COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE CHAPTER 8 WHAT IS COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE

COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE CHAPTER 8

WHAT IS COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE? • Communicative Competence – the ability to communicate • Two kinds of CC: 1. Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills (BICS) – informal, conversation skills 2. Cognitive/Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) – understanding academic language • Which is most important to learn first?

FACTORS AFFECTING COMPETENCE • Context-embedded • • Context-reduced • • When the student knows what the language is about. When the student doesn’t know what the language is about. Which helps students more when understanding and producing language?

TYPES OF COMPETENCE • Grammatical Competence – knowledge of grammar • Discourse Competence – ability to connect sentences into conversation • Sociolinguistic Competence – ability to follow sociocultural rules of language • Strategic Competence – ability to use verbal/nonverbal to give a message • Organizational Competence – ability to use forms of language • Illocutionary or Pragmatic Competence – ability to send and receive

HOW COMMUNICATION WORKS • Speech Act – different meanings coming from one sentence; actions and meanings conveyed during conversation • Basic sentence Locutionary • There is a fire in that house. – basic sentence • Intended meaning Illocutionary • There is a fire in that house. – warning, don’t go near it • Actual Response Perlocutionar y • There is a fire in that house. – listener is frightened and doesn’t go to the house

GROUP WORK – WHAT ARE ALL OF THE POSSIBLE MEANINGS OF THESE SENTENCES? • Where have you been? • You can leave now. • Why weren’t you at the party? • What did your parents say? • You look so hot.

GROUP WORK – WHAT ARE ALL OF THE POSSIBLE MEANINGS OF THESE SENTENCES? American: What a beautiful necklace! Samoan: Please have it. English Teacher: paragraph? Russian Student: Would you like to read this No, I would not.

STYLES OF COMMUNICATION • Oratorical – language conventions used in public speaking • Deliberative – impromptu situations in front of an audience • Consultative – formal and words are chosen carefully • Casual – between friends • Intimate/Personal – between family or lovers • Which is utilized in writing? Which is taught in school? Which SHOULD be taught in school?

OTHER FACTORS OF COMMUNICATION COMPETENCE • Kinesics – gestures; different for every culture • Eye contact – looking directly into someone’s eyes or not • Facial expressions – facial gestures • Proxemics – physical distance between speaker and listener • Artifacts – clothing and jewelry • Kinesthetics – touching • Olfactory Dimensions – sense of smell • How do each of these affect communication?

COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING • Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) – classrooms where teachers teach students to communicate with their language rather than learn grammatical rules • Example: a teacher teaches the topic of traveling and the students role-play as if they are going to the airport and trying to buy a plane ticket. The students describe where they want to go and what they will do.

TASK-BASED LANGUAGE TEACHING • Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) – there is a task to solve when learning language • Task • • Meaning is primary There is a problem to solve A relationship to real-world activities An objective that can be assessed or tested • Example: Adult business English language learners are asked to find a business in the community and develop in English a business plan that would create more profit for the business and improve the company.

CREATE A LANGUAGE LEARNING ACTIVITY • In groups, write down an activity for both approaches: • CLT • TBLT • The activities should teach a specific age level of student. • Be specific and outline how the activity is CLT or TBLT. • Present to the class!