Previous studies indicate that the refusal is a difficult concept to teach (e.g., Chang, 2009). Foreign language textbooks often contain insufficient amounts of pragmatic information, and this requires language teachers to supply additional pragmatics instruction (Ishihara, 2010). In addition, previous research indicates that individual differences and subjectivities affect learners’ pragmatic choices (e.g., Ishihara and Tarone, 2009). These factors create difficulties in teaching refusals. How can we assist learners in gaining pragmatic competence in refusals? Would explicit instruction facilitate this learning? This case study investigated the effects of explicit instruction on Japanese refusals. The participants were students from 2nd and 3rd year level Japanese in a liberal arts college in the Midwestern U.S. Their first languages were English and Chinese. Being given eight situations that differ in terms of social distance, social status, and rank of imposition, all participants completed video-recorded role plays and written discourse-completion tasks (DCT) as pre- and post-tests. Only the target group received explicit instruction on Japanese refusal strategies after the pre-test. The collected data were analyzed qualitatively by adopting the classification of refusal strategies from the Kano and Mei (2002) study. The result indicates that explicit instruction assists Chinese learners in developing Japanese-norm pragmatic competence in refusals. In the pre-test, Chinese participants utilized common Chinese refusal strategies that were reported in previous studies (such as Li, 2015). However, in the post-test, their use of these Chinese refusal strategies decreased and Japanese-norm strategies increased. The Chinese participants from the control group did not show any significant change between the pre- and post-tests. The American participants showed varied results. Regardless of the explicit instruction, some participants decided to keep their L1-norm pragmatic choices, and did not follow the Japanese-norm. For these participants, their individual identities appeared to be prioritized when making pragmatic choices.