The present study set out to explore the effect of an instructional strategies; i.e. explicit web-based teaching on developing Iranian upper-intermediate level learners’ pragmatic
knowledge of the speech act of thanking. To fulfill this objective, 60 freshmen
undergraduate students of Tonekabon Islamic Azad university were selected based on an
OPT test. Participants in the study were randomly divided into two groups of explicit and
implicit instruction. A newly developed DCT was administered to test both groups'
pragmatic knowledge of speech act of thanking. the reliability was obtained through the KR21 reliability formula. Then the treatment started. The explicit group practice learning
speech act of thanking through www.iles.umn.edu/introspeechacts website, and the implicit group start learning it through videos and other authentic materials. Another researcher made DCT was given to explore any probable improvements on their pragmatic knowledge. T-test was used to see whether there was a significant difference between two groups regarding these two strategies. The results proved superiority of the explicit web-based teaching over the implicit teaching.