Transcript Chapter one Invitations to Linguistics

Developing Pragmatic
Competence in the EFL Classroom
Presented by
Zhu Deguang（朱德光）
From
North China Institute of Science and Technology
（华北科技学院）
Outline
1. What is pragmatic competence?
2. Why should pragmatic competence be
3.
4.
5.
developed?
Can pragmatic competence be taught in
the EFL classroom?
How to develop pragmatic competence in
the EFL classroom?
Factors hindering the development of
pragmatic competence in the EFL
classroom
1. What is pragmatic competence?
It is the knowledge of social, cultural, and
discourse conventions that have to be followed
in various situations. It is a type of knowledge
that learners possess, develop, acquire, use or
lose, not a piece of knowledge additional to the
learners’ existing grammatical knowledge, but
is an organic part of the learners’
communicative competence (Kasper 1997).
My understanding of PC
PC is a socio-culture-related skill of
language, i.e. the skill of using the appropriate
linguistic form conforming to the target
language culture in the social contexts. It
covers two levels: the first basic level of the
knowledge of the right linguistic forms and
the target language culture; the second level
of the ability of using correct linguistic forms
to fulfill the communicative purposes
appropriately.
2. Why should pragmatic competence be developed?
Learning language involves many aspects:
not merely its sounds, words, grammar,
meanings, functions, but the social, cultural
and discourse conventions.
grammatically
correct
sentences
≠
appropriate utterances in contexts
grammatical competence ≠ pragmatic
competence
2. Why should pragmatic competence be developed?
Some pragmatic knowledge can be acquired
implicitly, while other must be learned
explicitly through formal instruction.
Some pragmatic knowledge is universal,
which can be developed for free.
Some pragmatic knowledge is new or
unknown to a FLL, which can be learned
through formal instruction.
2. Why should pragmatic competence be developed?
EFL learners have little access to exposure
of English out of classroom. If they can not
receive
instructions
about
pragmatic
competence in the classroom, they can hardly
get it anywhere else. Therefore, pragmatic
information of the target language should be
presented and explained.
2. Why should pragmatic competence be developed?
The current situation:
In Chinese traditional EFL classroom
teaching, much attention has been paid to
words and grammar; thereby learners’
grammatical competence is developed.
Whereas, relatively less attention has been
paid to classroom-based instruction in
developing learners’ pragmatic competence.
Pragmatic failure often occurs.
Examples of pragmatic failure
1. A: Thanks a lot. That’s a great help.
B: Never mind. (You’re welcome .)
2. (in a shop)
A: What would you want? (Can I help you? )
B: I want a sweater for my daughter, please.
3. A: Is it a good restaurant?
B: Of course. (Yes, it is. or No, it isn’t.)
4. A: Can you answer my question, Carl?
B: Yes. (A is a teacher. Apparently, he wants B to give
the answer of the question, but B takes it as a query
mistakenly. )
Examples of pragmatic failure
5. A: You speak beautiful English.
B: No, no. My English is very poor. (Thank
you.)
6. (Greeting a teacher)
Hello, teacher Smith. (Peter Smith, Mr. Smith,
Professor Smith or even Sir, My lord)
7. (to a taxi driver )
Excuse me, would you mind taking me to the
museum? (Museum, please.)
3. Can pragmatic competence be
taught in the EFL classroom?
Olshtain and Cohen’s (1990), WildnerBassett’s (1994) and Morrow’s (1996) studies
found that the selected pragmatic features such as
apology, complaint & refusal, pragmatic routines
& strategies were teachable.
Billmyer (1990) and Bouton (1994) discovered
that students who received instruction in
complimenting and implicature did better than
controls who did not.
3. Can pragmatic competence be
taught in the EFL classroom?
House and Kasper (1981), House (1996) found that the
explicitly taught students did better than the implicit groups.
Wildner-Bassett (1984, 1986) found that both the
eclectively taught students and the suggestopedic group
improved their use of conversational routines considerably,
however the eclectic group outperformed the suggestopedic
group.
Kubota (1995) reported an advantage for students
receiving either deductive or inductive instruction over the
uninstructed group, with a superior effect for the inductive
approach.
3. Can pragmatic competence be
taught in the EFL classroom?
Conclusion:
Some aspects of pragmatic competence
can be taught, learnt and developed
through well-organized classroom activities.
4. How to develop pragmatic competence
in the EFL classroom?
The chief goal of pragmatic instruction:
to raise learners’ pragmatic awareness,
and give them pragmatic choices about
their interaction in the target language
and opportunities to practice in the
target language.
How to achieve the goal?
4. How to develop pragmatic competence
in the EFL classroom?
1. Make full use of the EFL classroom.
 The EFL classroom may be the only available

environment where the learners can try out new
forms and patterns of communication in an
accepting environment, and where the instructor and
other students can provide feedback.
The EFL classroom can also afford the learners
opportunities to reflect on their communicative
encounters and to experiment with different
pragmatic options, thus it will prepare and support
the learners to communicate effectively in the target
language.
4. How to develop pragmatic competence
in the EFL classroom?
2. Pay enough attention to the input
provided in the EFL classroom.
 Teacher talk
 Textbooks
4. How to develop pragmatic competence
in the EFL classroom?
 Teacher talk
a) Conform to the pragmatic norms of the target
language.
b) Offer different pragmatic options for the
learners to choose in different contexts.
c) Make pragmatic analysis rather than
sentence analysis.
Example 1 of pragmatic options
 If you want to borrow a pen from somebody, you
①
②
③
④
⑤
⑥
⑦
⑧
⑨
can say:
Would it be possible for you to lend me your pen?
Could you lend me your pen?
Will you lend me your pen?
How about letting me use your pen?
Lend me a pen, please.
Lend me your pen!
I forgot my pen.
Give me a pen.
You must lend me your pen.
Pragmatic analysis
 It is quite polite to use Sentence 1 and
Sentence 9 seems quite rude. They can
perform the same function, but are used
in different contexts. If not appropriately
used, the expected perlocutionary effect
can not be achieved.
Example 2 of pragmatic options
When someone says, “It’s raining”, which may
mean:
①Stating the fact (show the weather of that day
objectively)
②Showing one’s wish (we’d better not go out)
③Warning (close the doors and windows please)
④Showing one’s complaint (the weather here is
boring)
A certain language form can achieve different
communicating purposes in different contexts.
4. How to develop pragmatic competence
in the EFL classroom?
Implifications:
 English teachers should be of
adequate pragmatic competence.
 Teachers training and development
is of great importance.
4. How to develop pragmatic competence
in the EFL classroom?
 Textbooks
a) Enriching classroom input of textbooks with realworld materials, such as recordings of native
speaker conversations, radio programs, and even
television soap operas.
b) Compiling textbooks with authentic and real life
speech.
c) Selecting textbooks of high quality in pragmatic
knowledge.
d) Supplementing textbooks with additional books
that focus on pragmatics.
4. How to develop pragmatic competence
in the EFL classroom?
3. Organize felicitous classroom activities.
 activities aiming at raising students’
pragmatic awareness
 activities
offering opportunities
communicative practice
for
Activities aiming at raising students’
pragmatic awareness
Observation tasks:
① Observe native speaker’s talk, videos of authentic
interaction, feature films, and other fictional and
non-fictional written and audiovisual sources to spot
particular pragmatic features:
a) What is the relationship between the speaker and
listener?
b) What does the speaker want to do: to express
gratitude, compliment, apology, congratulation or
request, etc.? How does he/she achieve the purpose?
c) What is the listener’s response?
d) What is the context? etc.
Activities aiming at raising students’
pragmatic awareness
 Observation tasks:
② Observe other learners’ talk to spot the
pragmatic problems.
③ Observe the pragmatic differences between
cultures. For example:
A: You look so beautiful today!
B: Thank you.
A: 你今天真漂亮！
B: 你在开玩笑吧？
Activities offering opportunities for
communicative practice
 The EFL classroom activities should be
student-centered, interactive, various in task
types, and in small group.
 role-play
 simulation
 Drama, etc.
4. How to develop pragmatic competence
in the EFL classroom?
4. We should realize that there is not a single best way
to develop the students’ pragmatic competence in
EFL classroom. Instructions, implicit or explicit,
deductive or inductive, all function. Teaching
approaches, eclectic or suggestopedic, both improve
the learners’ pragmatic abilities.
5. The learners should be encouraged to read widely
about the culture of the target language and
participate in as many social activities as possible so
as to broaden their views and enrich their social
experiences.
5. Factors hindering the development of
pragmatic competence in the EFL classroom
• Teaching materials are sometimes too difficult
to comprehend and it takes most of the
classroom time to explain the difficult
language points, which leaves little time for the
students to internalize the language input and
communicate with it.
• Lack of practical application and the difficulty
of organizing communicative activities have
made it hard to meet the demand of teaching
pragmatic competence.
5. Factors hindering the development of
pragmatic competence in the EFL classroom
• Improper approach and test-oriented
teaching are misleading in the process of
developing skills to use language.
• Unfavorable learning environment is also
an obstacle to achieve this goal in the
classroom.
5. Factors hindering the development of
pragmatic competence in the EFL classroom
 Suggestions for classroom teaching:
① Lay more emphasis on functions, not merely
on grammar and vocabulary.
② Organize more activities of listening and
speaking than those of reading.
③ Give more attention to dialogues and
conversations than to texts.
④ Test the learners’ pragmatic competence
rather than merely their linguistic
competence.
欢迎讨论！
Thank
you !