Developing Pragmatic Competence in the EFL Context: Opportunities and Challenges

Abstract

Teaching pragmatics is one of the neglected aspects in English language teaching in Algeria. There is a total dearth of pragmatic contents and their presentations are marginalized as compared to other language items. Therefore, in order to make learners communicatively competent, there should be a shift from previous theoretical frameworks which considered language as a formal system based on the acquisition of rules, towards a more communicative orientation. The current paper, therefore, looks into the challenges and opportunities in teaching pragmatics to language learners in the EFL context and the way to forward it.