Workshop: Teaching of Pragmatics for Less Commonly Taught Languages

Organizer, Alwiya Omar, Indiana University

This workshop provide a demonstration of a web based multi-media resource for integrating culture in the classroom with examples from African languages. We will show how the multimedia resource is used to develop classroom activities to promote and enhance pragmatic awareness. This resource introduces learners of African languages to different cultural topics with each topic broken down into smaller sub topics following Omaggio’s (2001) discussion of culture clusters and capsules. We will also show how on-line folk tales and songs are used to integrate Pragmatics in the language classroom. Examples from Bambara, Kiswahili, Twi, Wolof, and Zulu will be given. Workshop articipants will view the on-line Pragmatics course on how to transform a grammar focused text book into Pragmatics centered activities. They will then work in groups to discuss and share examples of activities that promote pragmatic awareness from languages that they teach.