THE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROJECT IN PRAGMATICS
Phase two of the project
The conduct of phase two
Our aim in phase two was to use workshops based on the materials developed in phase one to raise the awareness of mitigation of a much larger number of teachers. These sessions briefly reported the results of phase one, and then presented the teaching materials developed on the basis of the findings. As the sessions only lasted one to two hours, they demanded much less of a time commitment than phase one, particularly as they were held during routine professional development sessions in the teachers’ own workplaces. While phase one had involved only five teachers, more than one hundred teachers were able to participate in these sessions.
While the various sessions varied slightly in format, each included an introduction to the concept of mitigation pragmatics, outlined the major research findings from the project, and discussed their implications for teaching practice. We then introduced the set of materials, and worked through them with the teachers, who discussed and evaluated them. At the conclusion of the workshop, the teachers were given their own set of the materials, which included teacher notes, a set of student activities, and a tape (a video proved problematic to reproduce) to use in their own intermediate level classes where appropriate.
We hoped that this process of using and trialing the materials would enhance the subject knowledge of this large group of teachers through ‘learning on the job’ as well as developing their pedagogical and personal practical knowledge (Beattie 1995) related to tackling such issues in the classroom. As with the first phase, however, we wanted to check this assumption and find out how useful the teachers found this brief introduction to the area. The teachers were therefore asked to complete a short questionnaire designed to determine their prior knowledge of mitigation pragmatics and the importance they attributed to teaching pragmatics. Together with the teaching materials, we also gave the teachers two additional questionnaires. One asked them to evaluate the materials after they had used them in their classroom. The second, to be completed one week after using the materials, asked them to reflect upon what they had gained from our sessions and the opportunity to use the activities and materials in their classes.
