6. Conclusion
The present study employed two sets of instrument: a TOEIC test consisting of 40 multiple choice test items and a multiple choice discourse completion test with 30 test items. The former was measured subjects’ English proficiency, while the latter tested their pragmatic competence regarding the three speech acts: offering help, addressing people, and responding to compliments. Findings revealed that there was a positive relationship between the scores of the TOEIC and the pragmatic tests. The students with high level of language proficiency tended to have high competence on pragmatics. However, when considering each group intensively, it was found that the middle group could not perform well on the pragmatic test, although they scored higher on the TOEIC than the low group. It can be interpreted that having high linguistic knowledge can help students succeed in English learning. However, it may not result in equivalent. The present study also found that male students could perform better than their female counterparts in pragmatic test.
It can be suggested that to survive in today’s international and intercultural communication, Thai students, especially those who have to interact with foreigners as do the students majoring in tourism industry, should be intensively taught both linguistics and pragmatics in the classroom settings.