Sessions

Practice Tasks for Speech Acts in Textbooks

The importance of practicing the pragmatic information provided in the textbooks has been emphasised and the lack of tasks to support such practice in ELT textbooks has been pointed out (McGroarty & Taguchi, 2005; Shimizu et al., 2007, 2008). Using textbooks is only a way to provide novice level EFL learners with opportunities to practice language. They may feel comfortable in practicing with the use of textbooks in the classroom environment. This study explores five beginner level internationally used commercial ELT textbooks and seven EFL textbooks used in Japanese senior high schools as to presentation of practice tasks which include speech acts. The outcomes of the study reveal differences between these two sets of textbooks as to 1) particular types of speech acts which can be commonly practiced in the textbooks; 2) how communicatively these speech acts are treated in the tasks. At the same time, the weakness of the tasks provided in each set of textbooks is discussed in terms of developing learners' pragmatic competence. Finally, some practical suggestions are made as to adapting textbooks for pragmatic instruction.