered relatively large (d = 1.28), following Cohen’s (1988) recommendation. This
was also larger than the mean effect size of .44 reported for implicit pragmatic instruction
by Jeon and Kaya (2006). Taken together, these results suggest a larger magnitude of
instructional effects for the current study than that reported in earlier studies of L2
pragmatic instruction.
When compared with the two studies to which the current study was closest in terms
of design and pedagogical procedures, i.e. Fuykuya and Zhang (2002) and Martínez-Flor
and Fukuya (2005), it was found that the current study had a larger mean treatmentcontrol effect size to Fuykuya and Zhang (2002) (d = .83 for pragmatic appropriateness;

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Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching

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effects of this study compared to that of Martínez-Flor and Fukuya (2005). In particular,
Martínez-Flor and Fukuya (2005) conducted 12 hours of instruction, whereas the current
study consisted of only approximately 7 hours. Martínez-Flor and Fukuya (2005) targeted
at 12 head acts and 7 downgraders, whereas the current study included instruction of 15
criticizing conventions and 8 types of modifiers. It was assumed that instruction of a
greater number of forms in a shorter period of time might have led to less effect for the
current study. In fact, Ellis and Sheen (2006) have pointed out that recasts can be more
effective when they are focused and intensive (i.e. directed repeatedly at a single
linguistic form) than when they are incidental and extensive (i.e. directed at all types of
errors that occur). Additionally, the type of recasts provided in Martínez-Flor and Fukuya
(2005) may also be considered more explicit than the type of recast provided in the
present study, which might have made the target forms more perceptually salient to
learners.
Nonetheless, despite the different magnitudes of instructional effects found between
the current study and Martínez-Flor and Fukuya (2005), the findings of the current study
were generally consistent with the findings of both Fuykuya and Zhang (2002) and
Martínez-Flor and Fukuya (2005). Overall, the present study has shown that although
constructive criticism is a challenging speech act, requiring a high degree of both
linguistic complexity and pragmatic sophistication, it seems responsive to input
enhancement and recast activities (especially in the aspect of learners’ appropriacy,
accuracy and usage of external modifiers). The results of the current study, therefore,
have made another case for the benefits of inducing noticing of forms via input
enhancement and recasts, particularly when the two techniques are combined (see Han,
Park, and Combs 2008).


repeating the correct version in a rising voice). Also, the recasts were subsequently
written on the blackboard at the end of the lesson to promote noticing. According to
Doughty (2001), the effectiveness of recasts can be improved when their saliency is
enhanced, for example, by repeating the non-target-like part of a learner’s utterance and
reformulating it in interrogative form (also see Sheen 2006, for further discussion on this
point).
One noteworthy point, however, is that although learners scored significantly higher
in the two posttests than in the pretest with regard to both appropriacy and accuracy, their
posttest mean scores were not as high as expected (i.e. below 3 points out of a maximum
possible score of 5 points for each aspect). A close analysis of individual scores also
showed that learners did not make similar gains. In fact, their mean gains (calculated by
averaging the gains from the pretest to each of the two posttests) ranged between .11 and
1.24 (M = .65, SD = .30) for appropriacy and between −.15 and 1.24 (M = .53, SD = .38)
for accuracy. Similar observations were also made for the learners’ usage of external and
internal modifiers. Despite a general postexperimental improvement in these two areas,
the learners’ mean gains varied greatly from −.09 to 0.63 for external modifiers (M = .27,
SD = .33) and from −.017 to 0.27 for internal modifiers (M = .07, SD = .11). These
results suggested that the intervention may not work equally successfully for every
learner. These results may have been linked to the possible variation across learners in
terms of their use of target feedback instances and forms during communicative practice
(i.e. peer-feedback sessions). In particular, since there was no specification on the amount
of feedback one needed to provide on a peer’s work, this amount may vary from learner
to learner, leading to possibly different amounts of practice among them. Additionally,
since some learners may have made more errors than others, they may also have received
greater amount of recasts directed at them. Although recasts directed at individual
learners may be available to the rest of the class as hearers (Sheen 2010), not every
learner may be attentive enough to benefit from the feedback that was not addressed to
them directly. An alternative explanation for the varying learning outcomes among the
learners may also be related to possible variations in terms of the learners’ prior

have overloaded learning capacity. Potential individual variation in terms of amount of
practice could also have been more effectively controlled to enhance instructional effects.
For example, detailed protocols may be given to learners to guide them with respect to
how much feedback they should aim to provide to peers in each session. Further, some
learner training in what to attend to in positive and negative input might also help
produce better learning outcomes, particularly when learners are not sufficiently formconscious. In this study, it is assumed that the two instructional techniques were not
maximally effective perhaps due to a lack of such training. Finally, it is believed that
opportunities for sustained practice are important for maintaining instructional effects on
less salient, yet structurally more complex, pragmatic features such as internal modifiers.
In this study, the short-lived effects of the instruction on the learners’ usage of internal
modifiers were attributed to the absence of these opportunities.
Despite the insightful findings, the current study, nevertheless, suffers from
limitations that need to be addressed in future research. The sample size of the current
study was relatively small and gender-biased (2 males and 39 females), thus affecting the
generalizability of the findings. The delayed posttest was given only to the treatment
group, limiting the comparison with the control learners. Other problems include a lack of
consideration of individual learner variables such as working memory, cognitive
orientation, language anxiety, or motivation that may affect learners’ receptivity (Egi
2010; Ellis and Sheen 2006; Sheen 2008). Similarly, research has shown that learners’
perceptions of their own cultural identity may lead to the resistance to NS norms and thus
the teacher’s correction of sociopragmatic choices (see Thomas 1983). Unfortunately,
these issues have not been considered in the present study, but they may be worth
investigating in future research. Finally, while it is believed that input enhancement used
alongside another attention-getting device such as recasts may lead to greater learning
success, this combination, nonetheless, can make it difficult to identify the source of
improvement. Future research may as well single out each technique to test, thus
furthering our understanding of their separate effects on L2 pragmatic development.
Notes
1. As noted by Jeon and Kaya (2006), the distinction between explicit and implicit instruction tends
to constitute a continuum rather than a dichotomy in previous L2 pragmatic research. As such,

questionnaire. They found some stylistic characteristics that distinguish ‘good’ from ‘bad’
criticism. For example, ‘good’ criticism needs to display positive language and manner. The
changes suggested in it must be specific enough, and the critic must offer to help make them
possible. The reasons for criticizing must usually be justified and made explicit and the criticism
compensated for by being placed in a larger positive message. ‘Good’ criticism also does not
violate the relationship between interlocutors and is accurate. While adopting these criteria, we
acknowledge, however, that for some activities, such as responding to sample essays, it was
difficult for the learners to evaluate the effectiveness of their and the NS feedback without
knowing how it would have been co-constructed by the target hearer. Nonetheless, the real
purpose of these activities was to incidentally expose the learners to the target structures rather
than to teach them how to evaluate criticism, which they had already learned in the first session
and continued to practice in the subsequent reflection tasks.
5. It should be noted that although the corrected part was stressed phonologically, we cannot be
certain that the recast was understood the way it was intended. This may particularly be the case
for Type 3 where there were more than one error to deal with. Unfortunately, we did not
interview the students to find out whether or not they noticed the focus of the correction.
However, the students’ postexperimental improvement has attested to the efficacy of the
treatment.

Notes on contributors
Minh Thi Thuy Nguyen is an Assistant Professor at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang
Technological University, Singapore. Her research interests and recent publications include
pragmatics and language learning, language pedagogy, and language teacher education.
Hanh Thi Pham is a Lecturer at the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education at the University
of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi. Her professional and
research interests are curriculum development, testing and assessment, SLA, and teacher education.
Tam Minh Pham is a Lecturer at the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education at the
University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi. Her
research interests include language pedagogy and language teacher education.


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Worksheet 8: Reflection checklist
(1) What aspect did you focus on when giving feedback on your friend’s essay?
(2) How effective do you feel your feedback was?
(3) How do you think your friend would feel about your feedback? Why?
(4) If you could do this feedback task again, what would you like to change about your feedback? Why?