Exploring pragmatic awareness of prospective teachers of English as a foreign language and their reflections on pragmatic knowledge and practices

Abstract EN

Pragmatic competence has become a crucial component of language teacher education.

prospective English as foreign language (EFL) teachers should be aware of the pragmatic challenges of the target language and the importance of developing their learners’ pragmatic competence.

however, most language teachers focus on grammar and vocabulary as they may lack pragmatic awareness of the target language, or they may struggle in setting their pragmatic knowledge into practice.

this study explores the pragmatic awareness of 90 master's degree students, majored in teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL).

data were collected through reflection papers about the sample’s strengths and weaknesses as regards pragmatics and how they evaluate the pragmatic course they have partaken at university with the perceived adequacy of teaching pragmatics.

therefore, participants were asked to design a pragmatically-focused lesson plan to examine their ability to transfer their pragmatic knowledge into practice.

the findings have indicated that prospective EFL teachers’ pragmatic awareness was mostly located in the level of theoretical pragmatics; moreover, lesson plan evaluations revealed that the study informants found it challenging to transfer pragmatic knowledge into practical pragmatic lessons.