Principles for pragmatics teaching: Apologies in the EFL classroom

limberg, holger;

Intercultural Communicative Competence is a paramount goal of modern foreign language teaching. It is the ability to communicate in culturally sensitive and contextually appropriate ways with speakers from other cultures. Being able to apologize is one component of this competence. Uttering apologies allows learners to rectify breaches of social norms in order to restore social harmony and maintain rapport with others. This pragmatic competence is gradually acquired in one’s foreign language education, alongside the building blocks of the foreign language, viz. grammar and lexis. Even though the teaching of pragmatics is a complex undertaking and often challenging to plan in a systematic way, teachers can follow certain principles when designing tasks and preparing lessons in which learners’ apology competence is targeted. This article provides a synthesis of relevant research findings on apologies and suggests principles for tasks and activities in the classroom that help to attain pragmatic teaching goals.