Approaches to Teaching Pragmatics

The research on instructional approaches in pragmatics has started to take shape since the early 1990s (Bou-Franch & Garces-Conejos, 2003). However, Rose’s (2005) comprehensive review shows that the relevant reports are not very many in comparison with those on how instruction influences other aspects of second language acquisition (Kasper, 2001). The teaching targets of these studies include discourse markers (House & Kasper, 1981; Soler, 2005; Yoshimi, 2001), pragmatic routines (Tateyama et al., 1997; Wildner-Bassett, 1984, 1986, 1994), implicatures (Bouton, 1994; Kubota, 1995), pragmatic fluency (House, 1996); sociostylistic variation (Lyster, 1994), and speech acts (Barron, 2005; Bardovi-Harlig & Griffin, 2005;

Liddicoat & Crozet, 2001; Martinez-Flor & Fukuya, 2005; Olshtain & Cohen, 1990;

Rose & Ng, 2001; Koike & Pearson, 2005; Soler, 2005; Takahashi, 2001, 2005).

These studies attempt to address two major research questions. First, do learners who receive treatments outperform those who do not? Second, if treatments improve learners’ pragmatic competence, which teaching approach is the most effective? For the first question, the studies have demonstrated that the learners who receive treatments perform better than those who do not. For example, Rose & Ng

(2001) experimented with first-year university students in Hong Kong. They organized the subjects into three groups, which included two treatment groups and one control group. The former received instruction in compliment and compliment responses, while the latter did not. The results showed that there was a sharper increase in the use of compliment strategies by the two treatment groups than by the control group. Yoshimi (2001) experimented with third-year learners of Japanese in Hawaii. A story telling task was administered to the control group and treatment group to examine the effects of instruction in interactional discourse markers. The results demonstrated that the treatment group outperformed the control group in overall frequency and accuracy of interactional discourse markers in the posttest.

Marinez-Flor & Fukuya (2005) experimented with Spanish learners of English and found that those who received instruction showed improvements in English suggestions, while those who did not receive any instruction revealed no such progress in their e-mail and phone tests. Koike & Pearson (2005) worked with English learners of third-semester Spanish. To examine the effectiveness of teaching pragmatic information, a unit on Spanish suggestions was constructed. Results indicated that the groups that experienced instruction and feedback performed significantly better than the control group in multiple choice items. Soler (2005) investigated the efficacy of instruction at the pragmatic level and found that those who were exposed to instruction on English requests outperformed those who were not.

To answer the second question, it is important to know that there are basically two kinds of teaching approaches in ILP research: explicit and implicit. The major difference is that explicit teaching provides metapragmatic information, while implicit teaching does not. In Rose & Ng’s (2001) study, the subjects were divided into two groups: the deductive group and the inductive groups. Both groups received

instruction in compliment and compliment responses, but in a different manner. The deductive group was taught explicitly the metapragmatic information prior to practice activities, while the inductive group was expected to generalize relevant pragmatic information through practice activities. The results showed that the deductive group outperformed the inductive group in terms of compliment response strategies.

Takahashi (2001) taught Japanese college students request strategies by classifying them into groups of explicit teaching, form-comparison, form-search, and meaning focus, each of which is distinguished by different degrees of input enhancement.

The results indicated that the explicit teaching group, who received the most input enhancement, performed the best compared with the other three groups. Tateyama (2001) used both explicit and implicit instruction to teach two groups of beginning learners of Japanese about attention getters, gratitudes, and apologies. The results showed that there were no significant differences in the role plays and multiple choice tasks between the two groups. Nevertheless, the subjects receiving explicit instruction were more successful in correctly choosing the items which required higher degree of formality. Koike & Pearson (2005) found that the subjects who experienced explicit instruction and explicit feedback performed significantly better than those who experienced implicit instruction and implicit feedback. Soler (2005) also found that after instruction, the explicit group showed an advantage over implicit group in the ability to use request strategies in English.

Since a general consensus has reached regarding the importance of explicit instruction in teaching pragmatics, some studies used only this type of instruction to compare learners’ performances of the target feature before and after treatment.

Liddicoat & Crozet (2001) provided explicit instruction on French interactional norms for a group of university students of French studying in Australia. Role-plays conducted immediately after the instruction showed that the French interactional

norms for the question “Did you have a good weekend” were incorporated into learners’ talk in which they were engaged. In Yoshimi’s (2001) study, pre- and posttests were administered to the experimental group who received explicit instruction in the use of interactional discourse markers in Japanese. The analysis indicated that the experimental group revealed dramatic gains in their use of interactional discourse markers in the post extended tellings.

A closer look at the intervention studies shows that the major steps of explicit teaching of pragmatic rules follow the traditional “Three P’s methodology”

(Presentation-Practice-Production) (McCarthy, 1998). At the presentation stage, the native speaker model (the NS model) is important because it offers examples of language in use (Olshtain & Cohen, 1990). The model can be short extracts derived from authentic materials such as films (Rose & Ng, 2001), telephone conversations (Olshtain & Cohen, 1991), and television programs (Tateyama, 2001). Or it can simply be interactions between two native speakers of the target language (usually the instructor and another native speaker) (Yoshimi, 2001). In addition to the NS model, the teacher would provide learners with explanatory handouts which identify metapragmatic details necessary for the acquisition of the target form (Bouton, 1994;

Rose & Ng, 2001; Takahashi, 2001; Tateyama, 2001; Yoshimi, 2001).

At the practice stage, learners are given tasks which can reinforce the pragmatic knowledge they have acquired. At this stage, both pragmalinguisitc and sociopragmatic information of the given tasks are encouraged to be clarified by the learners. Therefore, learners may have the opportunities to ask the instructor about the vocabulary and structures they intend to employ to complete the tasks (Yoshimi, 2001).

Finally, at the production stage, some researchers used written DCTs to elicit learners’ performance (Rose & Ng, 2001; Takahashi, 2001; Tateyama, 2001), while

others used role-play activities (Liddicoat & Crozet, 2001; Olshtain & Cohen, 1990;

1991, Yoshimi, 2001). Learners may acquire from role-play interactional skills such as conversational management, manipulation of turn-taking mechanism, use of intensifiers and downgraders, and accurate choice from a range of strategies (House, 1996). In addition, Olshtain & Cohen (1991) suggest that corrective feedback and discussion are useful teaching techniques after learners present their talks. The instructor, together with the whole class, can comment on the appropriateness of the performances in terms of coherence of organization, strategy use, as well as lexical and grammatical productions (Liddicoat & Crozet, 2001; Yoshimi, 2001). Moreover, the learners can be invited to contrast their perceptions, expectations, and awareness of the intended speech act between L1 and L2 cultures (Olshtain & Cohen, 1991) In addition to the three P’s methodology, some researchers argue that raising learners’ awareness should be incorporated into the instructional design as a warm-up activity. Bou-Franch & Garces-Conejos (2003) claim that awareness raising tasks can promote learners’ sociopragmatic knowledge about the target feature under investigation. One feature that is frequently observed in the awareness-raising phase is the discussion of the target feature represented in both L1 and L2, which makes pragmatic concepts easier to access (Rose & Ng, 2001). For example, in Liddicoat and Crozet’s (2001) study, where the French utterance “Did you have a good weekend” was taught to a group of Australian students, learners were first asked to talk about the stereotypes they held for both Australian and French people. Then the teacher and learners worked out possible Australian and French equivalences to the question under study. Finally, the teacher explained how this question functions differently in Australian and French contexts. Through constant practices, learners are believed to gradually possess the ability to observe and analyze sociological variables in real encounters. Eslamin-Rasekj (2005) pointed out that teacher presentation and

discussion as well as student discovery are the two major teaching techniques to raise learners’ awareness. In teacher presentation and discussion, the teacher can inductively or deductively relay information derived from pragmatic research findings.

For example, the teacher may introduce how participants, their status, the situation are connected together. In the activity of student discovery, learners become ethnographers. They are asked to observe or record naturally occurring data. This activity will help learners become keen to how a particular feature is used in L1 and L2.

The intervention studies also raise an issue about the length of treatment (Kasper, 2001). According to Rose (2005), treatment lengths varied among these intervention studies, ranging from two or three 20-min sessions to 9 week instructional period, depending on the complexity of teaching targets. For example, House (1996) conducted a communication course which lasted 14 weeks to teach advanced German learners of English pragmatic fluency. LoCastro (1997) examined Japanese EFL learners’ transfer of training on linguistic politeness from one class to another. The explicit treatment lasted for nine weeks. Takahashi (2001) examined Japanese EFL learners’ acquisition of request strategies by providing various degrees of input enhancement. The treatment lasted for four weeks, with ninety minutes for each week. Tateyama (2001) taught beginning learners of Japanese the use of attention getters, expressions of gratitude and apologies. The explicit group received over 8-week instructions, each of which lasted about twenty minutes. Yoshimi (2001) investigated the effects of instruction on the teaching of discourse markers to learners of Japanese. The explicit instruction lasted eighty hours, which was approximately 1/3 of the entire contact hours.

Kasper (2001) argues that very short period of treatment can be effective if there are learning opportunities inside and outside the classroom. However, her

suggestion may not be applicable to the foreign language environment because there is no such input outside the classroom. Therefore, in an EFL context, teaching plays a more important role than in an ESL context. In addition, the length of treatment also depends on the complexity of the targets to be taught. The more complicated the targets are, the more instructional time is required.

In summary, section 2.3 shows that pragmatic competence is one of the essentials to achieve communicative competence in learner’s language development, which should be incorporated into the curriculum because instruction can facilitate the speed of acquisition through carefully planned classroom activities. Among the pedagogical interventions, explicit teaching, which provides the learner with metapragmatic information, has been demonstrated to be more effective than implicit teaching. It is particularly important for learners in an EFL environment, where exposures to pragmatic knowledge are less frequent than in an SL environment.

However, research has not shown much about the effect of explicit teaching on learners of different proficiency. Therefore, one of the aims of the present study is to investigate the instructional efficacy of explicit teaching on learners at different proficiency levels.