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Elt1 Seminar Week 4: Topic: Communicative Competence
Elt1 Seminar Week 4: Topic: Communicative Competence
Outline
1. Introduction 2. Body 2.1. Definition 2.2. Aspects 2.3. Activities 3. Conclusion 4. Discussion
Introduction
What is the goal of language teaching? Hymes, a Virginian linguist, sociolinguist, (1972) believed that the goal of language teaching is to develop communicative competence (CC). What is communicative competence? CC is one of the most controversial terms in the eld of general and applied linguistics.
History of CC
First introduced by Hymes in 1972 in response to Chomskys concept of grammatical competence. Developed by
Canale and Swain (1980) Canale (1983) Bachman (1990)) CelceMurcia, Zoltan and Thurrell (1995) Bachman and Palmer (1996)
Definition
Competence: the ability to do sth well Communicative Competence: a person's ability to communicate information and ideas in a foreign language
Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary, 8th edition
The ability to converse or correspond with a native speaker of the target language in a real-life situation, with emphasis on communication of ideas rather than on correctness of language form.
http://www.education.com/definition/co
mmunicative-competencelanguages/
Marcelo Melo (2010): To be communicative competent means, roughly speaking, to be able to communicate that which you wish to communicate.
Hymes: Speakers of a language have to have more than grammatical competence in order to be able communicate effectively in a language; they also need to know how language is used by members of a speech community to accomplish their purposes.
knowledge
ability
CC
CC = knowledge of the grammatical rules of a language and ability of appropriate use in social contexts. CC includes knowledge/awareness of: when to say where to say to whom to say what to say how to say
Aspects of CC
Discourse Competence
Strategic Competence
CC
Sociocultural Competence
Linguistic Competence
Actional Competence
Discourse Competence
DC is to do with the selection, sequencing and arrangement of words, structures, utterances to achieve a unified spoken/written text. DC can be seen as the ability to understand, create and develop forms of the language that are longer than sentences (stories, conversations, letters, ) with the appropriate cohesion, coherence and rhetorical organization to combine ideas.
Example: Consider the following short discourse in English: Once upon a time there was an old woman named Mother Hubbard, who had a dearly-loved dog named Bowser. Mother
Hubbard was very poor and didn't always have enough food
for herself and her pet.
1. Which type of discourse is it? Is it a description, process, narration of argument? Show the evidences. 2. How many characters are there? Underline the words that refer to each of them. 3. Which are the main events of this story?
Linguistic competence
Linguistic competence consists of knowledge of such linguistic systems as syntactic (thuc v c php), morphological (thuc v hnh thi hc), lexical (thuc v t vng), phonological (thuc v m v hc), and orthographic (thuc v chnh t) systems needed to realize communication in speech or writing.
The one who has linguistic competence is able to: Recognize whether the word belongs to the
language or not.
E.g: A. Slip B. Slib C. Sbill
related meanings.
E.g. The police examined the bullet. The bullet was examined by the police.
Communicative activities
Definition: Communicative activities include any activities that encourage and require a learner to speak with and listen to other learners, as well as with people in the program and community. Benifits: help turn the English classroom into an active, safe, and enjoyable place where literacy- and beginning-level learners can learn what they need and want to learn. Challanges: Language learners may be initially disconcerted when their English teacher begins asking them to get up and move around, work in pairs or groups, and talk to one another.
Activities in CLT
Information gap
Class survey
Games
Information gap
Highlights: In information gap, each student has information that the other student(s) dont have. Objective: Learners find and share information by asking and answering questions in order to complete a task. Context: This activity can be used in all levels or with multilevel groups. Estimated time: usually ranges between 20 and 35 minutes. Materials: The teacher prepares a master handout based on information, language structures, and vocabulary the students have been working on. Then, the teacher deletes pieces of information on two sets of handouts Bad point: Teachers cannot evaluate correctly competence of students if they do not observe carefully.
Example
student A: Student B:
They came on the ship, the Mayflower, in the 2. 1620 winter of (2) ________. Before these immigrants 3. The Mayflower Compact
Class Survey
Highlights: As ice-breaking activity, especially at the beginning of a course. Objective: Learners gather information about a particular topic. Context: This class survey activity is especially useful for beginning levels. Estimated time: Time varies according to how much information is gathered. Materials: The teacher needs to make a survey form so learners can easily ask the question or questions and record answers. Bad point: It quite boring
Example
Please ask the question of every student in class. Write down the names. Name: _________________________________ Date : __________________________________ What is your first name? (Spell it, please) _________________________________ Where are you from? _____________________________________
Games
Highlights: Games give learners opportunities to use the language they are learning in non-threatening, enjoyable contexts. Objective: Specific goals such as learning numbers or new vocabulary are associated with particular games. Context: depend on level of classes. Estimated time : Games should take less time Materials: Items vary according to the game, but many can be homemade Bad points: it wastes of time and affects to the lesson.
Example
Conclusion
CLT aims at producing students who are communicatively competent. CC = knowledge of the grammatical rules of a language and ability of appropriate use in social contexts. CC includes Discourse competence, Linguistic competence, Actional competence, Sociocultural competence and Strategic competence.
Reference:
http://www.sil.org/lingualinks/languagelearni
ng/otherresources/gudlnsfralnggandcltrlrnngp
rgrm/whatisdiscoursecompetencetextu.htm
http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/goalsmethod
s/goal.htm
http://www.english-e-corner.com/linguistics
Discussion
1. Due to exam system in Viet Nam, teaching English at high school should emphasize much more on grammar and reading rather than communication skills. Do you agree with the statement. Why and why not? 2. How to motivate your students to balance 4 skills while they only want to learn grammar to pass exams and get high mark?