Raising Pragmatic Awareness through Teacher Illocutionary Acts

This case study is a pedagogical intervention in the teaching of pragmatics in the Greek EFL classroom, aiming to redefine the classroom as a curricular space (Graves 2008), exploring it as a source of input in order to raise students' pragmatic awareness. The theoretical assumption is that explicit pragmatic awareness on the part of students will enhance the overall learning process. In this study, particular emphasis is placed on the illocutionary force of teacher questions. Adopting the framework of Exploratory Practice, it takes the notion of research as a supportive rather than as a parasitic activity (Allwright 2005), thus carrying out research via normal classroom activities, engaging 22 upper-intermediate students as co-researchers. Data collection was carried out by monitoring lessons (video-recording and reflective lesson plans), reflecting on students' choices, and reflecting on students' reflections. The findings of this study are positive, even if preliminary, corroborating our working hypothesis that we can raise learners' pragmatic awareness on condition that we adhere to Austin's suggested moral to "engage in elucidating the total speech act in the total speech situation" (1962: 147).