ABSTRACT
Shrouf, Fayzeh Mohammed Abed Al-Lateef. (2009). Designing an Instructional
Programme and Measuring its Effect on Jordanian Secondary Stage Students'
Learning of Politeness Strategies. Ph.D. Dissertation, Yarmouk University.
(Supervisor: Professor Oqlah Smadi).
This study was aimed at investigating the extent of the subjects' use of
politeness strategies and finding if there is a significant difference in using the
politeness strategies under study due to the independent variables: the instructional
programme, the Stream, and the interaction between the two. Moreover, this study
tried to explore the possibility of a pragmatic transfer from L1 to L2 in using
politeness strategies.
Three types of politeness were included in this study: compliments, apologies
and requests. The subjects of this study consisted of two groups: an Experimental
Group and a Control Group. The subjects were chosen purposefully from students
registered in the first semester of 2008/2009, in the first secondary grade, in two
female public schools in Amman that belong to the Second Directorate of Education.
The two groups sat for a Discourse Completion Task (DCT), designed as a pre-test,
which was based on content analysis of the mainstream textbooks from the first to the
first secondary grades. The students’ overall achievement on the pre-test was very
poor due to their insufficient knowledge of the politeness strategies. The Experimental
Group were exposed to an instructional programme of politeness strategies for two
months which was developed and taught by the researcher for the purpose of this
study. Both the test and the materials were validated by a group of professional
experts and university professors in the field.
Subsequent to the instructional
programme, both the Control Group and the Experimental Group sat for the same
DCT as a post-test in order to examine the effect of the instructional programme.
The results were very encouraging since the achievement of the students in the
Experimental Group improved significantly, compared to the Control Group. The
study also showed that there was a significant difference between the literary stream
and the scientific stream in favour of the scientific one. This study also showed that
there was an interaction between the teaching material and the stream. In addition, the
results of the students' responses revealed that there was a pragmatic transfer from L1
Arabic to L2 English.
Based on these results it is recommended that politeness strategies should be
taught as an independent subject. Moreover, the researcher proposed additional
recommendations related to the importance of training students on the use of certain
strategies that could be helpful in learning politeness.
Key words: Jordanian students' politeness strategies, pragmatic
transfer, teaching pragmatics.