Abstract：This study evaluates the comparative effects of explicit and implicit form-focus instructions on three English major classes' acquisition of pragmatic competence of constructive criticism. The findings are as follows: formal pragmatic instruction works in pragmatic knowledge learning for Chinese college students because their opportunities for English input and interaction outside the classroom are often limited; the effect of explicit form-focus instruction is significantly better than that of implicit form-focus instruction in improving students' pragmatic competence, but we can not deny the function of the latter, and the desirable pragmatic instruction is the implementation of explicit and implicit instructions together;students maintained their pragmatic improvement in the delayed post-test.

Keyword：explicit form-focused instruction;implicit form-focused instruction;pragmatic competence;comparison;