The document summarizes Tamara Jones' presentation on bringing pragmatics and pronunciation into conversation classrooms. It discusses raising students' awareness of intonation and sentence stress through videos, recordings and activities. It also covers giving students explicit instruction on communicating listening, disagreeing politely and asking favors. Various classroom techniques and supplemental materials are presented to help students improve their pragmatic and pronunciation skills.

1. The Missing Link:
Pragmatics and Pronunciation
Tamara Jones
jonestamara@hotmail.com
SHAPE Language Center, Belgium

2. pragmatics pronunciation
perceptions
of
politeness

3. Pragmatics

4. … knowing how, when, and
why to say what to whom
NSFLE (2000)

5. • Close the window,
please.
• Would you mind if
I closed the
window?
• Brr, it’s chilly in
here.

6. It does not take massive
breakdowns to create
tensions between people of
different cultural
backgrounds. Rather, it is a
cumulative process made up
of uncomfortable moments
and small frustrations.
Beal (1992)

7. Pronunciation

8. “Thank
you very
much.
Please
come
again.”

9. Pronunciation
I love you.
Intonation
I love you.
I love you.
Sentence
Stress
I love you.

10. When grammar and intonation are at
odds, the intonation directly carries the
illocutionary force of the speech act.
Wennerstrom (2001)

11. Bringing Pragmatics and
Pronunciation into our
Conversation Classrooms

12. To Teach or not to Teach?
Environment helps,
BUT
Exposure alone is not enough.
We have to take an explicit approach!

13. Intonation
Pronunciation
Mini Lessons
Sentence
Stress

14. • Awareness raising
Intonation • Arrows
• Choral repetition
– Conducting
– Kazoos
• Recordings
Hello! Are you alright?
Yes. How about you?

15. • The fences from Well Said
• Dots above stressed words
Sentence
Stress • Clapping
• Rubber bands
• Recordings
Would you mind if I borrowed your pen?
pen
It’s been nice chatting with you.

16. Morley
(1992) Martinez-
Flor &
Uso-Juan
(2006)
My Lesson Plan

17. My Lesson Plan
1. Warm Up
2. Consciousness Raising
3. Explicit Instruction
4. Practice
5. Assessment (?)

18. Warm Ups

19. Getting Started
• Observations
• Surveys

20. Consciousness Raising

21. Video Clips
• Television clips
– Reality TV Aneesa: I feel like she loves attention. I can’t
– Scripted TV (last resort) I have to say in the back of
believe people.
my mind, like, “you need attention, you need
• DIY attention, you need attention.”
– Unscripted communicativelyattention, yes. speakers
Cara: She does need competent
• Video
Aneesa: And I am just like …
• Audio
Cara: Actually, she is very needy. But, I still think
that she’s physically ill as well.

22. Tiffany: Hey! How’s it going?
Tamara: Good.
Tiffany: Hey, let’s … can I just look at your calendar? Because I
have a question. I know you’ve got your weekends planned
months in advance, but Elmer and I were just thinking about,
and we’re not sure about this at all, but for the concert, possibly,
if we’re going to be there all day on Saturday, maybe staying in a
hotel room that night.
Tamara: Oh, yeah?
Tiffany: So, if, and this is totally if this works with your guys’
schedule, if you guys wouldn’t mind and you wanted to come up
for that weekend, would you mind watching the dogs?
Tamara: Yeah, no problem.
Tiffany: If it works. If it totally works. Are you sure you don’t
mind?
Tamara: Sure.
Tiffany: Oh! The doggies will be so happy!

23. Tiffany: Hey! How’s it going?

24. Tiffany: … if you guys wouldn’t mind and you wanted to come
up for that weekend, would you mind watching the dogs?

25. Tamara: Yeah, no problem.
Tiffany: If it works. If it totally works.
Are you sure you don’t mind?
Tamara: Sure.

26. Explicit Instruction

27. Communicate that you are Listening!
• encouraging words: • repeating questions:
– Mhmm. – word / phrase as
– Yeah. a question
– Wow! • information
• comments: questions:
– How interesting! – Why did she do
that?
– That’s amazing! – What happened
• emphasis questions: next?
– Really?

28. Disagreeing Top 4
1. Agreement prefaced disagreement
– “Yes, but”
– Agreement part is faster and weaker
2. Showing discomfort
– “Well”
– Long and flat intonation
3. Checking the statement
– “Really?”
– Rising intonation
4. Pretending a lack of comprehension
– “What?”
– Rising Intonation

29. minimizing checking promising
Favor Asking Steps
disarming warning introducing

30. Practice

32. Who will colonize Marzipan?

34. Assessment

36. Great Pronunciation Supplements
• Avery, P. and Erlich, S. (1997) Teaching American English
Pronunciation, Oxford University Press
• Beisbier, B. (1994) Sounds Great, Thompson and Heinle
• Gilbert, J. (2001) Clear Speech, Cambridge University Press
• Grant, L. (2001) Well Said, Heinle and Heinle
• Hancock, A. (1995) Pronunciation Games, Cambridge
University Press
• Meyers, C. & Holt, S. (2001) Pronunciation for Success, Aspen
Productions
• Miller, S. (2005) Targeting Pronunciation, Houghton Mifflin Co
• Noll, M. (2007) American Accent Skills, Ameritalk Press

37. Great Pragmatics Supplements
• Foreign Affairs Canada website, www.intercultures.ca
• CARLA website: www.carla.umn.edu/speechacts
• Teaching Pragmatics website:
http://exchanges.state.gov/englishteaching/resforteach/prag
matics.html
• Martinez-Flor, A. and Uso-Juan, E (2006) A comprehensive
pedagogical framework to develop pragmatics in the foreign
language classroom: The 6Rs approach, Applied Language
Learning, 16(2)

38. We want our students to be
fully effective
communicators.
Kanellou (2009)

39. Thank you for your interest!
Tamara Jones
jonestamara@hotmail.com
SHAPE Language Center, Belgium