An Investigation Of High School Students’ English Pragmatic Competence And Suggestions Of English Teaching

The primary objective of learning a foreign language is to develop the learners’ communicative capability. Nevertheless, more and more scholars found that most students still can’t have fluent interaction with others in English, even though they have grasped basic language rules.Because of existing of this phenomenon, pragmatic competence has become a hot issue among scholars and linguists. Pragmatic competence is the language ability that can use language effectively for the purpose of achieving a certain purpose.The paper aims to analyze the current situation of Chinese high school students’ pragmatic competence; the features of pragmatic competence. Besides, it also wants to find the ingredients of affecting students’ pragmatic competence. At last, it will give some suggestions based on the research.This thesis investigates the pragmatic competence of 200 Chinese high school students, who come from No.1 middle school in Jiangxi province. The research assumes the method of testing and the way of role-play. The questionnaire consists of 26 questions, which could reflect the ability of students’ pragmatic competence from the aspects of pragmatic knowledge. Besides, the way of role-play could observe how students use what they have learned in real communication to achieve some objectives.According to the test and activity, the author has some findings: First, the current level of English pragmatic competence of the high school students in the investigation is low. Second, students usually make some mistakes when it comes into the situation of invitation, refusal, asking and so on. According to the research, the researchers also offer some advice for improving the students’ pragmatic competence, such as input foreign cultural knowledge and organize some activities in order to offer opportunities to communicate in English as soon as possible.However, the limit of the paper is unavoidable, the research is just carried in one school and the time is short. Therefore, the result may be applied in a small range.