InTASC STANDARD 7: The teacher plans instruction that supports every student in meeting

rigorous learning goals by drawing upon knowledge of content areas, curriculum, cross-
disciplinary skills, and pedagogy, as well as knowledge of learners and the community context.
Name of Artifact: Instructional Plans I
Course: Sociocultural and Sociolinguistic Perspectives in Language Teaching (FLL 665)
Date: Spring 2018
TESOL Standards Addressed: 2a, 3b, 3c
Rationale:
The lesson plan that I have included as a representation of standard seven was created in
a class on sociocultural and sociolinguistic perspectives in language teaching. It was created for
students learning English as a second language. This lesson plan was inspired by a chapter that I
read on pragmatics and conversation. The purpose of the artifact is to check the extent of
students’ sociopragmatic competence in English and to ascertain how their native tongues and
cultures affect this competence or lack thereof. It helps to build understanding of principles
behind the actions of those within a certain culture. The goal is to teach students unwritten social
norms which have connotations that should be understood between interlocutors. Students had to
discuss and analyze discourse for underlying assumptions. They were thereafter expected to
discuss elements of culture that lend to pragmatics. Students had to answer questions with the
information they think necessary to prevent faux pas. With these plans, I attempt to teach
language learners social norms and to help them to be more sensitive to cultural differences.
Teaching students about pragmatics is important for helping students to meet the learning
goal of conversing by drawing from the target community’s cultural context. In the plan, I
included an actual conversation that happened in text messages. I ask students if the conversation
is formal or informal. Being able to assess the formality of a situation helps students to respond
appropriately in different social contexts. Within the lesson, they are also asked to analyze a
conversation from an American t.v. show. Watching television in the target language is another
great way to grow in communicative competence. These activities remind students that language
is not always to be taken at face value; they must look at underlying implications. Knowing a
language means knowing whether questions are to be answered truthfully or whether one should
construct a socially expected response to fulfill one’s social role. In research conducted on the
effects of instruction in second language pragmatics, Rose (2005) notes that “given an
environment which affords ample opportunity for exposure to and meaningful use of the target
language, learners can acquire some, perhaps many, features of pragmatics without instruction.
That is, instruction is not necessary for each and every pragmatic learning object in the sense that
it cannot be learned without instruction. However, the fact that instructed learners outpaced their
uninstructed counterparts indicates that pedagogical intervention has at least an important
facilitative role, which is especially good news for learners in foreign language contexts”
(p.397). This means that with the help of explicit instruction in pragmatics, with lessons like
these, students can become even more competent in a foreign language.

Rose, Kenneth R. (2005). On the Effects of Instruction in Second Language Pragmatics.

System: An International Journal of Educational Technology and Applied
Linguistics,33(3), 385-399