Andrew D. Cohen, University of Minnesota

Title:  Teaching and Assessing L2 Pragmatics: What Can We Expect from Learners?

Abstract: The talk will focus both on efforts to teach and assess L2 pragmatics and on efforts to acquire appropriate pragmatic behavior.  While there is a growing literature on L2 pragmatic gains from participation in programs such as study abroad, there are fewer studies of explicit instruction aimed at enhancing the development of L2 pragmatic knowledge.  A new direction is to construct self-access websites for learners that provide pragmatic insights to complement the material found in typical course work which provides only incomplete and often ambiguous treatment of pragmatics.  But what do learners actually do with this fine-tuned pragmatic information and should it be a mandatory part of course work?  The talk will report on an intervention to enhance the pragmatic performance on study abroad students and on a small-scale study of advanced learners of Spanish engaged in learning pragmatics using the Croquet virtual online environment where they were required to interact with native speakers and use the strategies they had learned to make requests and apologize.  The results of these studies provide insights into both approaches to instruction and assessment, and into how learners approach online pragmatics materials, the strategies that they use in learning L2 pragmatics, and their success in utilizing those strategies in a virtual, interactive environment.   

  
Bio-statement: Andrew D. Cohen was a Peace Corps Volunteer in rural development with the Aymara Indians on the High Plains of Bolivia (1965-67), taught in the ESL Section at UCLA, was a professor of language education for many years at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and since 1991 has been in the ESL Program at the University of Minnesota, where he was awarded Scholar of the College in the College of Liberal Arts (2002 to 2005).  He was a Fulbright Lecturer/Researcher to Brazil (1986-87) and a Visiting Professor at the University of Auckland, New Zealand (2004-05).  Cohen was director of the National Language Resource Center at the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA) (1993-2004).  In addition, he was AAAL Secretary Treasurer (1993 to 1997) and Secretary General of AILA (1996 to 2002).  Cohen was the recipient of the 2006 AAAL Distinguished Scholarship and Service Award.  He has published numerous research articles on language teaching, language learning, language testing, and research methods, as well as books on bilingual education, on language learning strategies, and on language assessment and research methods.  His last book was a co-edited volume with Diana Boxer, Studying speaking to inform second language learning (Multilingual Matters, 2004) and he and Ernesto Macaro have a new co-edited volume to appear in several months, Language learner strategies: 30 years of research and practice (Oxford University Press).

Please direct questions to aaal2007@indiana.edu  *  Costa Mesa, California  *  April 21-24, 2007