View Content #27509

This activity is designed to help teachers plan a lesson related to the development of pragmatic competence in learners. Note that while the components are presented in a particular order, all three are mutually reinforcing and should be developed in concert.

Outcomes:

Teachers will be able to:

• Articulate the context in which learners will explore a relevant language function
• Articulate the critical skills and dispositions they wish to help learners develop during a given lesson
• Articulate the relevant content and concepts in a learner experience centered on a relevant language function

Materials: Complex Learning Scenario Design Template

Procedure:

1. Begin with a brainstorm about what language functions, content/concepts, or critical skills you want your students to develop and acquire. For example, for the language function of apologies, you may want learners to explore how social distance (how well speakers know one another) impacts their language choices and teach them to notice social cues that indicate if an apology is accepted or not.

2. Then, fill out the Complex Learning Scenario Design Template. For each box, address the questions and fill in any additional relevant information that will help you craft your learning scenario. As you fill them in, make sure that all of the boxes, when taken together, form a cohesive lesson. You may wish to work on all the boxes at once or do one box at a time and revisit them in concert at the end. They key here is that you are in the driver’s seat! Work in whatever way supports your cognitive processes. An example of how each box might be addressed for a lesson about apologies is provided below:

• Context/Narrative: What is the given context? What will happen? What needs to be resolved? A student asks to borrow their teacher’s book and accidentally spills coffee on it. Now, the student needs to apologize to the teacher in such a way that 1) the apology is understood and 2) the student appears to have been forgiven.
• Critical Skills/Dispositions: What cognitive and social skills do you want your learners to develop and refine? How will the play environment facilitate said development? During the scenario, the teacher will indicate, with various non-verbal cues, the degree to which the apologies is accepted and whether the student is forgiven. The student must demonstrate awareness of these cues and draw conclusions that discern whether the teacher’s degree of acceptance is more related to intercultural norms than it is to personality.
• Content/Concepts: What content/concepts will be involved? Learners will demonstrate understanding of common semantic chunks related to apologies we well as an understanding of strategies (e.g., grounders/explanations) to use to support the delivery of an apology in a situation in which the social distance is considerably high and there is a power differential (the person who is receiving the apology holds more power in the relationship).

Notes:

Though this activity uses apologies as its example language function, any language function could be substituted.