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G R O U N D I N G I N T H E T E A C H I N G A N D L E A R N I N G O F L 2 P R A G M A T I C S
instructional strategies on their own. However, the knowledge and skills
necessary to do an effective job of teaching L2 pragmatics
2
may not come
automatically to all language teachers, and specific preparation focused on
instructional pragmatics would probably benefit them in their professional
development.
It is also our view that only teacher readers themselves can decide how
the information provided in this book would actually be used in their
respective classrooms in their own institutional contexts. It is for this reason
that in this chapter we first encourage readers – if they are language teachers
– to reflect critically, for example, on their language learning and teaching
experiences, what they have learned from their initial teacher preparation
and further professional development, and what they believe are effective
instructional strategies in general and for the teaching of pragmatics in 
particular. Readers will also be invited to engage in exploratory practice,
3
in
which they incorporate systematic reflection into their day-to-day instruc-
tional routine. These reflective tools have been known to empower teachers
as they gain explicit knowledge of their own teaching that otherwise
remains tacit and inaccessible to the teachers themselves. Teachers can also
be empowered by becoming better able to make sense of their beliefs and
practice, and better able to make decisions about whether or how to change
their practice when necessary. Below we begin by briefly discussing the
nature and components of teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and practice.
Although this type of information is often made available to teacher edu-
cators rather than teachers themselves, this awareness can also help teachers
develop an analytic eye as to their own nature and process of professional
development.
Teacher knowledge, beliefs, and practice
As a background to the teacher-led reflection proposed at the end of the
chapter, this section discusses what constitutes teacher knowledge especially
with regard to the teaching of pragmatics, areas in which these knowledge
and beliefs are generated, potential sources of these knowledge and beliefs,
and their relation to what teachers do in the classroom.
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Qualifications of effective teachers of pragmatics would include: a) an awareness of
diverse pragmatic norms in a speech community, b) the ability to provide metaprag-
matic information about target language pragmatic norms, c) the ability to develop
and assess L2 learners’ pragmatic competence ( Bardovi-Harlig [1992]; Meier [2003]),
and d) a sensitivity to learners’ subjectivity and cultural being.
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Allwright (2001, 2003).

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T E A C H E R S ’ P R A G M A T I C S : K N O W L E D G E , B E L I E F S , A N D P R A C T I C E
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Selected components of teacher 
knowledge for teaching L2 in general
Components of teacher knowledge specifically
required for teaching of L2 pragmatics*
Subject-matter knowledge
Knowledge of pragmatic variation.
Knowledge of a range of pragmatic norms in the
target language.
Knowledge of meta-pragmatic information (e.g.,
how to discuss pragmatics).
Pedagogical-content knowledge
Knowledge of how to teach L2 pragmatics.
Knowledge of how to assess L2 pragmatic ability.
Teacher knowledge
Through teacher education, classroom practice, and experiences inside and
outside of the classroom, teacher’s knowledge is, for example, acquired,
shaped, refined, modified, reinforced, transformed, used, and revised. So in
order for a language teacher to teach effectively, what exactly do they need
to know? The components of language teacher knowledge have been argued
to include the following:
■
subject-matter knowledge (e.g., how English grammar works);
■
pedagogical knowledge (e.g., how to teach and assess);
■
pedagogical-content knowledge (e.g., how to teach writing);
■
knowledge of learners and their characteristics (e.g., how they tend to
respond to group and individual tasks);
■
knowledge of educational contexts (e.g., whether the L2 is a second or