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The possible benefits of agent expressiveness have been highlighted in previous literature; yet, the issue of verbal expressiveness has been left unexplored. I hypothesize that agent verbal expressiveness may improve the interaction between pedagogical agents and learners, ultimately enhancing learning outcomes. Evidence from a quasi-experimental investigation, indicates that learners who interacted with an expressive agent (1) scored higher on a post-task exam; and (2) rated the agent's ability to interact higher, than learners who interacted with a nonexpressive agent. Qualitative results provided insight into this finding, while indicating the complexity of deploying pedagogical agents in educational settings.