Help the newbie! Bringing politeness theory and netiquette together in the EAL classroom

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INTRODUCTION
As the title suggests, it is our objective with this teaching activity to bring together politeness theory and netiquette in the English as an additional language classroom. In order to do so, we believe that some background information on these must be provided.
Politeness theory was introduced by Brown & Levinson (henceforth B&L) in their seminal book "Politeness: Some universals in language usage" (1978,1987). Politeness is defined by Brown (2015, p. 326) as "[…] essentially a matter of taking into account the feelings of others as to how they should be interactionally treated, including behaving in a manner that demonstrates appropriate concern for interactors' social status and their social relationship". B&L suggest that a need to be polite is common to all cultures and that, in this sense, "politeness (...) is ubiquitous in language use" (ibid.).
The authors built their theory on the Co-Operative Principle by Paul Grice and on the notion of face developed by Erwin Goffman. For Grice, verbal interactions are "characteristically, to some degree at least, cooperative efforts; and each participant recognises in them, to some extent, a common purpose or set of purposes, or at least a mutually accepted direction" (1975, p. 45), i.e., people cooperate with the intent to achieve "maximally efficient" interactions. Grice then establishes four maxims, which are at the core of his Co-Operative Principle: quantity, quality, relation and manner.
While Grice relied on the philosophy of language to develop his work, Goffman (1967) made use of his background in sociology to create the concept Yus defines as a "default level of politeness"; hence the need of common ground rules among users on what is acceptable or not in online interactions.
Computer-mediated communication is a global phenomenon and English has become internet's lingua franca. Teachers can collect excerpts found online and use them as authentic pieces of language, which make learning and teaching richer and more meaningful. Internet discourse can be perceived as consisting of multiple speech genres, each with special characteristics; to better understand these, items such as intended audience and the social relation between interlocutors must be considered. Internet discourse is thus hard to be precisely defined, as some consider it to be an oral conversation that takes place through writing, or as a sort of dialogue in written form.
It is our duty, as language teachers, to make ss proficient in the use of this kind of communication, raising their awareness so that they are able to properly make use of, for instance, semiotic signs (like asterisks, emoticons and emojis), avoiding misunderstandings or being recognized as impolite or rude. As it is not our objective to deal with statements that are openly meant to be aggressive, insulting etc., we believe that items such as how to convey intonation, emphasis, mood and prosodic attributes should also be addressed; as well as when it is ok to use informal language and careless spelling -that is, when spelling mistakes can be tolerated -, and when it is not. As Averianova points out, "teachers (...) need to explain to their students the linguistic conventions of electronic discourse and the communicative effects of their correct or inappropriate usage" (2007, p. 33). With this lesson, we expect ss to become aware of how their online writing style can, even when it's not intended, be interpreted as disrespectful or bad-mannered, and then provide them with possible ways to make their writing more straightforward, concise, clear and, most of all, friendlier, acceptable and adequate.

GENERAL
Ss should be capable to identify possible FTAs in written form in online interaction and how to soften these with the aid of netiquette.

SPECIFIC
By the end of this teaching activity ss are expected to: • have their online reading abilities improved • make autonomous use of their linguistic competence in online writing.

TARGET AUDIENCE AND TEACHING SITUATION
This teaching activity is designed to be worked mainly with young adults, due to the fact that, even though they may be quite familiar with the use of technology involved in online interaction, they might lack the subtleties involved in the process of expressing themselves courteously through these means. In this sense, this is a lesson targeted at raising ss' awareness regarding the ways they can communicate politely on the internet, cell phone apps etc. The level is intermediate.

CLASSROOM TIME REQUIRED
This lesson should take from 70 -80 min.

MATERIALS NEEDED AND TECHNOLOGY RESOURCES
To conduct this teaching activity, the teacher will need stripes of paper (as explained in item 6, step 4). Internet access is needed. If no computers are available, ss can use their cell phones instead.

ACTIVITIES
This lesson is to be conducted in 7 steps, as follows.
Step 1. As a warm-up, the teacher introduces the term "netiquette", and asks ss if any of them is familiar with the word. If so, the teacher can ask him/her to make their contribution. If not, the teacher explains that netiquette is made of two words, net and etiquette (YUS, 2011, p. 256) and, facing this new information, again asks ss to share what they think this could be.
Step 2. Once the meaning is set, ss are asked to go online and google the do's and don'ts of good netiquette. It should be stressed that, at this stage, they should look for written information, not videos, as this will be approached in step 3. Later on, ss are encouraged to contribute with their findings and the teacher writes these on the board. Possible answers may include: (do's) using good grammar and spelling, being respectful etc. (don'ts) flaming, writing in all capital letters (looks like one shouting), spamming, using offensive language etc. Steps 1 and 2 together should take about 15 min.
Step 3. Ss watch a video/videos chosen by the teacher from youtube.com, or any other source he/she finds useful and appropriate, about netiquette. Ss's task is to compare the items they mentioned before (and that had been written on the board) to what is mentioned in the video/videos. The goal is to make them reinforce what they already knew about the topic and increase their knowledge with the additional information they have just been exposed to. This could take from 5 to 10 minutes.
Step 4. The group is broken into pairs or trios and each is given a card that contains questions such as found in the appendix. Ss talk about the topics; after that, they are invited to share their thoughts and opinions. This will most certainly lead to group discussion; it is a moment when ss are free to talk and express themselves without worrying if their grammar or pronunciation is correct. But, as an alternative, the teacher can write down the mistakes ss make and properly address them in another future opportunity.
Step 5. After the group discussion, the teacher shows ss selected examples of poor netiquette and asks them what is wrong with those, and what could be done to make them more friendly -always having in mind that the objective is to turn the FTAs into FSAs. This activity is to be conducted orally, as ss will have a chance to practice writing in step 6 and in the homework. Steps 4 and 5, together, will require about 30 min to be executed.
Step 6. For this stage of the lesson, a whatsapp group and/or an email account must have been previously created. Sitting in pairs or groups, ss' task is to come up with one possible FTA expressed in written utterances. The context is that they are "newbies" (a person that is new in the cyberspace) and don't really understand how this kind of communication works. So the sentences they have to produce can either be inappropriate, sound aggressive, have emoticons/emojis used in a way that they shouldn't, be rude, offensive, annoying or truncated, along with others. After ss are done, they share their writing with the group, either by texting or emailing.
Step 7. Once ss have access to their colleagues' written production, the teacher asks: "How could you help the newbie come across as more polite?" (or, in our terms, how could you make these speech acts less face-threatening, and more face-saving?). Ss then take notes of strategies that could be used in order to make the utterances softer and more acceptable. As a wrap-up, these notes are shared with the group and discussed. 20-25 min should be allowed to steps 6 and 7.

ASSESSMENT
As homework, ss are encouraged to go online again and choose a print of a post/instant message/email/tweet which they consider fairly inappropriate or impolite. They identify what is wrong and rewrite the sentences, in order to make them more palatable, taking into account both language and adequacy. This has the potential of turning into one more activity capable of raising awareness about how to make use of good netiquette.

POSSIBLE MODIFICATIONS
As an alternative to the homework proposed, the teacher can use the questions from the appendix as subjects for a short paragraph in which ss have to make explicit what they think about the topic and justify their answers, when needed. Each student chooses their own topic, among those talked about.

APPENDIX: CARDS FOR STEP 4 (TO BE CUT OUT AND DISTRIBUTED)
How is internet communication different from face-to-face interaction?

Do you think internet communication can raise problems (such as misunderstandings)?
Give examples.
How can you convey meaning in your text messages other than writing words?
What are some of the advantages of using instant message apps in the workplace?
Is knowing spelling and grammar relevant in the cyberspace? Why or why not?

Can swearing, for instance, be acceptable?
In what cases?
When people are online, their looks don't really matter that much. What then can make them look good in the cyberspace?