Cultivating Students' Pragmatic Competence In Senior English Teaching Based On Concept-based Instruction

With the release of'national English curriculum standards for senior high schools'(Education Ministry,2018)and China 's standards of English Language Ability(Higher Education Press,2018),the pragmatic competence cultivation of senior high school students has attracted more attention from English teachers,researchers,and the society,as the target of English teaching points out again that English teaching should not be confined to constructing students'language knowledge;instead,it should cultivate students' competence to use language to do things appropriately.Pragmatic competence is the competence to use language effectively in order to achieve a specific purpose and to understand language in a context.To some extent,pragmatic competence can be recognized as an important parameter in evaluating a successful learning and teaching.Although researchers and teachers in China notice the importance of students' pragmatic competence in English learning,they have not found an effective and proper teaching method to cultivate students'pragmatic competence.What is worse,students' pragmatic competence is ignored due to the deep-rooted tradition of test-driven language education and traditional teaching methods.Through an empirical study,this paper discusses the feasibility and effect of using Concept-based Instruction in senior high school English classroom teaching to cultivate students'pragmatic competence:(1)What is the current situation of Chinese senior high school students' pragmatic competence?(2)What are the factors influencing students' current pragmatic competence?(3)What is the teaching result after the application of CBI in pragmatic competence cultivation?This study was combined with constructivist views of learning and Michael Long 's Interaction Hypothesis focusing on direct and indirect meanings of speech acts,so that students were capable of mastering a conceptual understanding of speech acts.A total of 56 students of Grade 2 at a senior high school were engaged in this experiment.Qualitative and quantitative research methods and the research instruments of interview,questionnaire,and tests(pre-DCTs tests,post-DCTs tests and delayed-DCTs tests)were used to carry out the study.Pre-DCTs tests and Questionnaire were conducted to find out the current level of pragmatic competence of senior high students and the actual situation of pragmatic competence cultivation in senior high school English teaching before the experiment.The DCTs test results of the 56 students were analyzed by Statistics Package of Social Science(SPSS),and the information of the students'current pragmatic competence was obtained for the first research question.Afterwards,a twelve-week experimental study was conducted.Participants in the Experimental Group(EG)were instructed by CBI as teaching method,and Control Group(CG)was conducted traditional teaching method-PPP Model(present some pragmatic knowledge/practice some exercise/production).At the end of the experiment,the students of EG and CG were tested again and the results of the two tests(post-DCTs tests and delayed-DCTs tests)were compared and analyzed in details.Moreover,the research categorized Concept-Based Instruction into five teaching steps in EG to demonstrate the main stepwise of Concept-Based Instruction application in English teaching.Through data analysis,it is found that for lack of the instruction of pragmatic competence,most students were frustrated about English learning,and therefore,senior high school students'current pragmatic competence was unsatisfactory.Many students found that communicating in English was so difficult that they don t want to use it after class and the main reason was that they didn t know how to express meanings properly and correctly in English.Moreover,concerning the teaching method,the participants felt confused and tired of the traditional teaching method,and were looking forward to an innovative teaching method.In addition,dealyed-DCTs test and semi-structured interviews proved that the application of concept-based instruction is conducive to long-term memory.The participant students of EG believe that concept-based instruction is more effective for the cultivation of pragmatic competence,and they could deeply understand the meaning of speech acts in this way so as to use them flexibly,which provides effective help for their long-term memory,in other words,concept-based instruction can greatly improve students'thinking ability and pragmatic competence,and thus improve pragmatic teaching effect.Meanwhile,concept-based instruction has positive significance for the construction of pragmatic teaching system.At the end of the paper,the author summarnzes and reflects on the research in this paper,and points out some deficiencies and deficiencies of this study.