The Effect of Speech Act Functions on the Development of Efl Learners' High Order Thinking Skills

Abstract

In the globalized age, English language becomes lingua franca. Therefore, there should be convention between interlocutors on the intended meaning of utterances to avoid the misunderstanding of the speech acts used in cross-cultural speech communities. Speech act theory is a pragmatic theory which asserted that words are not just uttered words, but also they perform action. However, understanding and producing speech acts efficiently and appropriately in contextualized situations demands high order thinking skills such as to remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create. EFL learners have many pragmatic problems that hinder using high order thinking skills in communication. Thus, an experimental research design with pre/posttest to control and experiment groups was done to cycle III students (N = 60) from the Lebanese Public Schools. The results revealed that analyzing the appropriate and relevant meaning of speech acts developed high order thinking skills, and thus they became proficient communicators in all language skills. Therefore, all EFL teachers, material designers, and learners are advised to incorporate speech act functions to develop high order thinking skills and create creative learners who are able to translate their intentions appropriately and efficiently in English in the global world.