The Effect of Flipped Classroom Instruction on Developing Saudi EFL Learners’ Comprehension of Conversational Implicatures

Abstract

While pragmatic instruction has received considerable attention from researchers of interlanguage pragmatics over the last three decades, its effective implementation in the EFL classroom remains an unresolved question. The flipped classroom model is a recently developed teaching method that constitutes a role change for teachers and learners, inverting the front-of-class instruction paradigm in favor of active and collaborative classroom learning. To potentially take advantage of this promising trend, the present study seeks to explore the effectiveness of the flipped classroom for developing Saudi EFL undergraduates’ pragmatic competence and language proficiency by focusing on the comprehension of conversational implicatures during one academic semester. A total of 100 students, assigned to flipped teaching group (n=50) and traditional teaching group (n=50), participated in the study. To elicit the required data, the Oxford Placement Test, a discourse completion test, and reflective e-portfolios were used. A post-test revealed that pragmatic competence significantly increased in the case of the flipped group. The mean score of the flipped group (M=18.48) was considerably higher than that of the traditional group (M=14.68). In following the flipped model of instruction, this progress was influenced by effective out-of-class preparation and appropriate manipulation of in-class time.