The document discusses the concept of communicative competence, which refers to a speaker's ability to communicate effectively in culturally appropriate settings. It identifies three key components of communicative competence: grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, and discourse competence. Grammatical competence involves knowledge of morphology, syntax, and other linguistic rules. Sociolinguistic competence is the ability to use language appropriately within a given social and cultural context. Discourse competence refers to producing and understanding coherent texts. The document also discusses notions of communicative language teaching and meaning-focused classroom activities like information transfer, information gap, and problem solving.
2. Communicative competence
What a speaker needs to know to communicate
effectively in culturally significant settings.
(Gumperz & Hymes, 1972: vii)
The learner’s ability to understand and use language
appropriately to communicate in authentic (rather than
simulated) social and school environments.
3. Communicative language
teaching:
• Involves developing language proficiency through
interactions embedded in meaningful contexts.
• provides authentic opportunities for learning
that go beyond repetition and memorization of
grammatical patterns in isolation
4. Canale & Swain (1979, 1980) in
their review of the literature on
communicative competence
suggest three subcomponents
which together make up
communicative competence.
Grammatical
competence
Sociolinguistics
competence
Discourse competence
5. Grammatical
competence:
Is just that, a knowledge
of lexical items and the
rules of morphology,
syntax, sentence-
grammar semantics, and
phonology (Canale &
Swain, 1979:54)
9. Communicative Competence (Canale and Swain, 1980)
Grammatical Competence
(knowledge of lexical items and of
rules of morphology, syntax,
sentence- grammar semantics, and
phonology)
Sociolinguistic Competence Strategic Competence
(verbal and non-verbal communi-
cation strategies that may be called
into action to compensate for break-
downs in communication due to
performance variables or to
insufficient competence)
Sociocultural
Competence
(knowledge of the
relation of
language use to its
non-linguistic
context)
Discourse
Competence
(knowledge of
rules governing
cohesion and
coherence)
10. Syllabus
Notional/Functional Syllabus
A notional/function syllabus is one "in which the
language content is arranged according to the meanings a
learner needs to express through language and the
functions the learner will use the language for.
11. A notional syllabus contains
(a)The meanings and concepts the learner needs in
order to communicate (eg time, quantity, duration,
location) and the language needed to express
them. These concepts and meanings are called
notions.
(a) The language needed to express different
functions or speech acts (eg requesting,
suggesting, promising, describing)." (Richards,
Platt, and Weber, 1985, p. 196)
12. A New Category of Classroom Activities:
Meaning Focused Activities
1) Information transfer : is a type of communicative activity that involves the
transfer of information from one medium
eg., from a text to another , from a form, table or diagram).
Such activities are intended to help develop the learner's communicative
competence by engaging them in meaning-focused communication
13. A New Category of Classroom Activities:
Meaning Focused Activities
2) Information Gap: Is a type of communicative activity in which each
participant in the activity holds some information other participants don't have
and all participants have to share the information they have with other
participants in order to successfully complete a task or solve a problem.
14. 3) Problem Solving
Example 1: Listen to the following dialogues and find out how much
each customer needs to pay for his or her order. Use the menu provided
(menu not shown here).
Customer 1
--Are you ready to order?
--Yes. I'd like to have a hamburger, French fries, and a cola, please.
--Is that all for you?
--Yes.
--Please pull to the front. Thank you.
4) Role-Playing and Simulation
A New Category of Classroom Activities:
Meaning Focused Activities
15. 1) Critical Features:
--goal-directed, i.e., a means rather than an end in itself.
Language is considered as a "service" rather than studied as a
subject for its own sake.
--based on an analysis of learners' needs (Jiang: including
analysis of the register/genre of the language used in the
target situation)
2) Typical Characteristics:
--learners are frequently adults;
--the time period available for learning is often limited;
--homogeneity (of subject background or profession) may
exist. (from Johnson and Johnson,1998)
