Teaching the Sociocultural Norms of an Undergraduate Community of Practice

Abstract

The importance of teaching second language learners the pragmatic norms of relevant communities of practice is widely recognised. Familiarisation with these norms is also an important aspect of socialisation for native speakers entering a new community of practice. This study focuses on pragmatic instruction of English as an additional language and native speaker learners preparing to enter undergraduate study. In particular, the instruction focused on one community of practice which undergraduates typically encounter: groups undertaking joint projects. The instruction was explicit, drawing on semiauthentic and naturalistic scripted samples of discourse relevant to the target community of practice. This report considers six cases of the total 15 participants in order to explore changes in their pragmatic competence and ability to participate effectively in the target community of practice. The data are derived from pre-and post group discussions and discourse completion tasks as well as post instruction participant reflections on group negotiations and intercultural communication. Instruction was found to have had a positive impact on the pragmatic competence of these participants as well as raising their awareness of cultural differences as they learned to interact in an intercultural third place. These findings support the value of using relevant naturalistic discourse samples in explicit pragmatic instruction.

Repositioning Culture in Teaching Target Language: Local Culture or Target Culture?

“…Referring the shift of the teaching toward the learning, (Limberg (2015), Miska, Szőcs, & Schiffinger (2017) Yang & Li (2019) have already reminded that culture awarness plays a vital role in the classroom activities. Likely, aside from English as the target language, Couper and Watkins, (2016) have emphasized the need to study target culture for foreign Language learners. Language seems senseless if the learners do not know anything about the people who speak that language.…”

“…Therefore, of greater importance in teaching English as the target language is making use of its culture as a teaching context. English teachers should teach their students the culture ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- of L2 (Couper & Watkins, 2016;Lindahl & Watkins, 2015;Mahmoud, 2015;Marhamah, Daud, & Samad, 8AD;Miska et al, 2017;Tajeddin & Pezeshki, 2014;Yang & Li, 2019) to put the language barriers away and help them to do a culture adjustment regarding their language production. Likely, since language and culture are interrelated, teacher should give a space in which the target culture is embedded (Couper & Watkins, 2016;Limberg, 2015;Lindahl & Watkins, 2015;Tajeddin, 2012).…”

Socio-Pragmatic Errors and Their Pedagogical Implication in ELT

“…Therefore, of greater importance in treating the errors is that the pedagogical implication in English Language Teaching (ELT). Aside from L1 [36]- [43], leaners should be taught to understand the culture of L2 [18], [19], [27], [44]- [47]. Having intercultural and pragmatic competence are the requirements for L2 leaners, particularly English learners, to put the language barriers away.…”

“…Likely, as highlighted by [18], [19], [59], [60], the way how the teacher teaches the target language to his/her students is definitely considered to be the most important aspect in teachinglearning process. Since language is a part of the culture and both are interrelated, the teacher should also be able to provide a space in which the target culture is embedded.…”

“…Without culture, language would be dead, and without language culture would have no shape [17]. They are so interwoven that separating one from the other would lose the significance of the other [18], [19]. To add on, a study of [20] has emphasized that language is something socially shared meaning system.…”