Greetings ITAIS,

I hope your semester (or quarter) is going well. I was thrilled to attend many of your sessions at TESOL 2017 in Seattle, and I am happy to tell you that we had an excellent academic session that brought together researchers from applied linguistics to discuss L2 pragmatics for international teaching assistants (ITAs) from a transdisciplinary perspective (Douglas Fir Group, 2016). The session was titled “L2 Pragmatics for ITA Practitioners.” In this session, we heard from researchers using discourse analysis, sociocultural theory, and mixed-methods to better understand, teach, and assess L2 pragmatics.

First, Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig and Debra Freidman (Indiana University) discussed how current research on L2 pragmatics can inform ITA preparation. Next, María Pía Gómez Laich (Carnegie Mellon University) discussed her work using concept-based instruction to teach L2 pragmatics in university Spanish courses. Finally, Soo Jung Yoon (Northern Arizona University) shared her research on using mixed-methods to develop authentic role-plays and appropriate criteria for assessing L2 English pragmatic performance. I hope those of you who were able to join us found it to be an informative and thought-provoking session.

Sincerely,

Stephen Looney

Reference

Douglas Fir Group. (2016). A transdisciplinary framework for SLA in a multilingual world. The Modern Language Journal, 100 (Suppl. 1), 19–47.