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sequence of the performance itself. Sometimes an assessment can profitably begin at the point at which a demonstration failed, and work backward through the steps that led to the failure. A success can be analyzed in similar fashion. Alternatively, a glaring deficiency can serve as the core of an assessment. Breaking the whole into parts, or building the parts into a whole, is another possible organizational approach.
An effective assessment reflects the instructor's thoughtfulness toward the student's need for self-esteem, recognition, and approval. The instructor must not minimize the inherent dignity and importance of the individual. Ridicule, anger, or fun at the expense of the student never has a place in assessment. While being straightforward and honest, the instructor should always respect the student's personal feelings. For example, the instructor should try to deliver criticism in private.
References
1. Brown Sally and Knight Peter (1994) Assessing Learners in Higher Education. Kogan Page Ltd, London.
2. Ingram Cregg F. (1993) Fundamentab of Educational Assessment, D.Van Nostrand Company. New York.
PRAGMATICS FOR THE CLASSROOM AND HOW TO TEACH
APOLOGIES Musaeva Z.M.
Musayeva Zebohon Muzaffarovna - Teacher, DEPARTMENT OF METHODOLOGY OF TEACHING ENGLISH LANGUAGE, ENGLISH
LANGUAGES FACULTY 2, UZBEK STATE WORLD LANGUAGES UNIVERSITY, TASHKENT, REPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN
Abstract: learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) are exposed to a collection of materials and communicative activities in the classroom through which they learn to use the language competently and appropriately. Textbooks, in particular, are a rich source of input, offering a variety of opportunities to acquire and practice pragmatic competence in specific areas of language use. One such area concerns apologies. As a ubiquitous and routinized pragmatic speech act, apologies are important to master for learners who have violated a socio-cultural norm. Teaching apologies - like any other speech act - should be based on rich, meaningful and authentic input and tasks in order for learners to appreciate and make use of this competence in real-life communication. Keywords: pragmatics, speech acts, politeness, apology, strategy, speakers.
Pragmatics is a field of language instruction which is often neglected. When we talk about pragmatics, we are talking about how language is actually used to accomplish various tasks like requesting, apologizing or complaining, to name a few. The way native speakers actually perform these actions can sometimes differ quite a bit from even native speakers own intuitions as to how they perform them. While a native speaker might be able to flawlessly execute various speech acts like apologizing, requesting or complaining, they might have difficulty accurately explaining what they would do in these situations based on their intuitions. Some native speakers are not even capable of flawlessly, or even competently performing some of these speech acts at times. Given that the details of how to perform certain speech acts escape even native speakers intuition, it follows that performing these and other speech acts in an appropriate way does not come naturally to students simply
from learning the applicable vocabulary and grammar. In fact, it is very possible to have grammatically appropriate speech which is wildly inappropriate from a pragmatic perspective.
One very important aspect of determining whether speech is appropriate, is the level of politeness used. For example, how formal a speaker should be is determined by the relative status of the people speaking to each other, as well as social distance and degree of imposition [2]. While an understanding of how formal a situation is, may come naturally to most people, the appropriate vocabulary and phrases will not. While understanding of levels of formality is an intuitive social skill that speakers of all languages possess, it might be a good idea to raise students' awareness of the importance of levels of formality. When speaking a foreign language considerations of formality might be lost because of the mental effort necessary to formulate grammatically correct sentences (or even sentences at all for that matter). Additionally, students who already have a decent command of the language might fall into habits and neglect formality; using the register of formality they used in the context they learned the language. In addition, if there is a cultural difference pertaining to the speech act which effects formality it will be important to bring that up if the teacher is aware of such a difference. One example of this is that in making requests, Japanese speakers tend to base how polite they are based on the relative status of the speakers more than on how big a request they are making [1]. Students should be aware that English speakers tend to base how polite they are more on the size of the request than the status of the speakers. Both the request severity, and status of speakers are taken into account in both languages but their weighting is different between these different cultures.
As a simple strategy native speakers use to increase the strength of an apology, emphasizing words, like "so" and "really" are added to the expression.
I'm so sorry.
I'm really sorry.
This simple strategy can increase the strength and potentially the appropriateness of an apology. Students should also be aware that so is more casual than really when apologizing. In teaching apologies it might be good to focus on apologies using the word sorry because it is the most commonly used word in apologies even though there are many others. Another strategy apologizers can use is to give a reason why they did what they did. I'm so sorry I'm late, the train was really late. A third strategy associated with apologizing is an offer to repay the listener in some way for the damage or offence caused, or making an offer to repair the damage in some way. A speaker could offer to pay the hearer to buy a new version of something they broke, offer to use their time to fix something they broke or simply offer to buy the listener a drink to make up for a minor offence. A fourth strategy associated with apologizing is a promise of forbearance. The speaker can promise that they will not do whatever they did again or at least that they will make every effort to not repeat what they did. A final strategy not featured in the handout is an expression of acceptance of responsibility. A speaker can fully blame themselves or in fact say something that puts responsibility on something or someone other than them. This strategy was not covered for the sake of making the lesson a bit simpler and avoiding information overload. It is more important that students can functionally apologize with an appropriate level of politeness than that they have an exhaustive knowledge of all the ins and outs of apologies.
References
1. Mizutani N. (1985). Comparison of Japanese and English Spoken Languages. Tokyo:
Kuroshio Shuppan.
2. Yule G. (1996). Pragmatics. Oxford University Press.
