A01 cohe4573 01 se fm. Qxd

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T H E N U T S A N D B O L T S O F P R A G M A T I C S I N S T R U C T I O N
Criteria for self-evaluation
Self-evaluation
The tasks trigger learners’ awareness of pragmatics 
in a meaningful context and explicitly facilitate an
understanding of the relationship between context 
and form.
Excellent
Good
Needs more work
The activities provide sufficient and effective language
input and/or elicit interactive output to achieve the
objectives.
Excellent
Good
Needs more work
The assessment and feedback procedures are 
well-suited to the lesson and are based on learners’ 
goals and intentions (see Chapter 15 for how this 
could be done).
Excellent
Good
Needs more work
As in the case of the teachers’ response journal, collaborative feedback can
help to improve your lesson plans. While teaching pragmatics may include
a number of challenges, collegial collaboration can facilitate this process of
professional development. Teacher collaborators could be invited to go
through each other’s lesson plan using this self-assessment list and to com-
ment on the aspects that they perceive to be planned well, along with those
that need further development.
Discussion
In this chapter we have put the spotlight on the teacher as we did in
Chapter 2 and have suggested projects and activities that are largely teacher-
driven. These projects represent hands-on opportunities for teacher readers
to apply the information provided in this book to their own instructional
context and to prepare classroom-based materials. Teacher readers have
been asked to synthesize their various types of knowledge and beliefs, such
as their awareness of L2 pragmatics, knowledge of approaches to teaching 
L2 pragmatics, and knowledge of their learners and teaching contexts, in
designing pragmatics-focused instruction and in assessing it themselves
through reflection.
The following activities are intended to support efforts to develop L2
pragmatics instruction. The first draws on the teachers’ reflections that were
initially generated in Chapters 2 and 5 and further facilitates teachers’
reflections on their own experiences, which may be incorporated into story-
based awareness-raising for teaching L2 pragmatics. The second activity, in a
classroom setting, assists in identifying teachers’ own area(s) of interest in

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L E S S O N P L A N N I N G A N D T E A C H E R - L E D R E F L E C T I O N
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L2 pragmatics and in possibly finding a collaborative partner in pursuing
the shared interest in the area. In the final activity, teacher colleagues can
draw on their collective wisdom to explore immediate issues and inquiries
that they may have about pragmatics-focused instruction. Alternatively, this
activity can serve as a form of needs analysis for the course instructor, if this
is part of a teacher preparation or professional development course.
7
7
These activities are independent and free-floating in that they can be conducted at
any point during a teacher education course.
8
Two examples can be found in Rose (1999: 172–3).
Activity 10.1 Reflecting on your cross-cultural 
experiences
Objectives
1
You will be able to identify a personal story that could be shared with your
students which communicates the importance of learning about pragmatics.
2
You will be able to write discussion questions that prompt learners’ pragmatic
awareness.
Suggested time:
40 minutes.
Materials:
■
Information: “Examples of cross-cultural experiences” (or Rose’s examples of
pragmatic failure,
8
which could be used as an alternative);
■
a blank sheet of paper.
Directions
Part I
1
Read the first example of cross-cultural experiences in the Information (or Rose’s
examples).
2
Work individually to reflect on your cross-cultural experiences. Select a story that
your students will find interesting and thought-provoking in terms of learning
about pragmatics. It may be a humorous story of your experience of pragmatic
failure in another culture, or your observations of similar or different pragmatic
norms in another culture. Most importantly, the story should contain some

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