Introducing Pragmatics to Secondary School Students

Abstract

The development of pragmatic competence and its acquistion in second language learning plays a key role in the achievement of communicative competence. However, and despite its importance, in the last few decades many authors did not support the idea of pragmatic teachability. Nevertheless, those who were committed with the cause (Rose & Kasper; 2001; Ishiara & Cohen, 2010) greatly contributed to pragmatic implementation in second language teaching settings with their ideas. This research paper sheds some light on the teachability of Pragmatics to low levels of Secondary Education in Spanish public schools. No language can just be learnt void of its pragmatic side as then, its speakers wouldn’t be fully operational. Consequently, any foreign language ST needs to learn the TL pragmatics in order to be proficient in all the language contexts. In order to check this, some 154 students from different levels ( 2nd and 3rd of ESO and 2nd of Bachiller) studying at IES Broch i Llop in Vila-real (Castellón) took part in this reseach study which aimed at ascertaining whether there had been any progress and acquisition of Pragmatic input after STS had been exposed to it. All the data processed from the pre-questionnaires and post-questionnaires pointed in the direction that Pragmatic acquisition can be gained through STS’ exposure to the input and further practice, regardles of the STS’ age and level of proficiency in English. Besides, as it will be seen here, transfer from L1 to L2 will not always work despite the similarities in both languages and the proficiency of the learner in their own L1 pragmatics. Nevertheless, and from the analysis of the data obtained from the questionnaires, it can be concluded that some Speech Acts – due to the difficulty it may pose to STS when opening and closing- may be more suited to younger students than others. Still, many other variables should also be taken into account when designing Pragmatic sessions at low levels of secondary Education, such as 2nd and 3rd of ESO, as failing to consider them may lead onto unsuccesfull pragmatic input acquisition, boredom, feeling of frustration and demotivation. Consequently, whether through implicit or explicit methods, second language learners need to be equipped with the necessary mechanisms to infer the correct meaning of language in real life situations. Therefore, as Pragmatic acquisition is possible, this will surely have implications in the language teaching practice.