Chapter 2. Teachers gaining awareness of L2 pragmatics by means of an asynchronous professional development module

Abstract

While teacher education is a crucial element to ensuring that second language (L2) pragmatics gains traction in classrooms and curricula, it would appear that teacher development programs provide only modest focus in this area. This chapter reports on findings from a preliminary case study in which three Spanish teachers accessed an asynchronous teacher education online module aimed at heightening their awareness of L2 pragmatics and the important role that it can play in language instruction. The results indicate that asynchronous professional development (PD) materials provide teachers with resources which they can access conveniently for the purpose of gaining insights into lesson sequencing, identification of key content and development of strategies for teaching L2 pragmatics in the classroom.