Communicative Competence in English Language Teaching
Unit 14: Methods and Techniques for Communicative Competence
Specific Methodological Foundations in English Language Teaching
0. Introduction
An endless variety of methods and approaches has been devised in the search for the best way of teaching a foreign language. In fact, one of the main characteristics of contemporary Foreign Language Teaching (FLT) is the proliferation of teaching methods. The communicative approach and the natural approach emphasize the importance of meaning, as well as considering another element in language learning: humanistic factors. This implies more individualized teaching, the development of a positive mood in the learner, the creation of a rich social climate in the classroom, and the rejection of the traditional authoritarian teacher’s role. In this unit, we will look at the communicative and natural approaches in depth. Their principles have been incorporated into our current Educational System in Spain. We will also have a look at different techniques that focus on the acquisition of communicative competence. In the second part of this unit, we will establish methodological foundations that can be useful guidelines for teachers.
1. Methods for Acquiring Communicative Competence
1.1 The Communicative Approach
A. Background
The Communicative Approach was born in the 1970s as a reaction to the Audiolingual Method, which paid more attention to structure than to its function.
B. Theory of Language
The Communicative Approach was influenced by:
- Chomsky – Generative Grammar
- Michael Halliday – Functional Grammar
- Dell Hymes – Communicative Competence
Canale and Swain established four sub-competences: grammatical, discursive, sociolinguistic, and strategic. These four skills are completed by socio-cultural competence.
C. Theory of Learning
The goal is for the learner to acquire communicative competence. Main principles:
- Activities involving real communication promote learning.
- Meaningful tasks promote learning.
- Language that is meaningful to the learner promotes learning.
D. Syllabus
The Communicative Approach is based on a functional-notional syllabus, which has a strong situational element. Functions have to be presented and contextualized in situations.
E. Activities
The Communicative Approach believes that the practice of communicative activities will produce an unconscious learning of the structures of the language. The communicative activities must be interactive, unpredictable, within a context, and authentic.
F. Teacher and Learner Roles
The teacher must be a facilitator, participant, and monitor. The learner has a higher degree of involvement in their own learning process (self-evaluated). Learners’ opinions, feelings, and motivation are taken into account. Higher autonomy from the teacher. Children are encouraged to work independently.
G. Materials
- Text-based materials (textbooks)
- Task-based materials (games, role-play)
- Realia (magazines, maps, advertisements)
H. Procedure
The procedure is the way in which a method handles the presentation, practice, and production stages. The teaching procedures must aim at accuracy, fluency, and appropriacy. Activities include the presentation of a dialogue, oral practice of the dialogue, questions based on the dialogue and on the students’ personal experience, learner discovery of rules, oral recognition, oral production, copying the dialogue, written exercises, and oral evaluation of learning.
1.2 The Natural Approach
The main goal is to promote the subconscious acquisition of the language. Main principles:
- Emphasis on acquisition rather than learning.
- Acquisition takes place when learners have understood comprehensible input.
- The learner’s emotional state is important.
The procedure is for the teacher to maintain a constant flow of comprehensible input and then devise activities focused on students’ interests and needs to develop basic communicative skills. Materials help to understand the input, and they come from realia rather than from textbooks. The teacher is the primary source of comprehensible input and should create an interesting and friendly atmosphere.
2. Techniques for Acquiring Communicative Competence
The techniques we are going to describe next will be used in the fluency practice stage. These techniques will encourage real communication.
2.1 Pair and Group Work
These are techniques to improve the students’ amount of talking time. They encourage cooperative learning because communicative situations are multiplied.
Advantages: More practice, improved personal relationships, similarity with real life, increased self-confidence.
Problems: Time-consuming, noise, the impossibility of correcting all the couples, using the mother tongue.
2.2 Total Physical Response Activities
Students learn the language through physical activity.
Principles:
- Comprehension abilities precede productive skills.
- Teaching should focus on meaning.
- Teaching should reduce learner stress.
- The verb in the imperative is the central linguistic form.
Activities: Classroom instructions, listen-and-do exercises, TPR songs.
2.3 Functional Communication Activities
These are activities in which students look for information (information-gap activities: following directions on a map) or solve problems (problem-solving activities: comparing sets of pictures, discovering missing features).
2.4 Social Interaction Activities
These are activities where social abilities are practiced, and they encourage oral production. Activities: dialogues and role-play.
2.5 Humanistic Activities
These use the students’ lives, feelings, and opinions for interpersonal exchange. Activities: describing personal experiences, giving opinions, discussions, exchanging letters, reaching a consensus activity.
2.6 Projects
They ensure communicative uses of spoken and written English. They help students develop good study skills, give students opportunities for skill integration, link the classroom with the real world, and encourage social skills. Projects have to be carefully planned, and the role of the teacher is crucial. Examples of projects: a class magazine with articles, a presentation about traditions in English-speaking countries.
3. Specific Methodological Foundations in FLT
We have looked at the techniques and procedures that will encourage communication skills. We will continue by listing important methodological principles that influence the FLT context. These principles have influenced the design of our current curriculum in Primary Education.
- Language is an instrument of communication.
- The final goal is the students’ communicative competence.
- Learners build their own competence.
- Goals focus on the learner.
- Contextualization of language becomes more relevant than grammar.
- Emphasis on cooperative learning and comprehensible input.
- Errors must be seen as something natural and logical in the learning process.
- Teachers should respect a learner’s natural silent period; pupils must demonstrate a desire to communicate and feel ready for it.
- The classroom atmosphere must be interesting and friendly.
- Oral skills precede written ones.
- Simple language elements that focus on students’ interests will be taught before others that are complex and more distant from the students’ real life.
4. Conclusion
The goal of current FLT is for the student to achieve communicative competence. The teacher must be aware of the principles and procedures of this approach. The Communicative Approach incorporates the social dimension of language, which is the ability to use language. This has important implications for the establishment of the syllabus, activities, and language teaching techniques.