Due to the social and cultural differences, people from different countries would al-ways encounter pragmatic failure in cross-cultural communication, which may lead to the breakdown of communication. In light of Thomas’ (1983) classification of pragmatic failure, this article firstly analyzes the types of pragmatic failure in Sino-western cross-cultural communication and their underlying factors. Then, the article tries to explore the strategies for avoiding such pragmatic failures and improving Chinese EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners’ communication compe-tence from the perspective of English instruction. In Sino-western cross-cultural communication, there are mainly two types of pragmatic failure: pragmalinguistic failure and socio-pragmatic failure. Cultural difference and negative transfer of the mother language are the major factors for pragmatic failure. In English teaching, teachers should arouse students’ cross-cultural awareness, effectively combine cultural instruction with language teaching, carry out extra-curricular cross-cultural communication activities, and develop students’ good habit of leaning English.