Students’ Limited English Proficiency to Learn L2 Pragmatics

國

立 政 治 大 學

‧

N a tio na

l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y

T: Check whether this person is enthusiastic. We are going to hear a few sentences.

CD: (Woman) I am just doing one of the network sites. It’s called My World. Have you heard of it?

(Man) Yes! I am on My World TOO. I SPENT ALL my TIME there. I have TWO HUNDRED online friends to keep up with.

T: What do you think about the man? Is he enthusiastic or UN-enthusiastic?

Ss: Enthusiastic!

T: VERY enthusiastic! YESterday, I SAW... If he stressed a lot of words, probably he’s very enthusiastic about it.

In the excerpt, Yuan-Yuan informed students of the importance of the tone, stress and intonation, all of which carry important contextual meanings during conversation. She explicitly said that “you can vary the stress and the way you speak to show your emotion.” Yuan-Yuan tried to raise students’ awareness of the use of sounds to express social meanings, such as enthusiasm to engage in conversation as a way to continue the conversation, and vice versa. However, it is unknown whether students did understand the actual use of the meaning of the various tones, intonation, stress or rhythms partly

because students were not provided with plenty of time to role-play and partly because students were not evaluated. As Yuan-Yuan admitted, she did not evaluate students’ L2 pragmatics learning. She mostly provided students L2 pragmatics input, short of real classroom practices. In short, Yuan-Yuan did not spend much time on sociolinguistic instruction.

4.1.2 Students’ Limited English Proficiency to Learn L2 Pragmatics

Students’ English proficiency level was found to be closely entangled with how much students could learn from teacher’s sociolinguistic instruction. Therefore, English

‧

立 政 治 大 學

‧

N a tio na

l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y

proficiency level is believed to be instrumental to understanding sociolinguistic

instruction. The results already showed that only 10% was devoted to the sociolinguistic aspect, so students had few opportunities to practice English. As it takes time to develop sociolinguistic skills, students do not practice English often, so the effect of

sociolinguistic instruction was limited. If students already receive scant pragmatics instruction in L2 classes, it is not difficult to assume that students may lack relevant experience to use the language appropriately.

To illustrate, one female student expressed that she rarely received L2 pragmatics instruction. She could not recall when she learned sociolinguistic instruction. She could only share her experience of learning Japanese regarding the appropriate use in a given social context. In fact, she was concerned about her limited English ability. She noted that

“when I speak Japanese, I will think about the appropriateness of the language.” She illustrated her learning experience of Japanese instead of English because she did not have relevant experience of learning the social use in English before. In fact, all the participants’ accounts were mostly grammar-driven exams. By grammar-driven exams, it refers to the exams that lay a heavy emphasis on vocabulary, sentence structures and grammar. She articulated the importance of learning social functions in a language, expressing her adamant belief that using a language also entails learning the appropriate aspect in language learning. However, she considered her English proficiency to be weak, eager to practice her English skills. Constrained by her limited English proficiency, she was not able to carry out fluent conversation with people, not to mention understanding the appropriate use of the target language.

Another case in point is that one male student talked about his English learning experience. Similar to the female student’s story, he did not practice English a lot in oral and written forms. Much time was spent on explaining sentence structures and analyzing grammar. Although his teacher always told him to practice his conversation ability, he

‧

立 政 治 大 學

‧

N a tio na

l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y

remarked that “I feel that basically if your proficiency level is not that high, it does not work. Yeah. It is not effective.” He considered it ineffective because his limited English proficiency could not allow him to understand the target language, let alone its social use.

In brief, learners may not know how to express themselves in English and possibly find it difficult to understand the figurative propositions or implications. As one student explained:

I do not have any conversation ability. Basically [I know] some grammar and I use some words to express my meanings. If I want to distance myself, it is still not feasible.

She argued that she had some grammatical competence in English, but she could not express herself adequately due to her limited conversation ability. The learner indicated that to practice English, she needed to master that language to a certain extent. Otherwise, it is impossible for her to shift between different speech styles naturally, either to distance herself from others or to initiate a conversation with a stranger. In short, limited English proficiency could constrain their pragmatic development in the target language,

preventing them from communicating effectively with native English speakers.

Given the scant language practices both inside and outside of the classroom, one student commented that: “I think if we could implement English-mediated instruction, there would be more opportunities to use the language.” It is asserted by some informants that they hoped to implement English-mediated instruction to receive more input to learn English and to prevent negative pragmatic transfers.

The reason behind all-in-English lessons may be that the participating student wanted to use the language without relying on their mother tongue to prevent themselves from causing misunderstandings or making social mistakes. Also, linguistic interference may occur accordingly through direct English-Chinese translation. As one female

‧

立 政 治 大 學

‧

N a tio na

l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y

participant identified the importance of the English learning environment, “Now I seldom have exposure to English. It is a far cry from my proficiency in high school [the peak of learning English]. Now one English class per week, I read English magazine at most.”

She hoped to take more English classes and maintain her English ability. This concern of the infrequent use of English, though not surprising, was unanimously raised by students in the study.

To sum up, given that the L2 pragmatics has been found to be limited in language curricula, students did not practice using English in their daily life. Thus, their English proficiency and sociolinguistic competence were limited. To address the issue of students’

limited English proficiency, teachers may need to gauge the difficulty of the materials and the clarity of their presentation of sociolinguistic instruction in English (Brown, 2007;

Omaggio, 2001). In the EFL contexts, language learners may not improve their L2 pragmatic ability partly because students generally do not use English in their everyday life and partly because the language used in the classroom context cannot reflect the actual use of the target language. The instructional hours of L2 pragmatics, in addition, tend to be limited.