Task-based language teaching: developing pragmatic competence in conversation

Treball Final de Màster Universitari en Professor/a d'Educació Secundària Obligatòria i Batxillerat, Formació Professional i Ensenyaments d'Idiomes. Codi SAP419. Curs: 2018/2019.Many studies (O’Keeffe, Clancy, & Adolphs, 2011) have proven it is necessary to develop pragmatic competence to truly learn a language, and that textbooks are insufficient to do it. However, pragmatic competence is underexplored in the English as Foreign Language classroom. Since its introduction by Hymes (1966) and its further exploration (e.g. Bachman, 1990; Canale and Swain, 1980; Canale, 1980; Crystal, 1997; Kasper, 1997; Celce-Murcia, 2007), few studies have been made to explore new teaching methods for pragmatics. This master dissertation will try to put forward a proposal for low intermediate students to learn expressions of agreement, disagreement and mitigation and, hopefully, serve as a practical example of this kind of teaching. Some exercises to practice pragmatics will be provided, as well as an assessment tool to assess students’ progress