A Study On Pragmatic Instruction Concepts And Behavior Of Middle School English Teachers

Pragmatics is the study of how speakers of a language use sentences to effect successfulcommunication. The studies have showed that pragmatic knowledge can be taught. Pragmaticteaching is especially feasible and important in basic education stage. The most effective wayto improve learners’ pragmatic competence is through classroom instruction. The languagelearners need to have both the grammar ability and the pragmatic competence. If the learners’pragmatic knowledge and pragmatic competence are improved, they can use languageaccurately and appropriately. That is a kind of language can be mastered and used. Thecultivation of students’ pragmatic competence includes not only the ability of understandingdiscourses in the context, but also express information correctly according to the context. Tocultivate students’ pragmatic competence is also the goal of language teaching.There is little research of pragmatic teaching at home and abroad about teachers’pragmatic instruction concepts, pragmatic behaviors, the main teaching content of pragmaticknowledge and what kind of teaching methods they are employed in basic education stage.This research based on research results about pragmatic instruction both at home andabroad, in the framework of pragmatic instruction theory, through the questionnaire,interviews and classroom observation taken in middle schools in Dalian city. The teachers inthese schools are the study object. It is to explore what kind of pragmatic instruction conceptsthey are holding and whether those teachers’ pragmatic instruction concepts are consistentwith their pragmatic instruction behaviors.