A Study Of The Mode Of Cultivating VCS’ Pragmatic Competence Through Films And TV Plays

In China, the ultimate goal of college English teaching is to cultivate students’ability to use English appropriately in communication. As an important part ofcommunicative competence, pragmatic competence has been aroused more and moreattention in college English teaching. Classical English films or TV plays providestudents with authentic contexts, and it is helpful for students to get the knowledge ofwestern culture and communication skill, which plays a positive role in cultivatingpragmatic competence.On the basis of input hypothesis, context theory and cross-cultural awarenesstheory, the researcher tentatively designs a teaching mode based on films and TV playsand tries to verify whether it is effective in cultivating VCS’ pragmatic competence. Theresearch has three research questions as follows:1. What are the effects of the teaching mode based on films and TV plays oncultivating VCS’ pragmatic competence?2. What is the role of VCS’ linguistic proficiency in the process of cultivatingtheir pragmatic competence?3. What are the effects of this teaching mode on VCS with different linguisticproficiencies?The research is carried out in two classes from software vocational college ofHenan University of Science and Technology. The two classes are randomly assigned asexperimental group and control group. On the basis of finishing the normal teachingtask, experimental group gets involved in the pragmatic teaching for15weeksaccording to the mode based on films and TV plays, whereas control group is still underthe traditional teaching which emphasizes linguistic proficiency. Both two groups aregiven pre-test and post-test before and after treatment respectively. The scores collectedare analyzed by SPSS17.0. The pre-test result shows that the current situation of VCS’ pragmatic competenceis at the similar poor level, which is badly in need of being cultivated and developed.After15weeks treatment, post-test result shows that experimental group’s pragmaticcompetence has been improved greatly and control group’s pragmatic competence hasalso been improved but there is no statistically difference between its pre-teat and post-test, which means that the cultivating mode based on films and TV plays is effective andadvisable in cultivating VCS’ pragmatic competence. What is more, the researchercompares the top students’ pragmatic competence with the poor students’ pragmaticcompetence in experimental group after the treatment, the result shows that topstudents’ pragmatic competence as well as poor students’ pragmatic competence hasbeen improved but top students’ pragmatic competence is relatively higher than that ofpoor students. The reason lies in that top students acquire more pragmatic knowledgeimplicitly when they appreciating films and TV plays.At last, the research suggests that classical English films and TV plays have theirunique role in cultivating students’ pragmatic competence, which compensates theshortcomings of traditional pragmatic teaching material. Also, the designed teachingmode based on films and TV plays provides a new method for pragmatic teaching in theclassroom.