Teaching Prgamtics and its challenges

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Table of Contents

• 1.Introduction
• 2. Review of Related Literature
• 3. Research Methods and Procedures
• 4. Summary of Findings
• 5. Conclusions and Recommendations

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1.1. Background to the study

• Why do we teach English? Versions of TE

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Background ...

• In order to develop CC of learners there is a
  shift from
• Formal system of grammar rules to a more
  communicative perspective
• Language Usage rules to language Use rules
• Formal and textual factors to interactional and
  contextual factors because of the advent of
  Pragmatics

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Background...

• In Ethiopia
• International communications are part of
  every day life activities
• Cross-cultural communications
• Hence, pragmatics should be an important asset
  for students learning at various levels of
  education
• Pragmatic skills should be one of the objectives
  of teaching language alongside other linguistic
  skills to help learners develop pragmatic
  competence
• However, instruction of English or the learning
  environment, most commonly comprises of
• non-native language teachers, who have no
  relevant trainings
• a fairly large classroom full of learners with
  very dissimilar aptitudes,
• teaching materials, that are mostly textbooks,
  printouts, or grammar books.

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Background...

• Hence, teaching authentic language use in these
  circumstances is very challenging and,
• the teaching materials and teachers should play
  an integral role in offering the students a model
  of real-life language use.
• pragmatic competence is considered to be a major
  component of CC, yet little attention has been
  paid to teaching and testing it,

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1.2. The Rationale for the Current Research

• the teaching of vocabulary and grammar is not
  enough to enable learners to become competent and
  naturalistic users of English,
• to provide enough information or basic guidelines
  for teachers to start tackling the area of
  pragmatics in the classroom at least in an
  informed, logical and confident pedagogical
  manner.

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The Rationale

• to provide essential information on pragmatics,
  and to be of practical use to teachers who are
  interested in, but have little knowledge of,
  pragmatics in a foreign language context.

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1.3. Statement of the Problem

• Learning a language is more than just acquiring
  the rules of grammar learners must be able to
  use the language as well but textbooks are not
  that reliable in this regard,
• Pragmatic ability is not only fundamental to the
  smooth functioning of society, but did not
  receive considerable attention in the EFL contexts

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Statement of...

• English language textbooks present the language
  to students in terms of written and spoken
  language, but their presentation of the language
  may not be rich in metalanguage and metapragmatic
  explanations,
• pragmatic competence is considered to be a major
  component of CC, yet little attention has been
  paid to teaching and testing it,

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Statement...

• EFL student teachers curriculum and in-service
  professional development program lack the
  inclusion of pragmatic aspect of language
  teaching,
• pragmatic errors are often considered impolite,
  and yet no research has been conducted on
  learners ability to choose the proper use of
  language,

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1.4. Objectives of the Study

• Investigate the challenges of teaching pragmatics
  in an EFL setting,
• Analyze textbooks in terms of their pragmatic
  contents,
• Explore opportunities/possibilities of teaching
  pragmatics in an EFL setting,
• Discover whether students can choose appropriate
  language in a given situation,
• Forward possible recommendations based on the
  research results

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1.5. Research Questions

• To what extent do the students textbooks provide
  pragmatic information for learners to acquire
  pragmatic competence?
• What are the challenges perceived by high school
  teachers to develop students pragmatic
  competence?
• How do the teachers perceive students textbooks
  pragmatic contents-are they challenges or
  opportunities for them?
• Do students choose appropriate language based on
  a provided situation/context?
• To what extent do teachers consider other
  possibilities than the textbook, for teaching
  pragmatics in an EFL setting?

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1.6. Significance of the study

• It can help syllabus designers to revise English
  language syllabuses to improve the quantity of
  pragmatic features and the quality of their
  presentations in the textbooks,
• It could be worthwhile resource for teachers who
  are interested to develop their own teaching
  materials for teaching pragmatics,
• It would be helpful for textbook writers who are
  wishing to have an informed opinion on the
  pedagogical implications derived from research on
  pragmatics,
• It fills the research gap that exists in studying
  challenges and opportunities to teaching
  pragmatics in an EFL setting
• the research would be of importance for the other
  researchers to look into the field attentively.

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1.7. Delimitation of the Study

• It doesnt include all micro level approaches to
  pragmatics indexicals, presupposition,
  implicature and speech acts
• It confined itself to the study of pragmatic
  competence with particular emphasis on some
  speech acts and challenges to developing
  pragmatic competence of EFL learners
• It doesnt incorporate all upper high schools in
  the Adama Town

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1.8. Limitation of the Study

• The research faced time and many constraints,
• Lack of local researches has hampered the depth
  of this research work,
• the research was first designed to be conducted
  on homemade English language textbooks
  unfortunately ,the new textbooks authored by
  foreign writers came into use in the middle of
  the research work which might throw some light on
  the research result,

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2. Review of Related Literature

• 2.1 Communicative Competence
• The ultimate goal of learning or teaching a
  language is to develop CC
• CC is relative
• CC is abstract
• The ability for use
• Knowledge
• Acceptability
• Appropriateness
• Adequacy
• Grammaticalness
• CC is social evaluation of behavior as
  appropriate or inappropriate

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Review...

• Competence (underlying/tacit knowledge)
• Performance (actual communicating ability)
• Performance
• Use-rules of socioculture-social context
• Usage-rules of grammar-linguistic context
• What, when, how to speak or not speakrule of SC

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Review...Models of CC
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Communicative Competence
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Pragmatics

• relatively late comer in linguistics
• relatively late comer in linguistics
• became increasingly popular through researchers
  explorations of linguistic facts
• pragmatics involves social as well as individual
  norms in language production and comprehension
  (use)
• social, cultural and psychological factors play
  important roles in language use
• The study of language use in context

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...pragmatics
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...pragmatics

• Contextually appropriate language use includes
• What can be said
• Where it can be said
• When it can be said
• How to say it most effectively

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...pragmatics

• Least polite

• Invitation

• Most polite

• Come over to my house and play with me.
• What are you doing after school? You should come
  and play.
• Can you come over after school and play at my
  house?
• Can you please come over to my house and play
  after school?

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Challenges of Teaching Pragmatic Competence in
EFL Setting

• Challenge Related To Course Books
• Metalanguage and metapragmatic explanation of
  pragmatic feature
• Paucity of pragmatic contents
• Challenge Related to Courses in Teachers
  Training
• Challenge Related to Language Class Size
• Challenge related to Teachers' Sense of
  Self-Efficacy
• Challenge Related to the Attitude toward English
  Language
• Challenge Related to Learners Level of Target
  Language Proficiency
• Challenge Related to Pragmatics Teaching Methods

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Possibilities/Opportunities for Teaching
Pragmatics in EFL Classroom

• The Role of Language Teachers Talk
• The Role of Well designed Textbooks
• The Role of Culture Local and Target Culture

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3. METHODS AND PROCEDURE OF THE STUDY

• A descriptive method was employed in the study
• The existing problems were investigated
• Inferences were drawn from the responses
• Textbooks and respondents were the major sources
  of the data
• Categorical data i.e. nominal or observations
  that can be coded and ordinal or observations
  that can be ranked are used

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Procedure
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Sampling

• Purposive sampling was employed for textbooks
  content analysis

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...Sampling
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...sampling

• Systematic sampling was employed for respondents
• Out of 339 students 183 were selected for
  questionnaire and MDCT
• All four (4)teachers teaching grades 9-12 were
  selected for questionnaire

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Methods for Data Analysis

• Data were organized based on the research
  questions
• As the research method was chiefly qualitative,
  data were analysed descriptively,
• Data of closed type items with ratings were
  analyzed using mean scores and percentiles
• Qualitative type data were analyzed verbally
  through examination of themes
• The results were virtually summarised in line
  with the research questions
• Conclusions were drawn based on the statement of
  the problem
• Recommendations were forwarded on the basis of
  the conclusion as indicated in the research
  objectives.

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Research Tools

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4. Research Results

• Challenges
• the pragmatic features in the current students
  textbooks were not explicitly laid down
  (metalanguage and metapragmatic) table 1
• No scenarios or situations were presented so that
  the learners will learn how the pragmatic
  expressions are used in a real life like
  simulations (table 2)
• No clear instructions were given so that learners
  actively act up on those communicative acts
  (table 2),

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Research...

• textbooks rarely provide enough information for
  learners to successfully acquire pragmatic
  competence (table 4 5)
• Teachers did not receive adequate course/topic on
  pragmatics in teachers training (table 6 7)
• Lack of time, class size, relevant training,
  insufficient materials, knowledge of target
  culture, etc. were challenges for teachers to
  impart pragmatic knowledge to students (table
  10)

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Research...

• Majority of the student respondents rated
  refusals, apologies, compliments, complaints,
  requests, as difficult and above in their own
  words (table 18)
• because of the English language very hard
  language
• b/c it is so complicated
• b/c it need high skill in speaking
• b/c those are the difficulties that I get when I
  speak English with others
• b/c they need more explanation and experience on
  it
• b/c things are difficult when we talk in
  English
• because I use them rarely and some of them
  frequently
• I just said that because those things are even
  hard in Amharic.

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Research ...

• Regarding MDCT, the majority of the participants
  scored between 6 and 10 (37.8) (table20) .

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Conclusions

• The content analysis indicated that the current
  English textbooks for Ethiopian upper high
  schools, i.e. grade 10 and 11 are containing only
  meager features of pragmatics
• Instead of being opportunity the textbooks are
  challenges to teaching pragmatic competence
• Most of the metalanguage explanations are very
  shallow and there are no metapragmatic
  explanations at all.
• teachers seldom use pragmatic instruction in
  classrooms, and mostly students have to spend
  time by themselves developing pragmatic
  competence without explicit instruction

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Recommendations...

• it is necessary for the textbook writers to write
  user friendly textbooks in terms of providing
  pragmatic information to both the teachers and
  students
• Teachers also should be able to receive
  sufficient knowledge in the area of pragmatics
  while they are on job or taking undergraduate
  courses
• researches should conducted exploring the effects
  of instruction in pragmatic aspects of the
  English language in an EFL setting

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The EndThank You So Much!?