View Content #19411

by Julie Sykes, CASLS Director

It is no secret that the state-of-affairs in language education is changing, sometimes for the better and sometimes in challenging ways. As we continue to expand, transform, and shape curricular models in response to shifting enrollment numbers, alternative funding models, and emerging research on best practices, it is critical to keep our ultimate goal at the forefront. In the end, we all aim to increase opportunities for meaningful person-to-person communication through speech and written texts. Whether it is on the subway, in a digital discussion forum, or on an airplane, people have more and more opportunities to interact with others from all over the world.

Essential to this mission is one's ability to both express and interpret meaning in an appropriate way, no matter the context. This month's InterCom returns to a focus on pragmatic skills to highlight ways in which classroom practice can integrate pragmatics to ensure learners have the skills to be strong participants in intercultural, multilingual discourse through the accurate expression of meaning. Take for example, the misstep that can occur when someone uses the greeting, "Hi, how are you?" and is met with a more detailed response then "I'm doing well, you?" This simple structure often causes confusion in that learners interpret the meaning as a genuine inquiry into their state, when, in most cases, "Hi, how are you?" serves as a formulaic greeting with a simple, short response.

Fundamental to the success of pragmatic instruction in the classroom, thereby minimizing such missteps, is a strong focus on positioning learners to be intercultural participants from day one. This means utilizing patterns to guide learners in predictable ways while, simultaneously, teaching skills to co-construct their interactional experiences and, when needed, offer alternative responses.

In the weeks to follow, we explore three areas which extend the opportunity to address meaning at all levels, from the first week to the advanced level – learner choice, accurate assessment, and the expansion of interactional contexts for multilingual discourse.