TEACHING PRAGMATIC COMPETENCE: EXPLICIT, IMPLICIT, AND INTEGRATED APPROACHES

Teaching pragmatic competence—the ability to use language appropriately in social and cultural contexts—requires diverse instructional methods tailored to address both the linguistic and sociocultural complexities inherent in language use (Thomas, 1983; Kasper & Rose, 2002). Pragmatics involves understanding speech acts, politeness strategies, cultural norms, and context-dependent meanings that are often subtle and implicit (Taguchi, 2011). Given this, language educators utilize a range of pedagogical approaches, broadly categorized into explicit instruction, implicit learning, and integrated models, to effectively foster learners’ pragmatic awareness and skills.