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Formulaic competence is one of the key aspects of mastering a foreign language and one of the most challenging. Our study explored two factors that could potentially contribute to successful learning of formulas. First, we investigated if the same pragmatic formulaic sequences presented in videos from two different genres, TED talks and Friends, are noticed and learnt differently. Secondly, we used highlighting to see if it helps learners to focus on the target expressions and leads to better learning. The results showed that both factors have an impact on learners’ performance and could be used for designing effective language instructions.