A01 cohe4573 01 se fm. Qxd

2 7 8
F U R T H E R I S S U E S I N L E A R N I N G , T E A C H I N G , A N D A S S E S S M E N T
It is likely that for competent speakers of American English, (c) would be the
expected choice in that this is what people usually say. The other three
response choices are possible, especially (a), but selecting them would mean
departing from the expected speaking routines for this speech community.
The vague statement “Let’s get together some time” does not usually con-
stitute an actual invitation.
Another approach to assessing production of pragmatically appropriate
forms would be to use a sentence completion format. The following would
be an example of a “guided” response situation if the learner were provided,
say, with the base form of the lexical item to use:
Brad is requesting a raise from his boss. Complete his request so that
it sounds tactful:
I was ____________ if you ________ consider increasing my pay a bit.
(to wonder)
(will)
A more difficult format, for more advanced students, would be the same but
without a base form as a clue to the intended response for the given blank:
I was ___________ if you ___________ consider increasing my pay.
By means of this sentence completion format, it is possible for you to see if
your students have control over certain grammatical and lexical forms that
are routinely used in order, for example, to mitigate or soften their requests.
Suggested strategies for assessing L2 speech acts
We conclude this chapter by considering six strategies for assessing 
pragmatics.
Realistic situations
Keep the speech act situations realistic (for the learner group) and engaging.
So if your students are learning Japanese, you would avoid a vignette about
babysitting since this is not likely to be a culturally prevalent activity in

---

A P P R O A C H E S T O A S S E S S I N G P R A G M A T I C A B I L I T Y
2 7 9
Japan since family members tend to do the babysitting. In terms of finding
vignettes that are engaging, the logical approach would be to check with
locals of the given speech community. But another source can be the learners
themselves since they are the ones who may be acutely aware of just those
situations for which they would like guidance in pragmatics.
11
Here is one
such situation supplied by a Japanese EFL student:
You are at a restaurant and someone at your table says something
funny. You laugh and spray a little food. You are embarrassed and
think you should apologize. What do you say?
12
In reality, students may be excellent at furnishing situations, regardless of
whether they have any idea as to how to deal with them in a pragmatically
appropriate way. So, teachers could actually prevail on learners to supply 
situations for pragmatics items, by making the following request:
Think of a social situation where you had problems communicating
(e.g., making a request or refusal, apologizing for something you did,
complaining about something). Describe the situation briefly, and
end it with “What do you say?”
13
Rating for key aspects of performance
You could start by checking the cultural appropriateness of the strategies in
the given situation. For example, the students need to rate the following
two questions addressed to co-workers at a lunch break in terms of their 
cultural appropriateness:
“I see you got a new car. How much did you pay for it?”
“How much do you make a month?”
11
From McLean (2005).
12
From McLean (2005: 156).
13
Based on the ideas in McLean (2005).

---