Pragmatics & Communication: The Overlooked Elements of Language Teaching
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QASI(R) - The Key to Great Communication!I believe that learning a language, especially to any degree of fluency, requires not only the ability to manipulate vocabulary and grammar to communicate, but also requires an understanding of the communication norms and conventions of the language as it is used in a given situation (i.e. the study of pragmatics).
In this mini-lecture I will outline QASI(R) - a simple and effective way for you to help ensure your students are thinking about communicating in socially appropriate ways. Please watch the mini-lecture at the bottom of the page. |
Use QASI(R) to Help Your Students Communicate.
The goal of learning a language for most people relates to the ability to communicate effectively in the target language. This being true, educators need to ensure that they teach their students not only the lexis and grammar found in a language, but also how to communicate in socially and culturally appropriate ways.
This means teaching students how to start conversations, how to conduct conversations, how to change subjects in a conversation, and how to use language to communicate intention, personality, and meaning etc..
This task can be made easier by following the QASI(R) framework - a simple to use framework that allows you (or the student) to monitor different elements of communication to see where changes are needed.
Questions: One of the most important things we do in any language is ask questions. Therefore, as teachers, we need to ensure we have taught our students how to ask good questions, how to ask good follow-up questions, and how to ask questions for specific purposes. We also need to ensure our students know how to use the different types and styles of questions we have in English (e.g. direct questions, open-ended questions, indirect questions, closed questions, tag questions, hypothetical questions, embedded questions, leading questions, probing questions, and negatively worded questions) to ensure they can communicate in the most appropriate way.
Answers: Ensuring that our students answer any given question in the most suitable of ways will help our students communicate better. This means that teachers and students need to consider one’s answer length (i.e., Don't say too much, don't say too little.), the appropriateness of an answer (i.e., Did you actually answer the question?), and how to continue the conversation after answering the question (i.e., After answering a question whose turn is it to talk, make a statement, react, or ask the next question etc.?).
Statements: Adding information to a story or just making small talk requires the speaker to use statements (e.g., It's a great day.) to make their story or conversation more enjoyable and informative.
With this in mind, teachers should make an effort to help their students develop skills (matched to the student's ability) to help them inject more color or detail when they are speaking.
Interjections/Reactions: An often overlooked part of second language teaching, interjections and reactions are not the same in all cultures or all languages.
Helping our students understand and use suitable interjections/reactions (e.g., oops, oh, wow, gosh, really, uh-huh, etc.) will serve to help them become better communicators and conversationalists.
Relevance: One of the key things to good communication (aside from great listening skills) is the ability to remain relevant and stay on topic.
Remember that the goal of the teacher is to help their students develop communication skills and not just "English" skills. As such, teachers should remind students to stay on topic during conversations, and, if need, dedicate time to teaching students how to do this.
Teachers should also educate their students on how to change topics or subjects in appropriate ways (because sometimes we need to do this). The reason for this is simple - it facilitates the development of fluid and smooth communication skills and helps to prevent the student from committing social faux pas.
Finally, teachers might find it of great help to use the concept of 'relevance' to help explain humor, news headlines, or different topics and genres. It might also help to encourage students to use their background information to help them understand what they are reading or watching etc.
The goal of learning a language for most people relates to the ability to communicate effectively in the target language. This being true, educators need to ensure that they teach their students not only the lexis and grammar found in a language, but also how to communicate in socially and culturally appropriate ways.
This means teaching students how to start conversations, how to conduct conversations, how to change subjects in a conversation, and how to use language to communicate intention, personality, and meaning etc..
This task can be made easier by following the QASI(R) framework - a simple to use framework that allows you (or the student) to monitor different elements of communication to see where changes are needed.
Questions: One of the most important things we do in any language is ask questions. Therefore, as teachers, we need to ensure we have taught our students how to ask good questions, how to ask good follow-up questions, and how to ask questions for specific purposes. We also need to ensure our students know how to use the different types and styles of questions we have in English (e.g. direct questions, open-ended questions, indirect questions, closed questions, tag questions, hypothetical questions, embedded questions, leading questions, probing questions, and negatively worded questions) to ensure they can communicate in the most appropriate way.
Answers: Ensuring that our students answer any given question in the most suitable of ways will help our students communicate better. This means that teachers and students need to consider one’s answer length (i.e., Don't say too much, don't say too little.), the appropriateness of an answer (i.e., Did you actually answer the question?), and how to continue the conversation after answering the question (i.e., After answering a question whose turn is it to talk, make a statement, react, or ask the next question etc.?).
Statements: Adding information to a story or just making small talk requires the speaker to use statements (e.g., It's a great day.) to make their story or conversation more enjoyable and informative.
With this in mind, teachers should make an effort to help their students develop skills (matched to the student's ability) to help them inject more color or detail when they are speaking.
Interjections/Reactions: An often overlooked part of second language teaching, interjections and reactions are not the same in all cultures or all languages.
Helping our students understand and use suitable interjections/reactions (e.g., oops, oh, wow, gosh, really, uh-huh, etc.) will serve to help them become better communicators and conversationalists.
Relevance: One of the key things to good communication (aside from great listening skills) is the ability to remain relevant and stay on topic.
Remember that the goal of the teacher is to help their students develop communication skills and not just "English" skills. As such, teachers should remind students to stay on topic during conversations, and, if need, dedicate time to teaching students how to do this.
Teachers should also educate their students on how to change topics or subjects in appropriate ways (because sometimes we need to do this). The reason for this is simple - it facilitates the development of fluid and smooth communication skills and helps to prevent the student from committing social faux pas.
Finally, teachers might find it of great help to use the concept of 'relevance' to help explain humor, news headlines, or different topics and genres. It might also help to encourage students to use their background information to help them understand what they are reading or watching etc.
Note: As stated in the lecture, QASI(R) is by no means a perfect model for developing or explaining communication. However, I believe (as do my students) that this framework provides a good starting point when trying to teach our students about conversational norms and socially acceptable ways of communicating in given situations.