The relationships between languages have been highlighted in recent research (Cenoz & Gorter 2013; Ortega 2014). In spite of this, limited research on pragmatics research has been carried out in the multilingual classroom.
The aim of the present study is to explore in what ways individual differences and personal experiences affect pragmatic development in an English as a foreign language classroom. Participants were 313 learners of English from 10 secondary schools in Spain. Each learner wrote one argumentative essay three times over the course of one academic year during regular classes, and a mixed-method approach was followed to examine gains in the production of textual discourse-pragmatic markers.