Transcript Why can’t I get a professional job?

Welcome to the workshop !
ELT Lesson Planning and Curriculum
Design: Emphasis on Communication
TESL Ontario 2008 Conference
Iryna Lenchuk ([email protected])
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
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“Using fieldwork to accomplish the
systematic study of cultural practices”
(Corbett, 2003, p. 95)
a preparation phase;
fieldwork (collection of data);
a presentation phase.
http://www.bbclearningenglish.com/
“…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?
E-mail: [email protected]
References
• References are provided in the handouts.
Thank you!