ENHANCING THE PRAGMATIC COMPETENCE OF KOREAN ESL LEARNERS IN ATHENA ENGLISH LANGUAGE CENTER

FRANKENA MODEL

KHRISTINE HAZEL B. FERRERIA 1996-57053 EDFD 201

Submitted to: PROF. DONNE JONE SODUSTA

I am trying to free your mind Neo. But I can only show you the door. Youre the one that has to go through it. (Berman & Wachowski, 1999)

ULTIMATE AIMS Being a teacher means to foster learning among students in order for them to reach their own potentials and what they aim for as they traverse the road to a bigger and more real world. The most important role of a teacher is to guide the students to find the right paths for themselves, setting as a model for the learners to follow. As one of those who lead the way to learning, I take responsibility for the awakening of the desire of my students to learn and fully understand English. I always think that learning is a never-ending process, thus, even if I am a provider of knowledge and a guide, I still learn as I teach just as what is being expected of an idealist teacher (Bigge, 1982). It has been my job for a long time now that I do not only consider teaching as a way of imparting what I know to my students, but also a process where I learn to be an emotional being who knows how to sympathize and be a friend to them if they allow. As I enjoy teaching English to my Korean students, I make it a point that I make them feel that learning a second language is not at all that bad. In fact, I always encourage them to let English be an exciting new adventure to discover. By this I mean that for them to be able to be competent speakers of the English language, they should not solely depend on the rules that govern the correct structure and usage of words and sentences of the language; they should also learn how to properly communicate in conversational settings with native speakers. In a world where everybody is competitive these days, it is of vital importance that second language learners (SLLs) such as Koreans must be given a shot at proving to others that they too, can compete with people from around the globe. South Korean society is composed of people who strictly follow the teachings of Confucius. Their consciousness is a by-product of Confucianism, closely practicing codes of proper behavior for interaction with people and society as a whole. Actions which they think are threats to their ways are considered

inappropriate or wrong. Moreover, each and every one of them believes that if their leaders fail to perform their duties, disaster and catastrophe in any form will surely be consequences (Korean Confucianism, 2008). Since those times they were conquered and abused by the Japanese and suffered greatly from poverty after the war against North Korea, South Koreans have never thought of giving up. Their country still stands as one nation. They have fought a hard battle to get to where they are now. Their national identity encompasses self-reliance and mistrust for anything that is not Korean. But with the dawn of globalization and the unbounded changing of the times, their government finally decided to open its doors to the world to allow better opportunities for their country and the people. With this pivotal change came the need for the learning of the English language. The Philippines has been a witness to how Koreans drove in multitudes to our country to get that English education they badly need. For two decades now, many Filipinos have benefitted from doing business with them. Korean ESL students are goal-driven and very competitive since this is how they are shaped by their beliefs. What baffles foreigners too is the Koreans tendency to consider material wealth especially money as a direct indicator of education, general ability, social status, and sometimes even intelligence (Korean Confucianism, 2008). With these Korean characteristics in mind, imagine them in the classroom. You see them armed with their books, notebooks, pens, dictionaries, and a gigantic expectation that will learn English from their teachers so they can dazzle the world with their expertise. And thus, Athena English Language Center was born. Because of that great need of Koreans to learn English,

Jonna Ann Jeong and Myeong Jun Jeong put up the school to cater to these needs. It officially opened on May 21, 2003. During the first years of Athena, it concentrated on teaching only adult students such as university students with different majors, professionals from various fields, and Christian missionaries. In the years that followed, it widened its range of students to include teenagers and kids and even mothers who were with their children here. Athena English Language Center has a very extensive way when it comes to teaching the four macro skills of English, especially with great emphasis on the English grammar. It deals with the technicalities in order to ensure that it produces students who are adept and wellrounded when they go out to the bigger world. It is the schools mission to help the students fully grasp the English language by teaching it to them, not only for them to have a conceptual knowledge of the language, but also for them to be able to use it in any practical situations especially those which involve interactions with foreigners. Furthermore, the schools logo is a circle with the picture of the Parthenon at the center and around it the name of the school. The Parthenon was chosen since it is a Greek temple for Pallas Athena. It embodies our purpose to give quality education from teachers who convey real knowledge to our students. The pillars of the Parthenon represent the teachers who are the foundations of the school because it is us teachers who keep the quality of English teaching. It is fitting to mention early on in this paper that pragmatic competence is not just the only skill lacking among my Korean students. It is actually just one of the several competency problems that they have. I have chosen to address this distinct concern for the reason that I wish my students to avoid uncomfortable encounters when they face native and non-native speakers who know exactly which are appropriate things to say or not in any given situation.

THE CONTEXT OF HUMAN NATURE AND CORE BELIEFS Korean ESL students still have a long way to go to reach the pinnacle of their dreams. Why is that so? They still have a lot of problems in the different aspects of English such as pragmatic competence to name just one. Consider the next sentences as an example. This particular incident happened to me quite recently. It was the 9th hour of my class and it was pouring outside. I felt cold and I badly needed to answer the call of nature so I asked my student if I could excuse myself to go to the toilet. As I was leaving, he good-naturedly replied, I dont care. I stopped in my tracks about to say something in retort when I saw on his face that what he meant was a totally different thing. So I jokingly corrected him by saying, I dont mind, you mean. And he said yes. This particular instance is just one among the many instances that happens in an ESL classroom wherein Second Language Learners (SLLs) give inappropriate utterances when engaged in a conversation. Athena English Language Center is no exception. Athena teachers have had their own share of this kind of situation which either left them dumbfounded, amused, frustrated, or in short, riddled with mixed emotions. It can be explained by Immanuel Kants view on learning. He coined the term noumena which means the thing in itself (Grier, 2009). What does he mean by it? For instance, we know what a dog is; that it has that physical form of a dog, we see it, we hear it bark, and so forth. But for all that it is, it is the dogness of the dog that no human can ever experience for the simple reason that we are not dogs. Consequently, when we apply it to Second Language Learners wishing to be native speakers of English, they can never be one because their first language is not English. What they can be is just be near native speakers.

The very reason why Korean students and ESL students as a whole, study English is because they want to communicate using the language. However, it is a sad fact that they do not have enough pragmatic competence skills to enable them to communicate effectively in the target language, which in this case is of course English. It was found that even ESL students who have a mastery of the grammar and lexical technicalities of English lack communicative competence (Hymes in Kasper, 1997). As a result, they find themselves in an awkward or embarrassing situation once they see the look on the face of their listener. According to my students, English became one of the most important subjects in South Korea in the 1990s. Basically it is first introduced in middle school then continues on to high school. Unfortunately, it is only taught in university in majors in which it is a prerequisite. A lot of money is invested in teaching English, however, the root of the matter stems from the way English is taught. It is true that they have ample knowledge of the language, grammar in particular, but for all that, their medium of instruction is still Korean which is being taught by teachers who had very low scores on their English proficiency tests (Miller, 2006). What is even worse is the fact that proficiency tests have become somewhat of a magic shot for assessing a persons language ability. They have become a yardstick for measuring their English proficiency not only for a job placement and promotion, but also as a ticket for academic pursuits in their country or abroad. These tests have become for many a shortcut to increasing an individuals English adeptness. As a consequence, they still fall short of the recommended English skills required in many of the areas they are applying for. This is because Koreans lack practice and confidence plus the fact that their English learning is mostly based on books. Aside from English language institutes that sprout like mushrooms everywhere in their country, all one has to do is walk in any

bookstore and see for themselves arrays of English language materials such as books, DVDs, and test reviewers. However, according to Miller (2006), while a lot of them may have had benefits from these, there are just as many who still cannot put two sentences together after all the hours they spend reading and studying some expressions or vocabulary book. They are not given enough chances to put into practice what they learn in the four corners of the classrooms. For many of the students, English is something that they have to endure because they do not have a choice. English proficiency test results are more valued than being able to communicate well in the language. For these reasons, the Korean owner of Athena, Mr. Jeong, is the one who assigns students to teachers. He designates students according to their English levels and matches them to the teachers area of specialization. In my case, I specialize in teaching grammar, useful expressions, and IELTS and TOEIC Speaking classes. I teach one-on-one classes to adult students during the day and online classes in the evening. In my roster of students, one is a 12-year old kid who has been studying English online with me for a year now. Since I am one of the oldest teachers in Athena who teaches oneon-one, I handle beginner and intermediate students first before they move on to higher level group classes. Basically, the most common problems my students have are in grammar, specifically in sentence constructions, vocabulary, comprehension, speaking, pronunciation, and of course pragmatic competence. Beginner students tend to make general grammar mistakes in their sentences such as subject-verb agreement, prepositions, clauses, verb tenses, and the like. They also have trouble expressing themselves because of their limited vocabulary, lack of selfconfidence in giving their opinions, and the fact that they do not know whether what they say is correct or not. Many of them also have the tendency to formulate their thoughts first in Korean

and translate it to English and from English to Korean when I say something or ask them a question. Korean language or Hanggul has its own set of grammar rules, vocabulary, and expressions which are, by far very different from English that when they do the translation, most of their sentences come out wrong, inappropriate, strange, insubstantial, rude, and even downright offensive and insulting at times. They mean one thing, but they say another thing. Upper-beginner and intermediate students, on the other hand, still make mistakes in their grammar. However their mistakes are not as many as when they first started learning English. Their word bank is much more improved. The same is true with their speaking, comprehension, pronunciation, and pragmatic competence skills. They can already understand many of the expressions used in both written and spoken English, yet still far from being rated as close to native speakers. In my opinion, aside from the problems common to my students, it is a reality that their Korean intonation is too strong that foreigners still consider them the worst communicators in English among many Asian countries. My students have various reasons why they learn English, but mostly, they do it for long term plans like future or better job opportunities, passing English proficiency tests, and studying or working in English speaking countries such as Australia, the US, and Canada. They want to be familiar with and be knowledgeable of the English language for personal and social advancement. My role here as a teacher is very important to guarantee that I will be an effective facilitator in their learning. My teaching style is influenced by Morpheus in the movie Matrix (1999). It can be perfectly explained by what Morpheus said to Neo, and I quote:

I am trying to free your mind Neo. But I can only show you the door. Youre the one that has to go through it. In other words, I see myself as a guide, a mentor, and an inspiration. I show them the way, but in the long run, it is them who will have the final say. In the classroom, I allow my students to study comfortably and as what I always tell them the first time I meet them, I give them my trust, no matter how small it is and it is up to them to let it grow. I do this because I also want them to put their trust in me that I can help them learn English in the best way I can. So, for instance, when I teach them a grammar pattern, I explain it to them by giving the meaning, where and when they can use it, and then give them example sentences. After I do these, I ask them to make their own examples which may be from their own experiences and amusing if possible. I have noticed that if they make sentences using these elements they can easily remember what I teach them. I never proceed to another lesson until they understand what it is completely. TARGET COMPETENCIES TO BE IMPROVED This paper aims to improve the pragmatic competence of my Korean ESL students in Athena English Language Center. It is imperative then that I first have to define the terms that will be mentioned here to ensure the full understanding of the concept being stated. In an attempt to comprehend pragmatic competence, it is best that I define pragmatics first. According to David Crystal (1985) in Kasper (1997): Pragmatics is the study of language from the point of view of the users, especially of the choices they make, the constraints they encounter in using language in social interaction and the effects their use of language have on other participants in the act of communication.

In simple words, Kasper (1997) defined it as the study of communicative action in its socio-cultural context. Krisnawati (2011) also quoted her explanation that communicative action

includes not only speech acts such as apologizing, requesting, and so forth, but also the engagement of an individual in various types of discourse and the participation in conversations of varying lengths and complexity. Researches and studies into communicative competence have found that studying a new language transcends memorization of vocabulary items and grammatical rules (Canale, 1983 in Edwards and Csizer, 2001). Pragmatic competence, though most of the time invisible, has played such a big part in describing communicative competence (Edwards and Csizer, 2001). Bachman (1990) expounded pragmatic competence as: the relationships between utterances and functions that speakers intend to perform those utterances and the characteristics of the context of language use that determine the appropriateness of utterances. (in Maryam and Rozina, 2009)

Bachman (1990) further stated that pragmatic competence is comprised of illocutionary competence, later labelled as functional competence (Bachman & Palmer 1996 in Kyzlinkova, 2007 ), and sociolinguistic competence wherein the former is seen as the understanding of how language is used with its forms and structures, and latter is concerned with how language is made clear within a given context (Ahn, 2007). The difference between the two is evocative of Leech and Thomas division of pragmatics into pragmalinguistics and sociopragmatics. Bachmans illocutionary competence is similar to Leechs concept of pragmalinguistics in which it is defined as how speakers perform a variety of language functions through utterances (Leech 1983 in Ahn, 2009). Moreover, Bachmans sociolinguistic competence bears comparison with Thomas idea of sociopragmatics wherein it is concerned with how speakers appropriately use language according to context (Thomas, 1983 in Ahn, 2007).

In connection with this, Bialystok (1993) proposed three important factors of pragmatic competence. These are as follows. First, it includes the speakers ability to make use of language for different purposes such as to make requests, to give instructions, and to effect change. Second, it takes in the hearers ability to understand the speakers intentions especially when the statements are implied or indirectly conveyed. This includes statements of indirect requests, irony, and sarcasms. The last aspect comprises the mastery of rules by which utterances are looped together to make a discourse (Ahn, 2007). Most human utterances are regarded as actions fulfilling certain functions, and hence, are referred to as speech acts (Thomas in Kreutel, 2007). The theory of speech act, which was first introduced by Oxford philosopher J.L. Austin (1962) and was further developed by American philosopher J.R. Searle (1975), is divided into three components. First, there is the locutionary act, or the act of 'saying' something. Second, there is the illocutionary act, or the performance of an act in saying something as opposed to the performance of an act of saying something. Third, there is the perlocutionary act, for saying something will often, or even normally, produce certain consequential effects upon the feelings, thoughts, or actions of the audience, of the speaker, or of other persons. In other words, a locutionary act has meaning; it produces an understandable utterance. An illocutionary act has force; it is informed with a certain tone, attitude, feeling, motive, or intention. A perlocutionary act has consequence; it has an effect upon the addressee (Henderson and Brown, 1997). A review of speech act theory would not be complete without a mention of the classification systems of speech act types. Although Austin had developed such a system, it is Searles that is most widely used (Barron, 2003 in Schauer, 2009). Searle (1976 IN Schauer, 2009) distinguishes five speech act classes: Representatives (speakers commit themselves _ to something being true, for example, to boast or to deduce)

Directives (attempts by speakers to get hearers to do something, for example, to request or to beg)

Commissives (speakers commit themselves to some future course of action, for example, to promise or to threaten)

Expressives (speakers express their psychological state, for example, to thank or to apologize)

Declarations (speakers bring about correspondence between propositional content and the reality, for example, to christen or to appoint). KSA MATRIX KNOWLEDGE 1.Pragmatic Awareness ATTITUDE Students should be able to differentiate the meaning of a speech act and evaluate the intensity of a speakers meaning with sixty percent accuracy. 2.Grammatical Knowledge The students should be able of the Target Language to apply and practice fiftyfive to sixty percent of the basic and useful English grammatical rules in their everyday practical conversations. 3. Knowledge of the socio- The students should be able cultural norms of English to carry out socio-culturally acceptable conversations and express an appropriate response with fifty-five percent to sixty percent accuracy. SKILLS The students are required to be patient and observant of what is being said by the speaker, both in the literal sense and of what is inferred. The students should be selfconfident enough to strike up a conversation and put into practice the patterns they learn in class.

The students should first understand and be considerate of the differences their culture has from that of the target culture especially when it comes to showing appropriateness of what they say.

Now that I have defined the relevant terms used in this paper, Id like to proceed to the KSA matrix or the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of my Korean students which will help them achieve pragmatic competence in the English language. I listed down three for each. The first is pragmatic awareness of what is meant by utterances. Students should be able to differentiate the meaning of a speech act (such as the distinction between a directive and an expressive) and evaluate the intensity of a speakers meaning (such as the difference between a warning and a suggestion) with sixty percent accuracy. This can be achieved if the students are patient and observant not only of the literal meanings of what is said, but also of what is implied. They should understand that not all sentences can be understood at face value. Second, I believe that students should have enough grammatical knowledge of the target language. Here students should be able to apply and practice fifty-five to sixty percent of the basic and useful English grammatical rules in their everyday practical conversations. English, as any languages in the world, has its own set of rules that must be clearly understood and mastered for it to be used in realistic situations. It can be reached if the students have self-confidence, take studying seriously, memorize patterns, sounds, and words by practicing them outside classrooms so as to be familiarized with the things they learned. Lastly, it is important that students have an extensive understanding of the socio-cultural norms that govern the English language and have the ability to choose which speech acts are appropriate for the culture involved. In this area, students must be able to carry out socioculturally acceptable conversations and express an appropriate response with fifty-five to sixty percent accuracy. To achieve this, students should first understand and be considerate of the differences their culture has from that of the target culture especially when it comes to showing appropriateness of what they say.

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE Most methods employed in teaching second languages are mainly concerned with the formal structure or technicalities of the target language. In addition, learning a second language in classrooms is a matter of mastering grammar and pronunciation. As a consequence, little attention is given to teaching language as a tool for communication in the real world. Based on my experience, I can say that it is not often enough to just teach and test Second Language Learners (SLLs) on how to use the structures of the foreign language. Students must also learn to develop ways of relating these structures to their communicative use in their usage in real life situations. The following paragraphs will tackle the different studies done related to the development of the pragmatic competence of Second Language Learners of English as stated in the matrix of competencies that should be achieved. A. PRAGMATIC AWARENESS 1. Soler, A. E. and Pitarch, J. P. (2010) made a paper on the benefits of instruction on learners attention and awareness during the performance of refusals. Thus, based on a educational proposal for teaching refusals at the discourse level, they focused on the benefits that this pedagogical proposal could have on the information attended to during the planning and execution of refusals. Secondly, they also explored whether the instruction made a difference in learners awareness of refusals. The results showed that instruction did make a difference in drawing learners attention towards target pragmatic issues in relation to the speech act of refusals. In line with previous research, the present study also confirmed awareness-raising as an approach to the teaching of pragmatics. They claimed that learners awareness of

pragmalinguistics and sociopragmatics increased after the instructional treatment. Findings from this study showed the benefits of pragmatic instruction on learners attention and awareness of the pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic issues involved in the production of the speech act of refusals. Providing learners with opportunities for audiovisual pragmatic input, awareness and comprehension of different pragmatic meanings, together with opportunities to work with pragmatic consciousness-raising tasks, made a difference in the learners awareness of refusals.

Awareness of how language should be used in the outside world is necessary to avoid misunderstandings or any other negative results that can happen if the student does not have any idea of these things. Teachers should design strategies such as the ones used here when teaching English to speakers of other languages. In spite of the benefits of instruction on learners pragmatic awareness, care should be taken not to generalize results from this study. According to the researchers, it is not possible to take the participants reports as signs of their implicit pragmatic competence in interaction, since verbal reporting is a very different activity from engaging in a refusal sequence as a social practice (Soler, A. E. and Pitarch, J. P., 2010).

2. Edwards and Csizer (2001) presented in their article the activities of a four-week program aimed at developing students pragmatic competence by designing a pragmatic program involving four activities to provide students with explicit teaching on two speech acts, openings and closings of conversations such as Hello! - Hi! and Bye! Goodbye! Each activity lasted about 30 to 45 minutes and comprised follow-up discussions during which students and teachers discussed the new structures and phrases as well as any problems that arose while completing the activities. To get information on the usefulness of these activities in EFL classrooms, they

carried out the experiment involving 92 high school students in Hungary. There purpose was to investigate whether the program had any effect on how students performed the mentioned speech acts. It was facilitated by the students regular English teachers, who were provided with information on the purpose of the study and a detailed description of the activities. They found out that pragmatic competence can be developed in the classrooms through a range of situations and activities. They also concluded that pragmatic competence rules that are different from or non-existent in the students first language need to be given more emphasis. Moreover, they suggested that comparative studies and needs analyses can be carried out to address the most challenging pragmatic issues facing particular groups of students. I totally agree with what they said here especially on rules that are non-existent in their language. For instance, Koreans give a high regard on politeness especially when they are with older people of their kind. I am well aware that it is considered disrespectful when younger Koreans do not use respectful words to address the older ones. However, in English there are formal and informal ways of speaking be it with people of the same age or not. If the situations call for it, then speakers should know what to use or say. It is imperative that pragmatic awareness in the classrooms should be taught so both teachers and students will be able to discuss these things and find out which rules are present or not in both languages.

B. GRAMMATICAL KNOWLEDGE 1. Bardovi-Harlig and Dornyei (1998) In the researchers attempt to better understand how L2 learners often develop grammatical competence in the absence of the connection with pragmatic competence, they explored the extent to which instructed L2 learners of English were aware of

differences in learners' and target-language production in grammar, which addressed the accuracy of utterances, and pragmatics, which addressed the appropriateness of utterances given specific situations, speakers, and content. The researchers used a videotape with 20 scenarios to test 543 learners and their teachers in two countries, Hungary and the U.S., as well as a secondary sample of 112 EFL speakers in Italy. The results showed that whereas EFL learners and their teachers consistently identified and ranked grammatical errors as more serious than pragmatic errors, ESL learners and their teachers showed the opposite pattern, ranking pragmatic errors as more serious than grammatical errors. The researchers also discussed the possible causes of this pattern and its implications for teaching. I am of the opinion that no matter what kind of English learners we teach, it must follow that before we can instruct them on how to use language properly when in real situations, their knowledge of the grammatical structures should be polished first, for how can they make utterances if they do not know how to make even simple sentences. However, teaching English to them is also not all about patterns and rules only. Their English skills may be very good, no more mistakes in the sentences, and the like, yet teachers cannot fully measure how competent they are if they pragmatic competence is not included in the instructions. So grammar and pragmatic knowledge should be presented in classes because they work hand in hand.

2. Kreutel (2007) analyzed the devices used by the learners of English as a Second Language (ESL) in order to perform the speech act of disagreement in their L2. Data collected from 27 ESL learners were gathered by means of discourse completion tests and compared to baseline data from 27 native speakers of American English. To control gender influences, both

subsamples consisted of 18 female and 9 male respondents. In addition, both groups were composed of college students who studied at a large state university in the Midwestern region of the US. The non-native speaker subgroup consisted of international students from ten countries representing 8 different L1s. they were assigned to ESL classes based on the ACTFL proficiency guidelines ranging from high-beginner to low-advanced levels. The Discourse Completion Tests (DCTs) were questionnaires consisting of written descriptions of selected scenarios. These scenarios covered a variety of topics and types of situations to avoid the intervening effects of topic selection. It was found that non-native speakers used mitigational devices such as hedges or explanations less frequently than native speakers, but often resort to undesirable features such as message abandonment. The data suggested that high grammar and lexicon proficiency does not necessarily imply high pragmatic competence. As what I have mentioned previously, no matter how great the mastery of the student of the English grammar, there are still instances that they fail in pragmatic competence. I would like to say that I agree with the findings of this particular study.

C. SOCIO-CULTURAL NORMS 1. Mizne (1997) wanted to enrich the available resources addressing the complex topics of culture and sociolinguistics through the development of a teaching module that taught concepts directly to a class of advanced English as Second Language students. The module was taught during two consecutive one hour class periods and the class consisted of 11 adult students - 1 Turkish, 3 Latin American, and 7 Asian. In the first class, the Kluckhohn Model was used to teach cross-cultural differences to the students. During the second class, the speech act of compliments was used with emphasis placed on the American rules of usage for these

compliments, as well as the American values that can be seen through these rules of usage. At the end of the class period, a survey was given to the students and regular classroom teacher, asking them to provide some background language information and to evaluate the helpfulness of the cross-cultural information in their language learning process. They were also asked to rank a list of speech acts in order of difficulty. The results of the survey showed how the students find the information helpful, with students being in the United States for more than six months finding the information very helpful, while students who had been in the United States for less than six months found the information only marginally helpful. This finding suggested that the most effective time to teach cultural information in the target language country may be after the students have had some time to experience the culture they are learning about. The students listed mainly face-threatening speech acts as being difficult, that is, those speech acts such as refusals, apologies, and giving advice, all of which require a careful choice of wording due to the possibility of damaging the other person's face or public image. Also, the teacher's perceptions of which speech acts were difficult for the students did not match the students perceptions. The time spent by students studying English truly has a lot to do with their learning of pragmatic competence. For the first three months, given that the student is a regular learner and one that takes studying seriously, they are still polishing their grammatical structures and perhaps already incorporating some of the dos and donts in the socio-cultural context of the language. Since pragmatic competence is not about structures, students must learn to observe everything that happens around them. For the teachers, they should also consider the things that they teach their students such as those that add more to their knowledge at the same time the ones that address their difficulties.

2. Amaya (2008) studied several examples that were used to illustrate how pragmatic failures affected the interpretation of messages and sometimes block communication completely, thus defeating the principal purpose of L2 acquisition. Guidance was provided to encourage teachers to incorporate the necessary pragmatic and cultural aspects of L2 learning into their lessons in order to prevent students from making these types of mistakes. It is the view of the researcher that teachers should provide students with the necessary tools to make adequate pragmatic decisions in the L2. Students must learn that the coding of a certain message is subject to the principle of use and these can vary from one linguistic community to another. For example, it would be important to make them see in which way the difference between cultures oriented towards positive politeness, like Spanish and those oriented towards negative politeness, like English, affects the production of messages.

The main purpose of learning a second language is communication. Nevertheless, many students are disappointed when they realize that, in spite of having a mastery of the L2 grammar rules, they have difficulties at interpersonal level when establishing a conversation with native speakers. It is my opinion that pragmatics is an integral element of language ability for L2 learners therefore English teachers should take into consideration to include teaching how to use language in the outside setting.

ACTION PLAN To study a language does not only mean to have a full grasp of the technicalities of that target language, but to use it appropriately and effectively in social situations; therefore, to learn one is also a process of nurturing and developing a Second Language Learners pragmatic competence of this language.

Students may be adept linguistically when it comes to the English language, yet pragmatic competence has often been an area in English education which is neglected or ignored. As a result, most of these students do not know how to use it properly in real life. In order for my students to achieve pragmatic competence, I would like to prescribe some plans of action which I deem helpful to the students. ACTION PLAN SCHEME
Time frame Week 1 Language focus *Specific speech acts of asking for an apology *Useful expressions in the restaurant *Specific vocabulary on food and in the restaurant. Activity *Listening to recorded conversations *Reading *Exercise on the identification of formal and informal way of apologizing. Materials *Hand-outs on related topics *Audio tapes on recorded apologizing conversations Strategies *Pair work *Role plays *Reading aloud in class Evaluation Students should be able to identify speech acts of apology. They should also be able to use useful expressions in the restaurant and master at least 50 new vocabularies. *Students should be able to construct grammatically correct sentences and carry out conversations of suggestions.

Week 2

*Speech acts of suggesting *Grammar lessons on patterns used in suggestions. *Vocabulary used in buying clothes and in the shops.

*Watching video clips on making suggestions * Making example sentences exercise *Dictation

*DVDs *Printed materials on the grammar lessons

*Dramatization *Seatwork *Free Conversation

Week 3

*Speech acts of giving compliments and gratitude *Useful expressions in an ESL classroom

*Listening to recorded conversations from TV dramas *Composing a dialogue of giving a

*Audio clips *Handouts on related topics

*Dramatization *Grammar and vocabulary exercise

Students should be able to perform appropriate speech acts of compliments and gratitude

with students compliment from different on a students countries get-up and giving gratitude for another students help on preparing for a test

and successfully put into practice new expressions and vocabulary in constructing their sentences

*Audio clips *Handouts on related topics

*Dramatization *Grammar and vocabulary exercise

Students should be able to perform appropriate speech acts of compliments and gratitude and successfully put into practice new expressions and vocabulary in constructing their sentences

I will use a tree-week time frame for my action plan. For the first week I will teach speech acts of asking for an apology, teach useful expressions in the restaurant, and specific vocabulary on food and in the restaurant as my language focus. The activities that I will be using will include listening to recorded conversations, reading from hand-outs, and exercises on the identification of formal and informal way of apologizing. My materials will include hand-outs on related topics and audiotapes on recorded apologizing conversations. The strategies that will be used are pair work, role plays, and reading allowed in class. Students should be able to identify

speech acts of apology. They should also be able to use useful expressions in the restaurant and master at least 50 new vocabularies. For the second week of my action plan speech acts of suggesting, grammar lessons on patterns used in suggestions and vocabulary used in buying clothes and in the shops will be discussed. The activities will be listening to recorded conversations from TV dramas,

composing a dialogue of giving a compliment on a students get-up and giving gratitude for another students help on preparing for a test. Audio clips and handouts on related topics will be used as materials and dramatization and grammar and vocabulary exercise for strategies. Students should be able to perform appropriate speech acts of compliments and gratitude and successfully put into practice new expressions and vocabulary in constructing their sentences. Lastly for the third week, I will teach the students speech acts of giving compliments and gratitude useful expressions in an ESL classroom with students from different countries. Listening to recorded conversations from TV dramas and composing a dialogue of giving a compliment on a students get-up and giving gratitude for another students help on preparing for a test will be the plan for the activities. Audio clips and handouts on related topics are materials and dramatization, grammar and vocabulary exercises will be given for the strategies. And finally, Students should be able to perform appropriate speech acts of compliments and gratitude and successfully put into practice new expressions and vocabulary in constructing their sentences.

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