This document presents six classroom techniques for developing learner pragmatics in a second language. The techniques aim to raise learner awareness of appropriate request and suggestion forms and contexts in the L1 and L2. Learners first understand pragmatics' importance and request/suggestion speech acts. Next, they analyze L1 examples and compare request/suggestion forms across contexts. Then, they learn target language forms and practice determining appropriateness. Learners then produce oral and written requests and suggestions in different contexts. Finally, they receive feedback on their productions to improve pragmatic competence. The goal is to expose learners to input, provide practice opportunities, and offer teacher feedback to develop pragmatic ability in the second language.

1. A Report on PRAGMATIC
DEVELOPMENT IN A SECOND OR
FOREIGN LANGUAGE : SOME
CLASSROOM TECHNIQUES
Dr. Tajeddin
By: Sh. Tamizrad
Fall 2014

2. Content
• Introduction
• Classroom techniques to develop pragmatics in
a ESL or EFL
– First Technique: Learners’ understanding of the importance of
pragmatics
– Second Technique: Learners’ awareness of the appropriate use of
L1 requests and suggestions
– Third Technique: Learners’ knowledge of the pragmalinguistic
forms of L2 requests and suggestions
– Fourth Technique: Learners’ awareness of the appropriate use of
L2 requests and suggestions
– Fifth Technique: Learners’ production of L2 requests and
suggestions
– Fifth Technique: Learners’ production of L2requests and
suggestions
– Sixth technique: Learners’ provision of feedback on their production
of L2 requests and suggestions
• Conclusion

3. Introduction
• Pragmatics appeared as a reaction to Chomsky’s (1965)
use of language as an abstract construct based on a
competence theory in which grammar was paramount and
should be mastered independently from the actual functions
of language use.
• Leech (1983) encouraged a shift of direction within
linguistics by creating this new area of research that paid
attention to meaning in use rather than meaning in the
abstract.
• In order to make learners communicatively competent in a
second or foreign language (L2), not only their grammatical
knowledge needs to be fostered, but also their pragmatic
competence.

4. Introduction
• Competence has been defined as the speaker’s ability to
employ different linguistic resources in an appropriate way
for a given context.
• Both pragmalinguistics and sociopragmatics, that is, the two
areas of pragmatics that refer to specific local conditions of
language use need to be mastered by learners in their
process of achieving full communicative competence in a
target language.
• Aim of the study: to contribute to this area of research by
presenting a variety of classroom techniques designed to
foster learners’ pragmatic competence in English as an L2
in instructed language settings at the university level.

5. Classroom techniques to develop pragmatics
in a ESL or EFL
• Kasper (2001), second language contexts offer more
advantages than foreign language settings.
• Two main lacks of leaners in EFL:
1. Lack of exposure to TL
2. Scare chance of observing native speakers’ interactions
• In this paper, there are some techniques which elaborated
to raise learners’ awareness of two directive speech acts
(i.e. requests andsuggestions), and of how to produce these
speech acts depending on contextual variables.
•

6. First Technique: Learners’ understanding of
the importance of pragmatics
• Teachers should provide them with an explanation about
what pragmatic competence is by presenting the key
elements of pragmalinguistics and sociopragmatics.
• Brown and Levinson’s (1987) politeness theory: three social
parameters that identify a linguistic form as being
appropriate: a) social distance b) power c) degree of
imposition.
• A request is an impositive speech act which constitutes an
attempt to get someone to perform an action for the benefit
of the speaker.
• A suggestion is a non impositive speech act, in which the
action to be done is for the benefit of the hearer.

7. Second Technique: Learners’ awareness of the
appropriate use of L1 requests and suggestions
• Learners are asked to work on the data they have collected
in the previous activity.
• Learners can be asked to answer a variety of awareness-raising
questions that focus on both pragmalinguistic issues (questions
regarding the form or head act they found for each speech act)
and sociopragmatic ones (iquestions regarding the social context
in which the speech acts appeared).
• They are encouraged to compare their data with their partners in
order to gain access to a wider sample of pragmalinguistic
formulations for both speech acts.
• Think and talk about how the sociopragmatic factors that
surround the forms they have collected affect the appropriate
selection of strategies for the two speech acts being analyzed.

8. Third Technique: Learners’ knowledge of the
pragmalinguistic forms of L2 requests and suggestions
• The teacher should provide learners with explicit instruction
on the pragmalinguistic forms employed for making
requests and suggestions in English as an L2 (Trosborg’s
(1995) proposed taxonomy for requests and Martínez-Flor’s (2005)
taxonomy for suggestions).
• Learners receive instruction in all possible forms.
• They are encouraged to compare them with the ones they
found in their L1.
• They are asked to discuss whether they had already
organized these forms for both requests and suggestions in
a similar way.

9. Fourth Technique: Learners’ awareness of the
appropriate use of L2 requests and suggestions
• They are also made aware of the importance of considering
the speaker’s intention and the setting for the selection of
the most appropriate pragmalinguistic form in a given
situation.
• 1. Learners are first asked to read a language situation,
together with several pragmalinguistic forms for each
speech act and then they are asked to rank the suggested
answers from most to least appropriate in each situation.
• 2. Learners are provided with a language situation in which
a possible request or a suggestion have already been
given, and are asked to rate which they believe is the level
of suitability of the request/suggestion.

10. Fourth Technique: Learners’ awareness of the
appropriate use of L2 requests and suggestions
• They have to write the reason why they provided that
particular rating.
• 3. the teacher provides learners with a list of mixed
requests and suggestions collected from naturally-occurring
interactions among English native speakers.
• They are then asked to elicit the most appropriate context
for a particular utterance, as well as to state the function of
the utterance by taking that context into account.
• The teacher should explain the actual context in which all
utterances were found and discuss whether learners’
answers are likely to be appropriate or not and why.

11. Fifth Technique: Learners’ production of L2
requests and suggestions
• Learners are ready to put all that knowledge into practice.
• Two types of production activities: Controlled and free
• Two modes of production activities: Oral and written
Oral mode: Students question:
a) pragmalinguistic features (the linguistic form employed by the
learners),
b) sociopragmatic features (whether the forms employed by the
learners are appropriate for the situations),
c) the goals of both speech acts (possible differences between
making each speech act in terms of who receives the benefits of the
action).

12. Fifth Technique: Learners’ production of L2
requests and suggestions
Written mode:
• Writing an email, two contrasting settings in terms of the
sociopragmatic (a friend and a person in higher position)
• Learners are presented with two different situations that
elicit either a request or a suggestion, although they are not
given this information.
• Two different context for EFL Vs. ESL

13. Sixth technique: Learners’ provision of feedback
on their production of L2 requests and suggestions
• Learners receive the teacher’s feedback regarding their
performance when using requests and suggestions in the
free activities assigned in the previous technique.
• face-to-face learners’ conversations with native speakers
(in ESL environment) or the learners’ participations in CMC
with native learners of the target language (in EFL
environment).

14. Conclusion
• The main premise the paper : To emphasize the need to
develop pragmatics in both a ESL and EFL setting.
• Techniques should be applied to teaching in a sequential
order.
• They involve both awareness-raising and production tasks.
• To provide learners with the three necessary conditions for
the acquisition of their pragmatic ability in TL, a) exposure
to input – both in their L1 and L2; b) opportunities for
communicative practice –in an oral and a written mode; and
c) teachers’ feedback.

15. Thank You