Abstract
Following the recent renewal of interest in the teaching of pragmatics (Kasper & Roever, 2004), the author has conducted a series of action research investigations into the teaching of pragmatic norms using elicited recorded samples of native speaker role-play (Denny, 2008). This article reflects on the journey and reports in detail on the final cycle of this action research journey in which the teaching of the pragmatics of casual conversation to two classes using such samples was investigated. The results indicate that there are noticeable levels of improvement in the ability of participants to use these norms and they see this improvement as having arisen from exposure not only to these semi-authentic recordings in the classroom but also to contact with native speakers outside the classroom together with explicit input from the teacher.
