Learning to Communicate in a Globalized World: To What Extent Do School Textbooks Facilitate the Development of Intercultural Pragmatic Competence?

Abstract

Although a key component in English language teaching programs, English textbooks have been criticized for not offering classroom learners adequate opportunity for learning authentic language (Bardovi-Harlig, 2001; Grant and Starks, 2001; Wong, 2002; Vellenga, 2004). This is because instead of making use of language samples that native speakers actually produce, many textbooks have drawn on native speakers’ intuition about language use, which might not always be reliable (Wolfson, 1989a). This article reports on the finding of a study which aims to analyze and evaluate the pragmatic content of a recently developed series of textbooks intended for use in Vietnam’s upper-secondary schools. Specifically, the article examines how speech acts are linguistically presented in the textbooks and whether adequate contextual and meta-pragmatic information is provided to facilitate the learning of these speech acts. The article also draws implications regarding the writing of ESL/EFL materials for developing intercultural communicative competence in the context of English as a Global Language.