Interlanguage pragmatics is a significant field within applied linguistics that explores how second language (L2) learners acquire, understand, and use pragmatic aspects of language. As language teaching and assessment have evolved, various methods have been developed to teach and assess interlanguage pragmatics among L2 learners, including Concept-based Pragmatic Instruction, Dynamic Assessment, and Explicit Instruction. This study investigates three methods of instruction in order to provide empirical evidence on their relative effectiveness in teaching the target speech acts. This study, utilizing a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest research design, used a quantitative approach with 74 participants divided into three experimental groups—conceptbased pragmatic instruction (N = 25), group dynamic assessment (N = 25), and explicit instruction (N = 24)— to evaluate the effectiveness of these instructional methods in teaching three speech acts: requests, refusals, and apologies. The participants were selected from a pool of 98 volunteers and selected based on their language proficiency. They were randomly assigned to one of the three groups. A written discourse completion test (WDCT), comprising 12 scenarios (four per speech act), was administered before and after the intervention to assess participants' pragmatic knowledge and measure their progress. Findings indicate that participants in the group dynamic assessment exhibited the most significant improvement, followed by those in concept-based pragmatic instruction. Explicit instruction was found to be less effective compared to the other two methods, though there were no significant differences between concept-based and explicit instruction in the context of teaching refusals. The observed differences suggest that the Vygotskian concepts of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) and the instructor's mediating role likely contribute to better learning outcomes in group dynamic assessment. Overall, the instruction of pragmatics remains a critical component of modern language teaching, and future L2 learners are likely to benefit more from group dynamic assessment than from the other methods explored in this study.
