ABSTRACT
Chapter 6 examines how teachers can offer their students choices regarding how they want to relate and interact interpersonally in the TL. Choices will reflect prosocial, interpersonal or contested politeness behaviour. A critical pedagogy can build on first-language relational practices and raise learners’ awareness of TL politeness behaviour. Such an approach offers FL interlocutors an overall strategy rather than purely focusing on the minutiae of politeness devices such as politeness markers. By building on interactants’ critical language awareness, teachers can provide the necessary resources and assets so that students can engage in prosocial, interpersonal and contested politeness behaviour – and understand the opportunities, implications and risks deriving from following each form of behaviour. Language awareness helps FL users to become aware of communicative contexts and seek out desired relationships, e.g. meaningful/superficial, involved/distant and associative/detached. A pedagogical examination of illustrative events, cultural capsules and critical moments can help learners to explore real-life interactional, social and cultural choices, opportunities and constraints. Pedagogical intervention can also help learners to take key interactional decisions when under communicative pressure and when they have little preparation time and limited contextual information about other interactants. A structured approach, integrated into the teaching–learning process, can be further developed through identifying learners’ wants and needs, creating an appropriate language and culture syllabus, designing relevant and meaningful evaluation and appraisal procedures and outlining an appropriate teaching methodology.
