Teaching and Learning Sociolinguistic Skills in University EFL Classes in Taiwan

Abstract

The study reported in the present article was a process—product investigation of foreign language classroom practice and its effects on learners` development of sociolinguistic competence, which, though important for appropriateness of language use, has long been neglected in L2 teaching. Based on classroom observation, the study examined the extent to which college English classes in Taiwan were instructed in this specific aspect of communicative competence and how learners` performance might be linked to the instructions they received. The findings showed that no matter whether a given class was considered more communicatively oriented or less, sociolinguistic instruction was mostly neglected in classroom practice, and that, although the participants had different learning outcomes in speaking and listening skills, they did not differ in sociolinguistic performance.