Three-part pragmatic lesson sequence on Spanish request strategies

Design · All designs
Evidence · 4 claims (3 for, 1 against) · 1 study (1 causal), q2 · 0 of 1 report an effect size · 4 claims rest on one study

Description

An instructional element consisting of three 20-minute classroom sessions (approximately 60 minutes total) on request strategies in Spanish, delivered to the SHL and L2 experimental groups during a spring 2017 semester. The first session was an explicit lesson displaying typical request strategies by level of imposition and explaining the hearer-oriented nature of Spanish requests; the remaining sessions followed a more implicit approach, including categorizing request clips from popular Spanish films. The lessons were adapted from Langer (2013), CARLA (2006), and Martín Ruiz (2011) to student proficiency level.

Design Implications

Context

Requirements

• Delivery within existing courses without modifying departmental or course outcomes, so no additional variables arise between control and experimental groups; materials adapted to students' proficiency level.

Constraints

• The lessons addressed only request strategies (formal vs. informal situations, imposition levels, indirect and hearer-oriented requests), not pragmatics broadly.

Target Learners

• college students of Spanish, both heritage and L2, at intermediate to intermediate-high proficiency

Learning Goals

• selecting pragmatically appropriate request strategies in Spanish according to social distance, power, and imposition

Claims

• The L2 experimental group improved more than the SHL group after the pragmatic interventions on both DCT measures [+W]
• Pragmatic lessons on requests did not significantly improve SHL learners' pragmatic request competence, with scores decreasing from pre- to post-test [-W]
• Pragmatic lessons produced descriptive but not statistically significant gains in the L2 experimental group's request performance [+W]
• The L2 control group's minimal growth suggests other variables such as grammar lessons did not drive the experimental group's gains [+W]

Related Designs

• Three-lesson explicit pragmatic intervention sequence on compliment sequences

Examples

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Key Sources

• Barros García, M. J., & Bachelor, J. W. (2018). Pragmatic Instruction May Not Be Necessary Among Heritage Learners of Spanish: A Study on Requests. Journal of Foreign Language Education and Technology, 3(1). https://jflet.com/jflet/

Page metadata

Field	Value
type	design
id	three-pragmatic-lessons-request-strategies
title	Three-part pragmatic lesson sequence on Spanish request strategies
description	An instructional element consisting of three 20-minute classroom sessions (approximately 60 minutes total) on request strategies in Spanish, delivered to the SHL and L2 experimental groups during a spring 2017 semester.
status	review
generated	by process:settle-candidates on 2026-11-02
trust	unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
sources	1 — barros-garcía-2018

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