A Qualitative Case Study on Teacher’s and Students’ Motivation-related Experiences of L2 Pragmatics in Taiwan

• Main Authors: Hsieh, Ming Hung, 謝明宏
• Other Authors: Yu, Ming Chung
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2012
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/92233061416016616349

碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 英國語文學研究所 === 100 === Though much of L2 pragmatics research has focused on the effectiveness of instructional pragmatics and cross-cultural variations of pragmatic norms and strategies used in the target language via cross-sectional quantitative research, little, however, has been conducted to explore teachers’ and students’ motivational experiences of implementing pragmatics instruction in real-life teaching and learning practices in EFL contexts. Specifically, little was known about what and how teachers and students perceive the role of developing pragmatic ability and their motivations to teach and learn socio-pragmatic functions since prior research has suggested that more research efforts should be done in the line of L2 pragmatics research. Therefore, this study aims to investigate both teachers’ and students’ motivations of learning and teaching pragmatics through qualitative research. Multiple data sources were collected through face-to-face interviews, classroom observations and field notes as well as the researcher’s reflective journals, to illuminate the dynamic, multifaceted motivational experiences of L2 instructional pragmatics. The findings suggest that both teachers and students considered the role of teaching and learning pragmatics essential to second language development pertaining to the polite and appropriate use of the target language, and its learning utility, practical functions and intrinsic interest in using language for authentic communication purposes despite the sociopolitical factors, such as exam-oriented teaching, lack of top-down institutional support and the implementation of English language policy in Taiwan. Nevertheless, the teacher voiced her inadequacy of teaching L2 pragmatics in a four-skill integrated course and demonstrated her concerns about the prevalence of teaching students how to speak English in a culturally appropriate way, which is, however, contrary to students’ eager expectations to learn L2 pragmatics. Albeit both the teacher and the students tended to ignore L2 pragmatics at first, after the initial reflections they raised their awareness of culturally speaking in an appropriate way. In this study, it was hoped to empower both teachers and students to understand their teaching and learning practices by sensitizing them to L2 pragmatics in EFL contexts, to facilitate the implementation of L2 pragmatics instruction in the classroom and to underscore the importance of developing learners’ communicative competence in Taiwan.