Teacher’s awareness of intercultural pragmatics in adult EALD classrooms: an exploratory study in the multicultural context of Australia

Abstract

The teaching of English as an additional language or dialect (EALD) in Australia has been problematised partly due to teachers’ limited understanding of learners’ linguistic and cultural backgrounds. The gap could be potentially bridged with the integration of intercultural pragmatics (IP). Adopting a qualitative case study approach, this study explored how a teacher with awareness of the role of IP in intercultural communication could incorporate IP into adult EALD classrooms to enable learners to use the target language appropriately in the multicultural context of Australia. The findings illustrate the teacher’s awareness of multiple aspects of IP and how these aspects were meaningfully taught in adult EALD classrooms. The study thereby confirmed the usefulness of IP teaching in the investigated setting in particular and adult EALD classrooms in general. Hence, it suggests a need for systematic integration of IP into adult EALD programs and reveals pedagogical implications for IP teaching regarding not only teachers’ classroom practices but also teacher education and teacher professional development.