The Effects of Content-Based Pragmatic Instruction on Secondary School EFL Learners’ Production of Requests and Responses

This study examines changes in secondary-school English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ production of requests and responses and their confidence in judging pragmatic appropriateness following Concept-Based Pragmatics Instruction (CBPI). Fifteen Spanish learners aged 14–15, with upper-A2 to lower-B1 English proficiency, participated in three 50-minute sessions organised into orienting, execution and control stages. Scenes from Young Sheldon (Lorre and Molaro 2017–2024), conceptual maps and role-plays supported the materialisation and verbalisation of imposition, social distance and pragmatic choices. A pre-test–post-test design combined written Interactive Discourse Completion Tasks and a perception questionnaire. Descriptive analyses showed broader request repertoires, more frequent and varied modifiers, and more clarifications and refusals alongside fewer granting responses. Request frequency also varied across situations. Following instruction, all learners completed and justified their evaluations, increasingly using sociopragmatic concepts rather than grammatical accuracy. These exploratory findings suggest potential benefits for pragmatic awareness and reasoned decision-making, with implications for integrating concept-based instruction into secondary EFL classrooms. The small sample, the absence of a control group, the use of written tasks and the immediate post-test prevent causal claims or conclusions about retention or spontaneous spoken performance.