A Study On Cognition And Practice Of Pragmatic Knowledge In Textbook Among Senior High School Teachers

The General Senior High School Curriculum Standards English(2017 Edition 2020Revision)clearly put forward a series of requirements for teaching pragmatic knowledge in senior high school.More and more teachers and scholars favor the cultivation of students’ pragmatic competence.To equip students with pragmatic competence,the pragmatic knowledge in English textbooks should be optimally utilized.So far,although the exploration of pragmatic knowledge has attracted attention,there are still limited studies on pragmatic knowledge in senior high school,and the judgement of pragmatic knowledge in textbooks is not clear.Previous studies are mainly from one pragmatic theory,which fails to notice the overall situation of pragmatic knowledge in senior high school English textbooks.As Thomas(1983)points out,pragmatic knowledge is not as easy to describe accurately as other language knowledge.It has become a challenge for teachers to make full use of the pragmatic knowledge in textbooks to cultivate students’ competence.Therefore,this study attempts to explore the distribution of pragmatic knowledge in the People’s Education Press High School English Textbooks(2019)and to conduct a survey of senior high school teachers to investigate their cognition and practice of pragmatic knowledge,hoping to find out and solve the current problems in senior high school English pragmatic knowledge teaching.Based on the description and classification of pragmatic knowledge in the English Curriculum Standards(2020 Revision)and the China’s Standard of English Language Ability(CSE)issued by the Ministry of Education,this study uses text analysis to analyze the pragmatic knowledge contained in compulsory textbooks of the PEP High School English Textbooks(2019),and conducts a questionnaire survey about the cognition and practice of pragmatic knowledge on77 senior high school English teachers who use the textbooks at three senior high schools in Ganzhou,Jiangxi Province.Among them,10 teachers are interviewed and their lessons are observed aiming at answering the following three research questions:(1)What is the distribution of pragmatic knowledge in senior high school English textbooks?(2)How do English teachers of senior high schools perceive the pragmatic knowledge in the textbooks?(3)How do the teachers teach the pragmatic knowledge in English classrooms of senior high schools?Through the text analysis,teachers’ questionnaire,statistics of classroom observation data and analysis of after-class interviews,the results reveal that:(1)The pragmatic knowledge in textbooks is abundant,and all types of pragmatic knowledge are involved in it.However,the frequency of individual pragmatic knowledge such as imaginative and idiomatic expressions needs to be improved.In various forms,mainly implicit infiltration,the pragmatic knowledge is distributed in all modules of the textbooks with spiraling difficulty and increasing frequency.It is mainly in the modules with language skills such as Listening and Speaking.(2)English teachers of senior high schools are generally aware of the importance of teaching pragmatic knowledge for cultivating students’ pragmatic competence,and they agree with the teaching approaches advocated by the English Curriculum Standards(2020 Revision).But most teachers have a little comprehension of the pragmatic knowledge in some authoritative documents such as the CSE,so they can’t accurately identify the pragmatic knowledge in the textbooks.And they lack the initiative to learn how to teach pragmatic knowledge.(3)Teachers have no fixed approaches in their teaching,but prefer to use the deductive and explicit way to teach pragmatic knowledge.Generally,they can attach importance to the creation of contexts and use texts to guide students to focus on the pragmatic knowledge such as cultural reference and genres.However,during the implementation of teaching activities,teachers still stay in the traditional mechanical practice for consolidating knowledge and seldom provide students with communicative opportunities to use their pragmatic knowledge in a real way.Timely feedback and summary after teaching pragmatic knowledge are also neglected.It means teachers don’t fully meet the requirements in the English Curriculum Standards(2020 Revision).The practical situation is not optimistic and urgently needs to be improved.This study suggests that teachers are expected to strengthen the study of pragmatic knowledge,carefully study the requirements and teaching hints of pragmatic knowledge in the English Curriculum Standards(2020 Revision),and the classification of pragmatic knowledge in the CSE so as to understand the research trend of pragmatic knowledge,and to adopt various teaching methods and strengthen teaching reflection.Schools are supposed to upgrade teachers’ training and improve examination and evaluation methods of teaching.