*App Ling* Exploring the potential of 4 graphic novels for teaching L2 pragmatics to young EFL learners in primary school

Components of pragmatic competence are at the core of many primary and secondary school curricula, although the term “pragmatics” frequently does not feature in the curricula themselves – instead pragmatic components tend to frequently be covered under speaking and listening skills and intercultural communicative competence.
In this talk, I will focus on 8 speech acts that are part of my Survival English concept (Schauer, 2019) for young and beginner level learners and that are often included early on in English as foreign language (EFL) curricula for young learners: greetings, leave takings, requests, responses to requests, expressions of gratitude, responses to expressions of gratitude, apologies, and responses to apologies.
Previous studies examining if and how frequently core speech acts are covered in instructional materials for young learners published by major publishing houses have shown that textbooks and other official teaching materials frequently do not provide consistent pragmatic input (e.g., Schauer 2019, Glaser 2020, Schauer 2020, Jakupčević & Portolan 2021). For this reason, my presentation will focus on four graphic novels suitable for young beginner level EFL learners and investigate what pragmatic input opportunities they offer regarding the eight aforementioned speech acts.
The graphic novels examined are: “Smell my foot” (2019) by Cece Bell, “Baloney and friends – volume 1” (2020) by Greg Pizzoli, “Owly – the way home” (2020) by Andy Runton and “Fish and Sun” by Sergio Ruzzier (2021).

References:
Glaser, K. (2020). Pragmatikvermittlung im Englischunterricht der Primarstufe: Der Sprechakt ‚Begrüßen‘ in Lehrplänen und Lehrwerken. In In K. Glaser & H. Limberg (Eds.), Pragmatische Kompetenzen im schulischen Fremdsprachenunterricht, (pp. 199-248). Peter Lang Verlag.
Jakupčević, E. & Portolan, M.C. (2021). An analysis of pragmatic content in EFL textbooks for young learners in Croatia. Language Teaching Research, 1-24.
Schauer, G. A. (2019). Teaching and Learning English in the Primary School: Interlanguage Pragmatics in the EFL context. Springer.
Schauer, G. A. (2020). Lehrmaterialien für Sekundarschulschüler*innen mit speziellem Förderbedarf: eine kontrastive pragmatische Studie von Sprechakten in zwei Lehrwerken. In K. Glaser & H. Limberg (Eds.), Pragmatische Kompetenzen im schulischen Fremdsprachenunterricht (pp. 249-285). Peter Lang Verlag.