Addressing Difficult Situations in Foreign-Language Learning

This book examines a neglected area of foreign-language teaching and learning: difficult and aggressive situations. The author presents the real-life experiences of language users and analyses how these individuals have dealt with confusion, impoliteness and hostility in target-language contexts in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom and within their home country. By constructing a student-centred pedagogical model around the data collected, the author considers the choices available to language learners in difficult situations, as well as tools for language learners to develop pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic resources.

Gerrard Mugford is a Senior Lecturer in the Modern Languages Department at the Universidad de Guadalajara, Mexico.

Introduction 1. Choice: Importance of face and stance 2. Facing up to difficult situations: confronting confusion 3. Impoliteness: positionality and adopting a stance 4. Hostile and aggressive situations: formulating a response 5. Pedagogy: raising awareness and stance-taking Conclusions Appendix 1: Questionnaire: Negative Incidents Appendix 2. Questionnaire: Impolite / Rude Incidents Appendix 3. Questionnaire: Hostile Incidents References