Research On Pragmatic Failure Of Junior High School Students And The Countermeasures

In intercultural communication, pragmatic failure occurs when the non-native speakers are not capable of using the target language satisfactorily to convey their intentions. And it is easy to be found that students cannot express themselves correctly, although they grasp enough words, phrases and grammar.However, during our English teaching in junior high school, the teaching of the culture of the target language has been long ignored and the importance is only attached to the linguistic competence of students. We are more aware of students'linguistic deficiencies than of their cultural inadequacy. As a result, the students'pragmatic competence is low, as can be seen from the survey in this paper. Accordingly, the students'communicative competence is far from satisfactory. The present situation of English teaching in junior high school cannot fit in with the needs of quality education.Language and culture are so closely related that learning a foreign language inevitably involves learning its culture. One cannot learn English well if he or she is ignorant of the culture of the English-speaking countries. It is universally accepted at the goal of English teaching is to equip students with communicative competence. One of the important components of communicative competence is the ability to select a linguistic form that is appropriate for a specific situation. Therefore, in everyday English teaching, we should not only focus on the linguistic competence of students, but also on their pragmatic competence. It is up to teachers to introduce culture elements to students. To facilitate the culture teaching, we should make full use of students'textbooks. And culture teaching should be combined with the contents of each unit to broaden their cultural horizons and strengthen their cultural sensitivity.