assignment 3_communicative competence

Communicative Competence

Recently, the trend of the teaching approach among the teacher is about language teaching in the way of communicative. The focus of the learning or studying process of this approach is on the learners or the students. The way of the learning process in the communicative approach is focus on the communicative competence. Thus, the main goal of the learning language based on the communicative approach is the teaching of communicative competence.

What the communicative competence?

Communicative competence is the ability of the learners or students in using the language, in this case foreign language, in their communication needs. In other words, it can be said as the competence of the learners using foreign language in the different kind of the situation in their life ahead.

Due to acquire the communicative competence, the teachers should use materials that focus on the language needed to express and understand different kinds of functions. (Examples include asking for things, describing people, expressing likes and dislikes and telling time). The teachers also emphasize the processes of communication – for example, using language appropriately in different types of social situations. They encourage students to use their foreign language to perform different kinds of tasks, like solving puzzles and getting information. They also stress using language to interact with other people.

The teaching processes in order to acquire the communicative competence include some abilities to be mastered by the learners as the goals of the learning foreign language: linguistic competence, the knowledge of grammar and vocabulary; sociolinguistics competence, the ability  to say the appropriate thing in a certain social situation; discourse competence, the ability to start, enter, contribute to, and end a conversation, and the ability to do this in a consistent and coherent manner; strategic competence, the ability to communicate effectively and repair problems caused by communication breakdowns; grammatical competence refers to the ability to use the language correctly, (Pearson, 2007).

References

MacKenzi. 2006. Language Matters [online].  [Accesed 30^th March 2012]. Retrieved from http://languageinstinct.blogspot.com/2006/09/what-is-clt-language-competencies.html

Pearson. 2007. Principles of Communicative Language Teaching and Task-Based Instruction [online]. [Accesed 30^th March 2012]. Retrieved from http://www.pearsonhighered.com/samplechapter/0131579061.pdf