Developing Request-Response Adjacency Pairs through a Concept-Based Pragmatic Approach
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.58859/rael.v24i1.663Keywords:
pragmatic competence, instructional pragmatics, sociocultural theory, concept-based instruction, request-response adjacency pairsAbstract
This study, grounded in Vygotsky’s (1978) Sociocultural Theory of Mind as applied to second/foreign language (L2) acquisition (Lantolf & Poehner, 2014), introduces a concept-based instructional approach for teaching request-response adjacency pairs to learners of English as an L2. The framework, divided into orientation, execution, and control stages, uses scenes from the series Young Sheldon (Lorre & Molaro, 2017) to create an authentic learning context. In the orientation stage, learners explore the concepts of requests and responses and their contextual applications. The execution stage involves controlled and communicative tasks to internalise these concepts, while the control stage focuses on reflecting and consolidating communicative performance, fostering learner agency in language use. This approach addresses the limitations of English textbooks, which often oversimplify teaching these speech acts. It offers a pedagogical method that goes beyond rules and rote memorisation, promoting deeper understanding, practical application, and enhanced learner agency in real-life contexts.
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