A short descriptive of two action research cases: Case one: (Japan) Enhancing Pragmatic Awareness Observation revealed that learners use a very limited number of expressions to make/respond to requests, which resulted in unawareness of pragmatic social acceptability degree. Action plan: 1. suggesting various scenarios in teaching situations related to requests. Ex: bus driver vs. requester, same question made the bus driver angry and annoyed. Learners felt the need of reformulating the request sentence in a way appropriate. While learners are struggling to solve the situation, their pragmatic competence is sharpened 2. Analyzing conversations based on pragmatics-oriented questions such as: how well does X know Y? How did you know? Would it be the same if X was a police officer or secretary? Then, students work on different request formulas: a) address term + reason + request b) address term + reason + no request c)Apology + reason +request Reflection: the remedies suggested were successful and the teacher learned to have the pragmatic awareness/competence focus in mind while designing the future communicative activities.
Case two: (Japan) Bridging the Gap between Homework and Class Observation: A questionnaire investigating learners’ attitude towards homework, which makes 30% of grading and school focus, unveiled very shocking finding: most answers were ranked at the UNSURE column( 3/5). In addition, homework was mainly grammar or vocabulary yet students could define that category, and when asked if it helped them with listening and reading (which were not assigned) learners approved. More than that, the open ended question indicated difficulty issues for students. Action: how interfere? What strategies to implement? 1. More Visual Aids were in class to undo the fuzziness learners feel. In parallel, illustrating Visuals were heavily integrated in the school website to highlight the connection between class and out of it. 2. Encouraging more communication ABOUT the assigned homework 3. Encouraging and listening to students’ reflections about homework Reflection: the teacher stated that finally homework found itself home.