Communicative competence includes the following aspects of language knowledge:
1. Knowing how to use language for a range of different purposes and functions.
2. Knowing how to vary our use of language according to the setting and the participants (e.g., knowing
when to use formal and informal speech or when to use language appropriately for written as opposed to
spoken communication).
3. Knowing how to produce and understand different types of texts (e.g., narratives, reports, interviews,
conversations).
4. Knowing how to maintain communication despite having limitations in one’s language knowledge
(e.g., through using different kinds of communication strategies).
Task 2
Consider the following sentences that are all requests for someone to open a door. Imagine that the
context is normal communication between two friends. Check if you think they conform to the rules of
grammatical competence (GC),communicative competence (CC), or both.
GCCC
1. Please to opens door.- -
2. I want the door to be opened by you. - -
3. Would you be so terribly kind as to open the door for me? - -
4. Could you open the door? - -
5. To opening the door for me. - -
6. Would you mind opening the door? - -
7. The opening of the door is what I request. - -
How Learners Learn a Language. Our understanding of the processes of second language learning has
changed considerably in the last years and CLT is partly a response to these changes in understanding.
Earlier views of language learning focused primarily on the mastery of grammatical competence. Language
learning was viewed as a process of mechanical habit formation. Good habits are formed by having students
produce correct sentences and not through making mistakes. Errors were to be avoided through controlled
opportunities for production (either written or spoken). By memorizing dialogs and performing drills, the
chances of making mistakes were minimized. Learning was very much seen as under the control of the
teacher.
In recent years, language learning has been viewed from a very different perspective. It is seen as
resulting from processes such as:
!
Interaction between the learner and users of the language.
!
Collaborative creation of meaning.
!
Creating meaningful and purposeful interaction through language.
!
Negotiation of meaning as the learner and his or her interlocutor arrive at understanding.
!
Learning through attending to the feedback learners get when they use the language.
!
Paying attention to the language one hears (the input) and trying to incorporate new forms into one’s
developing communicative competence.
!
Trying out and experimenting with different ways of saying things.
With Communicative language teaching began a movement away from traditional lesson formats where
the focus was on mastery of different items of grammar and practice through controlled activities such as
Абай атындағы ҚазҰПУ-нің Хабаршысы, «Педагогика ғылымдары» сериясы, №2 (50), 2016 ж.
67
memorization of dialogs and drills, and toward the use of pair work activities, role plays, group work
activities and project work.
Task 3
Examine a classroom text, either a speaking text or a general English course book. Can you find examples
of exercises that practice grammatical competence and those that practice communicative competence?
Which kinds of activities predominate?
The Roles of Teachers and Learners in the Classroom. The type of classroom activities proposed in CLT
also implied new roles in the classroom for teachers and learners. Learners now had to participate in
classroom activities that were based on a cooperative rather than individualistic approach to learning.
Students had to become comfortable with listening to their peers in group work or pair work tasks, rather
than relying on the teacher for a model. They were expected to take on a greater degree of responsibility for
their own learning. And teachers now had to assume the role of facilitator and monitor. Rather than being a
model for correct speech and writing and one with the primary responsibility of making students produce
plenty of error-free sentences, the teacher had to develop a different view of learners’ errors and of her/his
own role in facilitating language learning.
Task 4
What difficulties might students and teachers face because of changes in their roles in using a
communicative methodology?
Communicative Language Teaching Today
In planning a language course, decisions have to be made about the content of the course, including
decisions about what vocabulary and grammar to teach at the beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels,
and which skills and microskills to teach and in what sequence. Decisions about these issues belong to the
field of syllabus design or course design. Decisions about how best to teach the contents of a syllabus belong
to the field of methodology. Language teaching has seen many changes in ideas about syllabus design and
methodology in the last years, and Communicative Language Teaching prompted a rethinking of approaches
to syllabus design and methodology.
Traditional approaches to language teaching gave priority to grammatical competence as the basis of
language proficiency. They were based on the belief that grammar could be learned through direct
instruction and through a methodology that made much use of repetitive practice and drilling. The approach
to the teaching of grammar was a deductive one: students are presented with grammar rules and then given
opportunities to practice using them, as opposed to an inductive approach in which students are given
examples of sentences containing a grammar rule and asked to work out the rule for themselves. It was
assumed that language learning meant building up a large repertoire of sentences and grammatical patterns
and learning to produce these accurately and quickly in the appropriate situation. Once a basic command of
the language was established through oral drilling and controlled practice, the four skills were introduced,
usually in the sequence of speaking, listening, reading and writing.
Techniques that were often employed included memorization of dialogs, question-and-answer practice,
substitution drills, and various forms of guided speaking and writing practice. Great attention to accurate
pronunciation and accurate mastery of grammar was stressed from the very beginning stages of language
learning, since it was assumed that if students made errors, these would quickly become a permanent part of
the learner’s speech.
A reaction to traditional language teaching approaches began and soon spread around the world as older
methods such as Audiolingualism and Situational Language Teaching fell out of fashion. The centrality of
grammar in language teaching and learning was questioned, since it was argued that language ability
involved much more than grammatical competence. While grammatical competence was needed to
produce grammatically correct sentences, attention shifted to the knowledge and skills needed to use
grammar and other aspects of language appropriately for different communicative purposes such as making
requests, giving advice, making suggestions, describing wishes and needs, and so on. What was needed in
order to use language communicatively was communicative competence.
New approaches to language teaching were needed. Rather than simply specifying the grammar and
vocabulary learners needed to master, it was argued that a syllabus should identify the following aspects of
language use in order to be able to develop the learner’s communicative competence:
|