Résumé:
One of the major aims of Foreign Language Teaching is to achieve efficient communication
that encompasses both linguistic and communicative aspects. However, English as a Foreign
Language learners may suffer from communication breakdowns that are mainly due to
pragmatics deficiency. Since this issue is becoming more and more recurrent among students,
attempts were made to improve this skill. Therefore, cultural knowledge has been emphasized
as a solution; i.e., raising students' intercultural awareness through making them acquainted
with different cultural aspects. This latter would help in improving the use of language in
context. Thereby, this study aims at exploring the role of intercultural awareness in enhancing
students’ pragmatic skill. The study focuses on scrutinizing whether the goals of incorporating
culture in Foreign Language Teaching were met through teachers and students’ perspectives.
For this regard, and based on the hypothesis that students’ intercultural awareness is raised, then
their pragmatic skill would be promoted, the research employs a descriptive analytical method
with two different data-gathering tools. A questionnaire was administered to 103 second-year
master students at the department of English Language, University of 8 Mai 1945 Guelma,
accompanied by teachers’ interview conducted with 12 teachers. The aim was to investigate
students and teachers’ views towards the efficiency of including culture in English as a Foreign
Language classrooms to form pragmatically competent students. The findings proved the
truthfulness of the hypothesis which show that intercultural awareness promotes pragmatic skill
and both students and teachers affirmed that. Even more, they insisted on the great impact of
culture and intercultural awareness in the learning process as a whole and pragmatic
competence specifically
