Teaching Beyond Textbooks: Introduction of Discourse-Pragmatic Instruction in L2 Classroom

Teaching Beyond Textbooks:
Introduction of Discourse-Pragmatic Instruction in L2 Classroom
Saori Hoshi, Ph. D.
Nov 27, 2019
12:00pm- 1:00pm
Asian Centre 604

Over the last few decades, there has been extensive discussion in the field of applied linguistics and language pedagogy as to ways in which classroom learners of foreign languages can be taught to develop their awareness and use of their target language in real-life, interactional contexts. In formal language instruction, the use of textbooks is considered as the backbone of second and foreign language learning. Yet, studies on textbook analysis argue that the textbook dialogues generally fail to reflect the interactive nature of naturally occurring conversations accurately. The inadequacies in the presentation of textbook dialogues seem to result from an emphasis on grammar and information exchange rather than an emphasis on the perception of interaction as an interpersonal, social activity.

In this talk, she starts by presenting the ‘discrepancy’ between the organization of textbook dialogues and that of naturally occurring conversation; then she discusses how to fill this gap by proposing the incorporation of pragmatics instruction in the L2 classroom as a way to develop learners’ interactional competence, with a focus on some pragmatic features in Japanese. Lastly, she concludes this talk by suggesting what kind of steps could be taken for showing sensitivity towards “real-life” norms when reviewing instructional targets presented in the textbooks.

Saori Hoshi is an instructor of Japanese at UBC Asian Studies. Her research interests include socioculturally informed investigations of the role of L2 instruction in language learning involving interaction between native speaker and L2 learner, and the effectiveness of pragmatics-focused instruction for learners’ discourse-level production in Japanese, such as learners’ uses of Japanese sentence-final particles neyo, and yone, and incomplete sentences as interactional resources in conversation.