An Attempt to Identify Some Positive Effects of Teaching Speech Act of Requesting through Computer-Based Activities

Abstract

Nowadays, Pragmatics becomes a crucial discipline in the field of teaching foreign languages. Pragmatists reach that the language is no more a production of sentences related together by grammatical rules, but rather it is a socio-cultural phenomenon. The main concern of pragmatics is to make the students be able to produce and comprehend the target language, and which the students usually fail to achieve. The students master the linguistic rules of the language, but they are unable to use them appropriately according to different social situations because they ignore the socio-cultural norms. The students are unable to use speech act of requests, and which is very important for them. This research is aiming at looking for new activities that help in developing the students' ability to use speech act of requesting appropriately. We believe that teaching speech act of requesting through computer-based activities in English foreign language classroom would have some positive effects on the ability to use appropriate requests in different social contexts. In order to test our hypothesis and answer our research questions, we chose the descriptive method. We used the questionnaire as a date gathering tool. We administered one questionnaire to one hundred students of the third year LMD, and another one for their teachers of oral expression at the University of Mohamed Keither of Biskra. The results of the questionnaires revealed that Computer-Based activities do really have some positive effects in teaching speech act of requesting. Exposing videos of native speakers' conversations through computers can help the students to view and listen to the real use of requests. Therefore, the students can produce grammatically correct and socially appropriate requests. Computer-based activities can help in raising the students' communicative and pragmatic competence. After dealing with both of the literature review and the field work, we would suggest the following pedagogical recommendations: the students need to be equipped with technology especially with computers where they can be engaged in authentic use of requests. In addition, the use of authentic materials like journals, magazines, videos, tapes of native speakers' conversations can better help the students to directly recognize the target culture. It is also so beneficial for the students if they practice to use speech act of requests through role-plays after viewing native speakers.