View Content #27508

Stephanie Knight, CASLS Assistant Director

Developing the pragmatic competence of learners involves unpacking and exploring the various complexities of communication. One way to approach this process is the use of complex learning scenarios.

Complex learning scenarios, or immersive, play-oriented experiences in which participants work together to complete multistep tasks (e.g., decoding of texts, solving of problems) to discover and unpack critical information about various speech acts, hold incredible potential for the language classroom. These tasks, particularly when woven together by a salient narrative, have the potential to promote meaningful social interaction, high-order cognitive engagement, risk-taking, and the acquisition of critical knowledge and skillsets needed to master the speech act at hand.

In order to articulate a learning environment in which in which these positive affordances are likely realized, teachers should consider three major areas of design: 1) Context/Narrative; 2) Critical Skills/Dispositions; and 3) Content/Concept. Each of these areas is mutually reinforcing. As a result, all three areas should be developed in concert with one another in lieu of in a linear fashion.

• Context/Narrative:  The importance of context in language acquisition is widely acknowledged (e.g., Atkinson, 2002; Canale and Swain, 1980; and Hyland, 2007). Establishing a clear context and purpose behind the series of tasks that learners engage in will provide them with the information that they need to truly unpack the speech act around which the complex learning scenario revolves. For example, articulating the social distance, or closeness, one has with fellow interlocutors within the learning scenario will necessarily impact the language choices that should be made.
• Critical Skills/Dispositions: In order to develop pragmatic competence, learners need to develop 1) knowledge of how to form utterances; 2) the ability to analyze language so that they can craft (and interpret) utterances in alignment with their desired illocutionary force (intended meaning); 3) awareness of how utterances impact their fellow interlocutors; and 4) the ability to articulate their reasoning behind the communicative choices that they made (for more information, please see this InterCom post and Sykes, Malone, Forrest, and Sağdıç, in press). In the context of a complex learning scenario, practitioners must consider how the play environment can promote each of those skills; interactions must promote that learners consider all of these facets and should be intentionally designed to foment skill development.
• Content/Concepts: Concepts serve to orient content and promote that learners retain targeted content over an extended period of time. Additionally, they facilitate that learners connect and transfer their content knowledge across domains (Erikson, Lanning, and French, 2017). The spirit of this reality has been explored in L2 contexts in the emerging field of Concept-based Pragmatics Instruction (CBPI). In CBPI classrooms, learners first explore concepts (e.g. social distance) to inform their consideration of how to communicate to achieve desired meaning (e.g. van Compernolle and Henry, 2015). The play environment within a complex learning scenario has the potential to prime learners to orient to this more holistic lens rather than focusing, in a more limited nature, solely on the language content itself (though the content will still be learned). 

To better understand how this work might be operationalized, consider, for example, a complex learning scenario designed to help learners understand how to formulate requests (speech act) directed at someone with whom the level of social distance (concept) is high. At the beginning of gameplay, learners are introduced to the narrative (context) of the person to whom they need to learn to make a request and are given information so that they understand why the request must be made in the first place. Then, through a series of interactions designed to cultivate critical skills and dispositions within learners, the learners uncover critical grammar and vocabulary as well as strategies for mitigating requests and for forming both speaker- and hearer-oriented requests (content). To ultimately succeed, learners must formulate requests In a way that demonstrates awareness of the context as well as awareness of their fellow interlocutor’s reactions to their requests.

No matter how the work is operationalized (as a complex learning scenario or in some other iteration), educators delivering lessons related to the study of pragmatics should consider the areas of Context/Narrative, Critical Skills/Dispositions, and Content/Concepts. As such, this week’s Activity of the Week is designed to walk educators through the process of planning while keeping those interrelated areas in mind.

References

Atkinson, D. (2002). Towards a sociocognitive approach to second language acquisition. The Modern Language Journal, 86(4), 525-545.

Canale, M., & Swain, M. (1980). Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second language teaching and testing. Applied Linguistics, 1, 1-47.

Erikson, H. L., Lanning, L., & French, R. (2017). Concept-based Curriculum and Instruction for the Thinking Classroom. Corwin Publishing.

Hyland, K. (2007). Genre pedagogy: Language, literacy, and L2 writing instruction. Journal of Second Language Writing, 16, 148-164.

Sykes, J., Malone, M., Forrest, L., & Sağdıç, A. (in press). Comprehensive framework for assessing intercultural-pragmatic competence: Knowledge, analysis, subjectivity, and awareness. Encyclopedia of Educational Innovation.

van Compernolle, R. A., & Henery, A. (2015). Learning to do concept-based pragmatics instruction: Teacher development and L2 pedagogical content knowledge. Language Teaching Research, 19(3), 351-372.