Speech acts are one of the most widely examined pragmatic features that second and foreign language (L2/FL) learners need to master in order to communicate appropriately in the target language. Without a proper knowledge of how to use and understand a particular speech act that is appropriate to the contextual and cultural parameters of a specific situation, L2/FL learners may run the risk of being perceived as rude and/or impolite. Consequently, providing them with the opportunities to develop their ability to perform and recognise speech acts in particular communicative situations is nowadays recognised as the ultimate goal of language teaching. To that end, this chapter reports the synthesis findings of nineteen interventional studies on the speech act of requesting as it has the potential to cause offence if expressed inappropriately. Three questions have guided this investigation: 1) is the speech act of requesting teachable at all? 2) is instruction in requesting more effective than no instruction? and 3) are different teaching approaches differentially effective in teaching requests? Findings from this synthesis are presented and discussed in line with emerging trends in teaching pragmatics (see Taguchi 2019). The chapter concludes with some directions for future research and offers insights regarding how to best help learners develop appropriate speech acts.