Verbal & Non-Verbal Communication in the Foreign Language Classroom
TOPIC 2: Communication in the Foreign Language Classroom
Verbal and Non-Verbal Communication, Extra-linguistic Strategies
1. Introduction
Due to globalization, relationships between individuals, countries, and agencies are more frequent, and communication among them has become a necessity. Therefore, acquiring a vehicular language is a must in order to make it possible.
For this reason, our Education System gives great importance to being at least competent in one foreign language, as it settles the Organic Law 2/2006 1st of May, which has been modified by LOMLOE 3/2020 29th of December (from now on, LOMLOE). Furthermore, this idea is also included in RD 157/2022 3rd of March and more specifically in D 61/2022 13th of July, where the four main blocks of content to work on foreign language teaching in the Primary stage in the Madrid Community are explained.
Moreover, being competent in a foreign language is not just related to being able to communicate in a real context through oral language but also through the written one, acquiring in this way what Chomsky defined as Communicative Competence.
Throughout this topic, we will deal with communication. Firstly, we will talk about the concept of communication and the different types we can work on. Secondly, we will move on to define some important aspects of verbal and non-verbal communication. Nevertheless, as this is related to language and Communicative Competence, both items will also be explained. Fourthly, we will deal with some non-verbal methods such as the Total Physical Response method by Asher. To end the topic, we will make a brief conclusion added to a bibliography, where the main authors we have used to elaborate on the topic will be mentioned.
2. Concept of Communication
As mentioned before, communication is related to language. In this case, with the foreign English language.
Some authors, such as Savignon (1997), define communication as a process in which senders want to express an idea, feeling, or emotion to a receiver who decodes the message and answers it. Therefore, to focus on this concept, we will move on to the types and nature that exist.
a. Types and Nature
According to Crystal (1987), there are three main types of communication: visual, articulatory, and auditory. The first type refers to non-verbal communication in which facial expressions, gestures, and body position play a crucial role. Otherwise, articulatory and auditory communication is related to verbal communication; hence the channel, the purpose, and the code are important to be taken into account within the communicative situation.
Furthermore, to create an effective communicative situation, it is important to focus on the context. This aspect is highlighted by Harmer (1983), which establishes different communicative situations depending on the type of language.
This last idea is based on verbal and non-verbal communication, which will be explained in the following paragraphs.
b. Verbal and Non-Verbal Communication
Depending on the channel used to communicate, we should bear in mind that there exists both verbal and non-verbal communication. In accordance with verbal communication, it should be highlighted that aspects such as tone, speech, speed, and clarity affect how effective the communication process is.
On the other hand, authors such as Finch talk about non-verbal communication, where body language, gestures, and other aspects are the main elements that will lead the communicative process, once again, to be effective.
3. Communication in the Foreign Language Classroom
As explained in the previous parts of the topic, communication is a crucial ability to be shown in the classroom. It is clearly shown in the curriculum, in which objective “F”’s main goal is to make students communicatively competent. Now, I will move on to this competence according to the current curriculum.
a. Communication According to the Current Curriculum
Throughout the years, Communicative Competence has gained more importance in the Educational System. In the 1970s, it was an aspect that started to be worked on at the age of eleven. Moreover, with LOGSE (1975), communication skills were introduced when students were eight years old. Over time, in recent laws like LOE and LOMLOE, communicative skills are already being worked on when students are between three and five years old.
Nevertheless, we can’t speak about communication without mentioning the theory of language and theory of language learning, as well as the concept of Communicative Competence.
b. Concept of Communicative Competence
Along with language and communication studies, some authors, such as Chomsky, talked about language. In this case, he states that language is a set of sentences, each finite in length, created out of a finite set of elements. He also states that a speaker has a subconscious ability to use the grammar already known in his mother language to create new utterances in the foreign language. This is what he called Communicative Competence.
Nevertheless, authors such as Hymes said that Chomsky had missed out on the rules as he considered that speakers had an intuitive mastery of the foreign language they are learning at the moment. According to this, he establishes four sub-competences:
- Systematic Potential: The speaker can produce sentences in the language he is learning at the moment, following learnt rules.
- Appropriacy: The speaker focuses on the context and the purpose to decide which type of language is appropriate to the given situation.
- Occurrence: The speaker knows how often a structure is used in the target language he uses. For example: “I had my hair cut” is less frequently used than “I cut my hair.”
- Feasibility: The speaker knows whether something is possible or not in the language.
Once I have explained these aspects, I would not like to forget Canale and Swain’s importance, as they also establish some competencies related to communication. They are the following:
- Discourse Competence: The speaker can produce sentences cohesively.
- Grammatical Competence: The speaker knows how to create sentences grammatically.
- Sociolinguistic Competence: The speaker focuses on social aspects to know how to interact in them in the target language.
- Strategic Competence: The speaker knows how to produce sentences to be understood, whether he uses verbal or non-verbal communication.
c. Theory of Language
When we focus on the theory of language, we mainly pay attention to what language is without giving language a didactic vision that we can apply in our learning situations to make students competent in communication situations. This leads the topic to explain what communicative competence is according to some linguistics.
d. Theory of Language Learning
Once I have explained what Communicative Competence is, I will move on to the theory of language learning to focus on how to apply strategies in the classroom to create an effective environment where students feel motivated to learn a foreign language. To achieve this, we should focus on the following aspects: teaching strategies, input, materials, students’ groupings, and students’ and teachers’ roles.
First, strategies used in the classroom should engage students’ learning, where motivating tools should always be part of the methodology. For this reason, we, as teachers, should focus on their level of English, their tastes, and preferences. Secondly, also focusing on their needs and level, we should focus on the input, which should be varied to make students aware that their learning process is progressive. The materials chosen are also an important part of the language learning procedure. They also have to be varied, using as much realia as possible to create awareness of cultural differences. Learning situations should also vary the way students are grouped to give them different roles and let them be active in their learning process.
To sum up, their role should be defined by some autonomy in which teachers only make a guide role to let them be part of their learning path.
Once I have explained the importance of language and Communicative Competence, which are interrelated to the main idea of the topic, I will move on to the last part of this essay, where a teaching/learning method is going to be developed.
4. Extra-Linguistic Strategies: Non-Verbal Reactions to Messages in Different Contexts
To conclude this topic, I would like to explain a method developed by Asher, known as the Total Physical Response (TPR) method.
According to the children’s language learning process, the first skills acquired are listening and speaking consecutively, followed by reading and, last of all, writing. For this reason, the author mentioned above gives importance to their own rhythm when focusing on their Foreign Language learning path,
where listening is the main skill worked on. This is, in other words, the ability to respond to the teacher’s demand by directly doing what they have been told, following other theories like ‘Trace theory.’ Depending on the actions we expect our students to do, three groupings exist: locutory acts, illocutory acts, and perlocutionary acts.
Depending on the goal, they are designed to ask for a favor, give commands, or see how the student reacts. It is crucial to mention that the verb is the most important part of the sentence said by the teacher, as it is the main idea that students will understand, and therefore, they will act according to what is said.
Once I have dealt with many of these aspects, I will move on to the conclusion, where the main ideas will be summarized.
5. Conclusion
When learning a foreign language in class, it is crucial to consider what language and communication are to work on these abilities as efficiently as possible to foster Communicative Competence in our students, as established in objective “F” in the law LOMLOE “to acquire in at least one foreign language the basic Communicative Approach”.
To do so, I will bring the development of the Communicative Approach through the improvement of the Key Competences. Thus, we can role-play in the classroom in which students must plan a trip to outer space to discover if there is life on another planet.
As students speak to each other in English, they will develop linguistic and multilingual competence. Moreover, they will have to make decisions and solve problems during the mission so that they will develop their citizenship competence and social and learning-to-learn competence.
And why not? If I carry out a Breakout where they must solve different tests to get a number code and go inside the shift, they will also be working on mathematical competence.
Also, older students can create an online newspaper using the free and online application “Flipsnack.” They will hence develop their digital competence and their entrepreneurship competence.
All these learning situations can be carried out following the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) by offering multiple ways of expressing themselves or representing information.
In my view, education takes place if there is meaningful learning, errors are part of the learning process, oral skills precede written ones, content is over accuracy, and learners take an active role when learning. As John Dewey said:
“Education is not a preparation for life; education is life itself.”
6. Bibliography
- Crystal, O. L. D. (2018). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language (3rd Revised ed.). Cambridge University Press.
- Hymes, D. (1972). On Communicative Competence (in Sociolinguistics). Penguin.
- Jakobson, R., & Halle, M. (2017). Fundamentals of Language. Andesite Press.