Introduction

Although language proficiency is often listed as an area of interest for non-native English-speaking teachers (NNESTs) in many papers (Mahboob, 2004; Medgyes, 1994; Pasternak & Bailey, 2004; Samimy & Brutt-Griffler, 1999), there is lack of research on enhancing the language proficiency of NNESTs in general, and their pragmatic competence in particular.

Pragmatic competence is a central component in Bachman's (1990) model of language competence and incorporates the ability to use the language to express a wide range of functions as well as interpret their illocutionary force in discourse according to the sociocultural context in which they are used. In Bachman's model, pragmatic competence is not subordinated to knowledge of grammar and text organization but coordinated with formal linguistic and textual knowledge and interacts with 'organizational competence' in complex ways. In order to communicate appropriately in a target language, pragmatic competence in the second/foreign language (L2) must be reasonably well developed. However, L2 learners often show an imbalance in pragmatic and grammatical competence in interlanguage (Celce-Murcia et al. , 1995; Koike & Pearson, 2005), and pragmatic competence often lags behind grammatical competence (Olshtain & Blum-Kulka, 1985). Research findings (Alcón, 2005; Bardovi-Harlig & Dörnyei, 1998; Bardovi-Harlig & Griffin, 2005) strongly suggest that without a pragmatic focus, foreign language teaching raises students' metalinguistic awareness but it does not contribute much to develop their metapragmatic consciousness in L2 to be able to distinguish between what is and is not appropriate in given contexts. Blum-Kulka et al. (1989: 10) submit that 'even fairly advanced language learners' communicative acts regularly contain pragmatic errors, or deficits, in that they fail to convey or comprehend the intended illocutionary force or politeness value'.