Native and Non-native Teacher's Pragmatic Criteria for Rating Request Speech Act: The Case of American and Iranian EFL Teachers

Over the last few decades, several aspects of pragmatic knowledge and its effects on teaching and learning a second language (L2) have been explored in many studies. However, among various studies, the area of interlanguage pragmatic (ILP) assessment is quite novel issue and many features of it have remained unnoticed. As ILP assessment has received more attention recently, the necessity of investigation on the EFL teachers‟ rating criteria for rating various speech acts has become important. In this respect, the present study aimed to investigate the native and non-native EFL teachers‟ rating scores and criteria regarding the speech act of request. To this end, 50 American ESL teachers and 50 Iranian EFL teachers participated to rate the EFL learners‟ responses to video-prompted Discourse Completion Tests (DCTs) regarding the speech act of request. Raters were supposed to rate the EFL learners‟ responses and mention their criteria for assessment. The results of the content analysis of raters‟ comments revealed nine criteria that they considered in their assessment. Moreover, the result of the t-test and chi-square analyses of raters‟ rating scores and criteria proved that there are significant differences between native and non-native EFL teachers‟ rating pattern. The results of this study also shed light on importance of sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic features in native and non-native teachers‟ pragmatic rating, which can have several implications for L2 teachers, learners, and material developers.