Welcome to the workshop ! ELT Lesson Planning and Curriculum Design: Emphasis on Communication TESL Ontario 2008 Conference Iryna Lenchuk

What is it about? reflection of my own experience as an ELT instructor and a TESL trainer; importance of teaching pragmatics to internationally educated professionals (IEP); complementing pragmatics with conversation analysis (CA), ethnomethodology and ethnography.

What is pragmatics? Activity 1 What did you learn about communicative interaction from this activity?

What is pragmatics? “… is the study of how more gets communicated than is said.” (Yule, 2003, p. 3) “Pragmatics is the study of speaker and hearer meaning created in their joint actions that include both linguistic and non-linguistic signals in the context of socioculturally organized activities.” (LoCastro, 2003, p. 15)

Selected Goals for ELT Training To provide language training for the purpose of acquisition of language skills suitable for the workforce. To provide cultural training for the purpose of understanding cultural norms and expectations of the Canadian workplace.

Why pragmatics? “I was not sure how to greet people, when to utter words or how to take conversational turns when I was interacting with people. For example, I had a Canadian-born friend which I was really interested in him. It was for the first time that we spent time with each other and while we were leaving, he told me, ‘We’ll have to get together some time’. After this meeting, I was really waiting for him to call me (…), so I waited for two weeks with disappointment, but later realized that these type of utterances such as see you later or we’ll have to get some time are just such phrases showing friendship with the speaker in daily language instead of showing any commitments. As soon as I realized the situation, I started to understand rather than becoming offended.” (Erdogmaz, personal communication, November 6, 2008)

How is it being taught? You can make and respond to suggestions by using the following phrases: How/ What about …? OK, let’s do/ try that. Couldn’t you/ we …? Sounds good to me. Why don’t you…? But what if …? If I were you … The only thing/ problem is… I suggest/ think you should It’s a good idea, but … It might be better to … You’re right. (Trappe, 2006, p. 65)

What is the problem with this approach? Language is broken into functions/ speech acts. (A speech act is an utterance aimed to perform a certain function). ESL learners have to memorize functions without a clear understanding how communication is taking place, how the meaning is achieved and what variables influence the effectiveness of communication. In most cases, ESL students are not made aware of the L2 sociocultural norms and values that underlie the realization of functions/ speech acts.

Problem Immigrant learners have been urged to learn and mimic the cultural behaviors of the host community in order to pass as its ‘normal’ members. Prepackaging cultural information without its actual understanding and experience may lead to stereotyping and ethnocentrism. It is necessary to encourage learners to be observers and critical analysts that may result in better understanding, tolerance and enjoyment of the target culture and other cultures. (Corbett, 2003).

LINC 5-7 Curriculum Guidelines “[Instructors] should encourage learners to observe, notice, discuss and apply various sociocultural aspects of communication in real-world learning tasks.” (2007, p. 31)

What to do? Instructions/exercises on pragmatics should demonstrate how the meaning is constructed and what variables (gender, age, status, etc.) can affect (positively or negatively) the process of communication.

How to teach pragmatics? Lesson plan Discourse completion tasks (DCTs)

Ethnomethodology & conversation analysis (CA) Focus on a communicative event in order to understand “how participants in conversations interact to construct meaning jointly.” (Corbett, 2003, p. 96). Focus on the structure of a conversation (e.g. turn-taking, repair, storytelling, selection of the next speaker). Activities 3, 4

Ethnography “Using fieldwork to accomplish the systematic study of cultural practices” (Corbett, 2003, p. 95) a preparation phase; fieldwork (collection of data); a presentation phase.

“…the pedagogy of intercultural communication is currently shifting from teaching accurate facts and culturally appropriate behaviours to teaching the social and historical contexts that have given present cultural phenomena their meaning within larger cross-cultural networks.” (Kramsch, 2001, p. 205)

Questions?

References References are provided in the handouts.

Thank you!