Mansoor Fahim - IAU, Science and Research Branch, Tehran
Mahdi Aghabagheri - Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, Meybod Nursing School
Mohammad Rezai - University of Yazd

   Although discourse markers lend themselves widely to spoken as well as written discourse, unfortunately there is not any common consensus on categorization, classification, status and other related issues. The present study endeavored to find out if raising pragmatic awareness in the case of contrastive discourse markers has a statistically significant effect on speaking proficiency. The effect of raising pragmatic awareness on speaking proficiency through peer interactions was also investigated. To this end, ۳۰ EFL Iranian high intermediate learners (۲۵ females and ۵ males), homogenized by standardized placement test of Cambridge, participated in the study. After going through the pre-test, namely iBT speaking sample, they were exposed to ۱۸ speaking tasks listed in Phillips (۲۰۰۷), followed by a post-test as well as a delayed post-test. Next, three raters considering data-driven reasoning processes listened to ۵۴۰ participants’ recorded files and scored the performances. The results of the research revealed a statistically significant effect of raising pragmatic awareness on speaking proficiency by contrastive discourse markers deductive teaching on one hand and the statistically significant effect of raising pragmatic awareness on speaking proficiency through peer interactions on the other.

raising pragmatic awareness, contrastive discourse markers, iBT speaking module, peer interactions