The Effect of Strategy Training of Speech Acts of Request and Apology on Developing Iranian EFL Learners “Pragmatic Performance and Critical Thinking”

Since requesting happens in a circumstance of imbalance, the speaker ought to continuously respect the principles of politeness without consideration to the question of their request. This study investigated the effect of strategy training of speech acts of asking and statements of regret on developing Iranian EFL learners’ pragmatic performance and critical thinking. According to the nature of the treatment, it was decided to select the participants who had not had enough language exposure at the language institute before the study. For this, before conducting an Oxford English Test (OPT), it was expected to select those whose scores would fall between one standard deviation (+1SD) above the mean and one standard deviation (-1SD) below the mean as the cut-off criterion. Finally, 80 out of 114 Iranian EFL male and female learners from six language classes in intermediate level of proficiency were chosen. Next, they were divided randomly into two experimental and control groups (20 males and 20 females, for each group). A mixed-method design was utilized; the qualitative data collected via interview was used to triangulate the quantitative data collected. The data were investigated by two skilled raters, specified in applied linguistics to recognize the effectiveness of strategy training of request and apology speech acts. The data were keyed into the SPSS. 22. The finding showed that there was an important positive consequence of strategy training of speech act of request on developing Iranian EFL learners’ pragmatic performance. A meaningful relationship was found between critical thinking and pragmatic performance.