On The Cultivation Of Pragmatic Competence Of Middle School Students In EFL Context

Language is used for communication. The pragmatic competence, which is essential in English teaching at middle school, is an important component of communicative competence. As a result of the long-standing traditional teaching conception, teaching materials and teaching ways, middle school students in China have weak pragmatic competence. This thesis discusses some factors which affect the cultivation of pragmatic competence in an EFL context at middle school and deals with the approaches to cultivating pragmatic competence in EFL middle schools: Introduction and Integration. The main points of each chapter are shown as follows.Chapter One analyses the necessity of cultivating pragmatic competence from the theoretical view. It explains the difference between "linguistic competence" and "communicative competence" and what is meant by " pragmatic competence". It also shows how communicative breakdown occurs when pragmatic rules are not shared by participants in an interaction.Chapter Two describes the current situation of English teaching in middle schools in China. It points out that middle school students in China have weak pragmatic competence, and the current teaching materials and teaching ways should take the responsibility for this situation.Chapter Three aims to list some advantages and disadvantages of cultivating pragmatic competence in EFL contexts. The advantagesinvolve learners' inherent homogeneity and NNs teachers' having similar learning experience to learners'; The disadvantages involve large classes, limited contact hours, learners' weak motivation for learning English, learners' having little or no contact with NSs and NNs teachers' limited pragmatic competence. So EFL contexts present special challenges in addressing pragmatic knowledge and such challenges require teachers' careful consideration in operation.In Chapter Four, the author expounds several other factors concerning the cultivation of pragmatic competence: culture, supporting materials, teacher's professional level, students' participation, test and assessment.In Chapter Five, two methods of cultivating pragmatic competence in EFL middle schools are provided: introduction and integration. Further more several practical techniques for instruction based on these two methods are devised.