| dc.description.abstract | In the field of language teaching and learning, pragmatic competence is believed to be a key
component for developing communicative competence in EFL learners. Many studies found that the content
of English textbooks lack of exposure to pragmatic materials. Furthermore, while pragmatic competence in
EFL textbooks has been widely explored in a variety of international contexts, there is a limited study in the
Thai context. The present study aims to fill this gap by investigating the representation of speech acts, which
carries the ability to enhance pragmatic competence, in the three-tier education of ELT (English Learning
Textbook) textbooks in Thai non-formal education. To attain this goal, Searle's (1976) speech act theory, as
the framework of data analysis, is adopted to examine the types of speech acts in dialogue activities in the
three textbooks. The study also utilizes frequency analysis in regard to the frequency of emerging speech acts
as well as potential indications derived from both high and low frequencies. Overall, the three chosen ELT
textbooks demonstrate limited and uneven representation of the speech act, reflecting significant gaps in
pragmatic content. Only three types of speech acts, such as representatives, directives, and expressives
dominate the textbooks, while commissives and declarations are deficient. The indications, based on the
frequency results, are that, first, it is resulted from a variety of curriculum objectives designated for each
textbook in different Thai non-formal educational stages; second, it is an expectation towards learners to
develop social skills through certain conversation topics. Given that findings, an approach to comprehensively
cover all the speech acts in the textbooks is by including a specific section dedicating to speech act input and
strategies. | en_US |
