The Effect of Flipped Classroom Instruction on Developing Saudi EFL Learners’ Comprehension of Conversational Implicatures

Abstract

While pragmatic instruction has received considerable attention from researchers of interlanguage pragmatics over the last three decades, its effective implementation in the EFL classroom remains an unresolved question. The flipped classroom model is a recently developed teaching method that constitutes a role change for teachers and learners, inverting the front-of-class instruction paradigm in favor of active and collaborative classroom learning. To potentially take advantage of this promising trend, the present study seeks to explore the effectiveness of the flipped classroom for developing Saudi EFL undergraduates’ pragmatic competence and language proficiency by focusing on the comprehension of conversational implicatures during one academic semester. A total of 100 students, assigned to flipped teaching group (n=50) and traditional teaching group (n=50), participated in the study. To elicit the required data, the Oxford Placement Test, a discourse completion test, and reflective e-portfolios were used. A post-test revealed that pragmatic competence significantly increased in the case of the flipped group. The mean score of the flipped group (M=18.48) was considerably higher than that of the traditional group (M=14.68). In following the flipped model of instruction, this progress was influenced by effective out-of-class preparation and appropriate manipulation of in-class time.

Amalgamating Bloom’s Taxonomy and Artificial Intelligence to Face the Challenges of Online EFL Learning Amid Post-COVID-19 In Saudi Arabia

“…Yet, technology integration enhances a student-centered approach to learning, and automated planning enables EFL students to improve and manage their regulation skills significantly within the online learning environment (Alsmari, 2020;Lee et al, 2020). Even with feasible technology, practical training remains one of the significant reasons which impedes Luddite teachers from integrating technology into teaching (Al-Saleh, 2018;Alnujaidi, 2021;Farooq & Soomro, 2018).…”

Telling People to Change Their Behaviour Through Implications: An Implicature Analysis on Covid-19 Public Service Announcements in Indonesia

“…Overall, there is little the researchers can do in terms of critically comparing the results of this study with previous studies since it explores a rather new territory. Studies on implicatures have mostly focused in the language learning classroom context, either in evaluating students' understanding and comprehension of implicatures (Alsmari, 2020;Derakhshan & Eslami, 2020) or investigating the effect of certain teaching models or learning technologies in the teaching of this pragmatics feature (Abdelhafez, 2016;Samaje & Ariyanmanesh, 2018). Many previous studies that investigated types of implicatures did not look at public service announcements, but works of literature such as The Pride and Prejudice novel (Wibawa, 2017), Princess Diaries novel (Budiaty, 2014), Beauty and the Beast movie (Tiara, 2018), Oedipus Rex play script (Megawati, 2019) and poems written by Audre Lorde (Igwedibia, 2017).…”

“…Their results were a continuation and proof of their previous study on the effectiveness of video-input for teaching pragmatics (Derakhshan, Mohsenzadeh, & Mohammadzadeh, 2014). Alsmari (2020) tries to see if flipped classroom instruction affected Saudi EFL learners' comprehension of conversational implicatures and found that effective out-of-class preparation and appropriate manipulation of in-class time did increase pragmatic competence.…”

A Video-driven Approach to Promoting Pragmatic Development in the Context of English as a Foreign Language

“…As a result, empirical investigations have sought to securitize the effects of various contextual parameters that may activate the acquisition of L2 pragmatic competence, such as motivation, language proficiency, emotional intelligence, the educational setting, length of residence in a TL country, and metapragmatic discussions (Derakhshan & Eslami, 2015;Sánchez-Hernández & Alcón-Soler, 2019;Rafieyan et al, 2014;Roever, 2012;Takahashi, 2010a;Takahashi, 2010b). As pragmatics have increasingly proven to be amenable to intervention, ILP researchers and practitioners have begun examining the effectiveness of dichotomous teaching approaches and modes of instruction in comparison to others and exploring whether different teaching approaches yield different outcomes in various contextual settings, namely explicit vs. implicit, inductive vs. deductive, input vs. output-based instruction, and metapragmatic instruction, with a few studies focusing on the Arab World English Journal www.awej.org ISSN: 2229-9327 5 integration of modern technological tools into L2 pragmatics instruction (e.g., Alcón-Soler & Pitarch, 2010;Alsmari, 2020;Takahashi, 2010a).…”