In recent years there has been much discussion and debate about communicative approaches to syllabus design, materials writing and classroom activity. Such approaches aimed at developing the ‘communicative’ as opposed to the purely ‘linguistic’ competence of learners. In this first section, it would be explained about the terms ‘ communicative competence’ and ‘communicative teaching’ , to explore what communicative teaching implies in terms of classroom activities, methods and materials, to compare it with approaches currently in widespread use, and to examine the possible advantages and disadvantages of adopting such an approach.
What is communicative competence? There is now fairly broad agreement that communicative competence is made up of four major strands : grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence and strategic competence (Canale and Swain, 1980)
- It is clear that what is meant by grammatical competence is the mastery of language code. ”Such competence focuses directly on the knowledge and skill required to understand and express accurately the literal meaning of utterances,” (Canale: 1983) It is this type of competence which much classroom teaching seeks to promote.
- Sociolinguistic competence involves the ability to produce and understand utterances which are appropriate in terms of the context in which they are uttered. This necessarily involves a sensitivity to factors such as status, role, attitude, purpose, degree of formality, social convention and so on. Here are three instances of inappropriate though perfectly well-formed utterances: ‘Sit down please’ (spoken to a distinguished guest - but with the intonation reserved for commands). ‘How old are you? (Asked of a middle-aged foreign professor one is meeting for the first time.) ‘Why has your face gone red?’ (Asked of someone who has just been embarrassed by an incentive personal question.) Many of the communication failure experienced by the learners of a foreign language have their origin in a lack of sociolinguistic competence.
- Discourse competence concerns the ability to combine meanings with unified and acceptable spoken or written texts in different genres (Genres covers the types of text involved : narrative, argumentative, scientific reports, newspaper articles, news broadcast, casual conversation, etc.) At first sight this might seem to be included under grammatical or sociolinguistic competence; but Widdowson’s example (Widdowson :1978) should illustrate the difference : Speaker A : What did the rain do ? Speaker B :The crops were destroyed by the rain. The replay is grammatically and sociolinguistically acceptable, but in discourse terms it simply doesn’t fit. (‘It destroyed the crops’ obviously would fit).
- Strategic competence relates to verbal and non-verbal strategies which learners may need to use either to compensate for breakdowns in communication or to enhance the effectiveness of communication. One thinks of the use of hesitation filler such as :’um’, ‘you know’, etc. Given that few if the learners of a foreign language ever learn it perfectly, the importance of these ‘repair strategies’ should be self-evident.
Strategic competence also refers to the intuitive feel by participants for the kind of communicative event they are engaged in and the direction it is moving in. This allows us to predict moves in advance and to nudge the discourse in the desired direction.
The communicative approaches will have minimally the following characteristics :
- Concentration on the use and appropriacy rather than simply on language form. (i.e. meaning as well as grammar);
- A tendency to favour fluency-focused rather than simply accuracy focused activities (Maley,1982)
- An intention to communication tasks to be achieved through the language rather than simply exercises on the language;
- An emphasis on the student initiative and interaction;
- A sensitivity to learners’ differences rather than a ‘lockstep’ approaches (in which all students proceed through the same materials at the same pace);
- An awareness of variation in language use rather than simply attention to the language (i.e. recognition that there is not one English by many Englishes) Trudgill and Hannah , 1983)
IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING
If the factors in the previous section above are to be implemented, there are certain inevitable consequences for the organization and management of the teaching/learning process.
- Teachers’ roles will change. They can no longer be regarded as possessing sacrosanct knowledge, which they dispense in daily doses to their docile flock. Instead they will need to set up tasks and activities in which the learners play the major overt role. It is then as time goes by. This implies a much less spectacular, and at the same time much less secure, position.
- The learners’ roles will change correspondingly. They will no longer find it is enough to follow the lesson passively, but will need to involve themselves as real people in the activities they are asked to undertake both inside and outside the classroom. This gives them at one and the same time more freedom - and more responsibility.
- The teaching materials will need to reflect the wide range of uses of the language. Almost inevitably there will be a preponderance of authentic over simplified materials.
- The techniques applied to these materials will be task-oriented rather than exercise-centered. It will be common to find students listening to or reading for information which they then discuss before formulating decisions or solutions in spoken or written form. In other words, the skills will be integrated rather than isolated. It will be rare to find students given a listening or reading text in isolation and asked to answer questions on it for no apparent reason.
- The classroom procedures adopted will favor interaction among students. This will have implications for the layout of the classroom (straight rows of chairs and desks are good for order but bad for communication) There will be an emphasis on works in pairs and small groups. Much work may be founded on the exchange of information between groups.
ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF COMMUNICATIVE APPROACHES.
The main advantages of such approaches would seem to be that :
- they are more likely to produce the four kinds of competence outlined above than more purely language centered-approaches;
- they are more immediately relevant since they offer the learner the opportunity of using the language for his own purposes earlier than do other approaches;
- to this extent they are more motivating, and students are likely to put more effort into them;
- they are less wasteful of time and effort than approaches which attempt to teach the whole language system, since they teach only what is relevant and necessary;
- in the long term they equip the learners with the appropriate skills for tackling the language in the real world, since the approach is based on the close approximation to such uses.
They do, however, have a number of potential disadvantages, namely that :
- They make greater demands upon the professional training and competence of the teachers. Teacher withdrawal is not the same thing as inactivity. In terms of preparation they demand very much more energy and adaptability from the teacher. The teacher also needs to be more confidently competent in the foreign language.
- They do not offer the teacher the security of the text-book. whereas, with more traditional approaches, it is sufficient for the teacher to follow the prescription offered by the textbook, here it is necessary for him to select, adapt and invent the materials he uses.
- They may perplex students used to other approaches, at least in the initial stages.
- They are more difficult to evaluate than the other approaches referred to. Whereas it is relatively easy to test whether a student has mastered the present perfect tense, it is less easy to evaluate his competence in solving a problem, issuing an invitation, negotiating a successful agreement.
- Because they appear to go against traditional practice, they tend to meet with opposition, especially from older teachers and learners.
SOME PRINCIPLED DECISIONS TO PROMOTE COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE IN A TEXTBOOK DESIGN.
- We held that learners learn both consciously and with effort, and subconsciously without effort (Krashen’s terms ‘learning’ and ‘acquisition’) the textbook would need to offer scope for both kinds of learning.
- Teaching can be accuracy or fluency-focused. We held that fluency (in which the emphasis on open-ended communication activities taking place in real time) was more likely to promote learning than accuracy (where the emphasis is on the inculcation of the correct linguistic forms). We accepted the need of all students in varying degrees of some accuracy work. This was made an optional part of the course.
- We held error to be a normal part of language learning. Much correction is wasteful of time, and unproductive to boot. We decided to be resolutely non-judgmental. This would not preclude the provision of acceptable models nor the indication to learners of the existence or location of errors on request.
- We held that language processing proceed from top down, not from bottom up. Meanings are first apprehended as ‘wholes’ and only later analyzed into parts - if necessary. The tasks in the book would thus need to develop holistic processing.
- We held that structures and functions could be equally constraining. The tasks were not therefore to be designed with a particular structural or functional category in mind. Rather they would be chosen for their communicational relevance in the framework of the whole activity.
- We held that learners are more likely to acquire the language if they were exposed to authentic samples of it. We recognized the danger, however in making a ‘god’ of authenticity. Inputs would therefore usually be truly authentic or ‘modified authentic’ (that is preserving linguistic properties of authentic text).
- We held that communicative tasks were superior to linguistic exercises in promoting learning. Our book would be task-based and would relegate any exercise material to the optional accuracy section.
- We held that. to mirror real communication, we would need to integrate the major language skills. Listening, speaking, etc. would be integral to any given task. The proportion of each would vary with the nature of the task.
- We held that the greater the responsibility given to learners, the more effective their learning would be. We therefore left much scope for independent work, in a framework of a supporting peergroup.
- We held that motivation would be increased through problem solving activities, which would engaged both the cognitive and the affective resources of the learners.
- We likewise held that both analytical and creative thinking should be given scope in the activities and task.
- We held that language used in the classroom should be immediately relevant and inherent in the task.
- We held that, given the mismatch between input and intake, there was little point in setting up an ‘appriory’ list of items to be taught. In linguistic items are truly frequent or useful, they can be presumed to occur naturally in representative samples of communication. We decided therefore to opt for interesting activities. Such activities could be graded, as an alternative to linguistic grading.
- Finally we wished our materials to be elegant, economical, and aesthetically pleasing.
