Teaching Pargmatics in the ethiopian context

04/11/2023 thesis defense 1

Investigating the Challenges and Opportunities for Developing Pragmatic Competence of EFL

Learners: The Case of St. Joseph School in

Adama

A thesis Defense

Prepared By:Korie Shankulie

Advisor: Dr Haileleul Zeleke (PhD)

June 25/2012


Table of Contents

1.Introduction

2. Review of Related Literature

3. Research Methods and Procedures

4. Summary of Findings

5. Conclusions and Recommendations


1.1. Background to the study

• 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;


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.


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,


1.2. 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


Statement of...

• English language textbooks present the language to students in terms of written and spoken language, but their presentation of the language is not 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,


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,


1.3. 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


1.4. 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?


1.5. 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.


1.6. Delimitation of the Study

• It doesn’t 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 doesn’t incorporate all upper high schools in the Adama Town.


1.7. 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,


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/to communicate appropriately• Knowledge• Acceptability• Appropriateness • Adequacy• Grammaticalness • CC is social evaluation of behavior as appropriate or

inappropriate


Review...

Competence (underlying/tacit knowledge)

Performance (actual communicating ability)

Performance:Use-rules of socioculture-social contextUsage-rules of grammar-linguistic

contextWhat, when, how to speak or not

speak=rule of SC


Review...Models of CC

CC

Strategic Competen

ce

Discourse competenc

e

Grammatical

competence

Sociolinguitic competence


Communicative Competence

skills

knowledge

awareness

attitude


Pragmatics

relatively late comer in linguistics;relatively late comer in linguisticsbecame 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


...pragmatics

Selection factors

Social status

age

Social distance

culture


...pragmatics

language

contextusers


...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;


...pragmatics////

Why do we have to teach pragmatics? Developing learners’ CC; Minimizing sociopragmatic failure; Minimizing cultural shock; Creating awareness of the different sociocultural

rules and different concepts of politeness ; Turn taking; Opening and closing conversation; Staying on topic; All words are not used by all people; Some words are only used in certain places/time; Meaning depends on use or meaning =use;


...pragmatics

Least polite

• Most polite

Invitation

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?


Challenges vs. Opportunities

challenges

textbooks

Teachers’ training

Class size

attitude

opportunities

Teacher’s talk

textbooks

culture

authentic inputs


3. METHODS AND PROCEDURE OF THE STUDY

A descriptive method was employed in the study;

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 were used;

The existing problems were investigated; Inferences were drawn from the responses;


Procedure

Stating the problem

Pre-test

Stating objectives Setting research questions

Reviewing literature

Designing tools and Selecting

samples Collecting data

Giving meaning to the data

Conclusions and recommendations


Sampling

• Purposive sampling was employed for textbooks content analysis;


...Sampling

Coding Categorizing Counting

Tabulating Describing and analysingInterpreting


...sampling

• Systematic sampling was employed for respondents;

• Out of 339 students 183 were selected, based on table of statistics, for questionnaire and MDCT;

• All four (4)teachers teaching grades 9-12 were selected for questionnaire.


Research Tools

Data

Content analysis

Perception questionnaire

Classroomobservation

MDCT


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.


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 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),


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);


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.’ This implies there is a need gap.


Research ...

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


Conclusions

• The content analysis indicated that the current English textbooks for Ethiopia 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.

• Communicative activities in the classroom will provide valuable production practice for learners, but they will not generate the type of sociolinguistic input that learners need;

• This study provides information about the current state of pragmatic instruction, challenges of teaching pragmatics in real classrooms, and teachers’ awareness of teaching pragmatics.


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;

• textbook writers should take note of procedures of teaching, selection of authentic materials, designing of task and approaches to testing pragmatic features of language;

• 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 be conducted exploring the effects of instruction in pragmatic aspects of the English language in an EFL setting;

• pragmatics should be taught on its own right instead of being taught as a portion in linguistic courses of undergraduate studies.


Implications

• Further researches need to be conducted to observe as to how high school teachers can develop the pragmatic competence of learners;

• Further researches should also examine students’ oral requesting, apologizing, complimenting, complaining, thanking, refusing, etc. when students are unaware;

• Pragmatic competence is one of the vital components of communicative competence that needs to be considered in EFL teacher education programs;

• Educational administrators should take “pragmatics” into consideration when designing curriculum guidelines for English subjects.


‘What one thinks is acceptable, another finds it

offensive!’

The End.Thank You So Much!

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Devices & Hardware

Teaching Pargmatics in the ethiopian context