LEARNER DIVERGENCE: USING AWARENESS-RAISING TASKS IN EFL CONTEXT

Abstract

Being an indispensable part of language ability, pragmatic competence holds an important place in the accuracy of the language produced by L2 speakers whenever they engage in conversation both with natives and non-natives. That is to say, it exerts an influence on how the delivered message is understood by the listener. When non-native speakers engage in conversation, their pragmatic behavior does not follow the same pattern with the natives, even if they are advanced in their L2. It is mostly due to incompetent pragmatic ability or overlooking the significance of pragmatics in language learning. The article is aimed to explore some of the causes of learner divergence which is common phenomenon among the learners who have not immersed enough authentic use of language. The Uzbek context, EFL learners are chosen to exemplify the situation. Although enhancing pragmatic ability is quite challenging in EFL context, in most cases learners do not strive to acquire native like pragmatic ability due to cultural and social differences. At this point, appropriately chosen classroom tasks and activities come helpful to avoid pragmatic failure of the student. This paper presents some practical activities to raise learners’ pragmatic and socio-cultural awareness.