Teaching Speech Acts in EFL Classroom: The Effect of Role Play in Developing Learners’ Fluency and Confidence Among 8th Grade

Grounded in Speech Act Theory and sociocultural perspectives on language learning, this study investigates the impact of illocutionary speech-act–based role-play instruction on speaking fluency and self-confidence among Palestinian eighth-grade EFL learners. Despite the centrality of speaking competence in communicative language pedagogy, classroom practices in many EFL contexts, including Palestinian schools, continue to prioritize grammatical accuracy and rote memorization over pragmatic functionality and spontaneous interaction. This imbalance often results in learners’ limited ability to perform context-appropriate speech acts and to communicate with fluency and confidence. Adopting a qualitative quasi-experimental design, the study involved 33 eighth-grade students in a structured instructional intervention that integrated explicit speech-act instruction with scaffolded and creative role-play activities. Data were collected through diagnostic and achievement speaking tests, teacher observation rubrics assessing fluency, pragmatic appropriateness, and confidence, audio recordings, and reflective field notes. Findings revealed substantial improvements in learners’ oral performance across three interrelated domains: (1) increased fluency characterized by reduced hesitation, improved turn-taking, and enhanced prosodic control; (2) strengthened self-confidence evidenced by clearer voice projection, improved body language, and heightened willingness to participate; and (3) greater pragmatic appropriateness reflected in more accurate and socially acceptable use of requests, apologies, compliments, and refusals. The results underscore the pedagogical value of integrating pragmatically grounded role-play tasks within middle-school EFL curricula to foster interactional competence and reduce speaking anxiety. The study contributes to instructed interlanguage pragmatics research by contextualizing speech act pedagogy within the Palestinian EFL setting, offering both theoretical enrichment and practical implications for communicative curriculum reform.