This study examines Japanese university EFL learners’ knowledge and use of pragmatic routines by two computer-delivered assessments: a Pragmatic Routine Knowledge Scale (PRKS) and an Oral Discourse Completion Task (ODCT). The results confirmed that 50 participants’ confidence in the knowledge of pragmatic routines differed largely depending on the type of pragmatic routines in the comprehension task (PRKS). Recognition knowledge (PRKS) did not necessarily relate to production knowledge (ODCT). Moreover, the results of the production task (ODCT) revealed that learners used some pragmatic routines more frequently than others. The results of this study suggest that Japanese EFL classrooms need to provide learners with sufficient instruction of both grammatical and pragmalinguistic knowledge to understand and use complex pragmatic routines, and then provide them with sufficient instruction of sociopragmatic knowledge to map those forms onto appropriate communicative functions.

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This longitudinal study examines how speaking performance of senior high school students at a Super English Language High School (SELHi) in Japan improves across 16 months. The 37 participants, who were frequently exposed to English input, completed a picture-description task three times. The results showed that some aspects of speaking performance, namely, fluency (as measured by the number of tokens per minute and by pauses) and complexity (as measured by the number of clauses and of words per c-unit), developed significantly over 16 months. Moreover, in some aspects of speaking performance, especially fluency and complexity, effects sizes showed medium or large degrees of development. The findings of this study and previous longitudinal studies are consistent, suggesting positive effects on fluency and complexity.

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