Teaching contextually appropriate language use for ESL learners

Pragmatically appropriate interaction means that speakers contextualize an upcoming talk, provide necessary information, and maintain the continuity of talk. Thus, in order to be pragmatically appropriate in conversation, second language (L2) learners need to learn various interactional strategies and grammatical resources. This study focuses on interactional resources (e.g., ways to organize turns, between-turn pauses, discourse markers, ways to engage in conversation) that characterize pragmatically appropriate interaction in L2.  English as a second language (ESL) Learners need to learn concrete and detailed conversational features so that they can shape their talk in a context-specific and pragmatically appropriate manner. However, maintaining the continuity of talk and using context-appropriate language is challenging as conversation is a result of speakers’ shared efforts. To this end, this study aimed to provide a concrete description of interactional features that characterize varying levels of interactive pragmatic performance. Using data of transcribed 102 English ESL learners’ role-play performances, this study explicates a relationship between fine-grained conversational features and L2 learners’ speaking proficiency measured by real-life role-play tasks. Based on the findings, I discuss ways in which technology and media can help ESL learners to become interactionally fluent and appropriate.