This presentation is a semantic approach to language teaching. Syntagmatic competence versus paradigmatic traditional teaching.Conveying meaning is basically producing utterances which vary from naming an item, to its description, its definition or being able to explain about it.

1. A RE YOU C OMPETENT OR A RE Y OU N OT? Rodolfo Chaviano. August, 2006 [email_address]

2. R.Chaviano 2006

3. Competencies or competences? 'Competency' is now generally defined as the behaviours that employees must have, or must acquire, to input into a situation in order to achieve high levels of performance, while ' competence' relates to a system of minimum standards or is demonstrated by performance and outputs. http://www.cipd.co.uk/subjects/perfmangmt/competnces/comptfrmwk.htm?IsSrchRes=1 Although most HR professionals draw a distinction between 'competencies' and 'competences' , this is by no means universal and the two terms are often used interchangeably. R.Chaviano 2006

4. Related Definitions Communicative Competence - Term used by Campbell and Wales (1970) and Hymes (1972) to refer to: the relationship and interaction between the native speaker's grammatical competence (or knowledge of the rules of the language) and Sociolinguistic Competence (or knowledge of the rules of language use). It is distinguished from communicative performance which is the realization of theses competences in actual speech in real situations . USAGE and USE - Terms used by Widdowson (1978) to refer to two aspects of communicative performance: a) the ability to produce correct sentences, or manifestations of the linguistic system = USAGE. b) the ability to use the knowledge of the rules for effective communication = USE. R.Chaviano 2006

5. ACHIEVING LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE R.Chaviano 2006 FLUENCY COMPETENCE ACCURACY Performance Quality Language

6. Competence in terms of meaning Any strategy of language teaching that derives the content of learning from an initial analysis of the learner needs to express three different kinds of meaning : Functional (i.e. the social purpose of the utterance) Modal (the degree of likelihood) Conceptual - the meaning relations expressed by forms within the sentence ( categories communicative function ) http://www.elc-brighton.co.uk/ Ted Power http://www.btinternet.com/~ted.power/ted.html R.Chaviano 2006

7. Being Competent Being competent means doing and re-doing the language and its meaning in your own words. R.Chaviano 2006

8. Building Up Language Competencies LANGUAGE COMPETENCIES RELY MAINLY ON: ⃠ the acquisition of word-meaning. ⃠ the formation of concepts. ⃠ the understanding of the socio-cultural meaning of language. R.Chaviano 2006

9. = SPEECH COMPETENCE LEXICAL COMPETENCE WRITING COMPETENCE AUDITORY COMPETENCE LISTENING COMPETENCE SYNTAGMATIC COMPETENCE GRAMMATICAL COMPETENCE INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE NON-VERBAL LANGUAGE COMPETENCE Etc. BEING C OMPETENT HAVING multiple Competencies R.Chaviano 2006

10. MAJOR COMPETENCIES FOR COMMUNICATION NAMING  WORD DEFINING  CATEGORY DESCRIBING  PERCEPTION EXPLAINING  LANGUAGE R.Chaviano 2006

11. MAJOR COMPETENCIES FRAMEWORK NAMING  PRONOUNCING  CONVEYING MEANING CATEGORIZING  CONCEPTS & NOTIONS DEFINING  DESCRIBING  PERCEPTIONS  SENSES & FEELINGS EXPLAINING  Meaning into Words  EXPANDING IDEAS EXPECTED OUTCOMES  COMPETENCIES R.Chaviano 2006

12. MAJOR COMPETENCIES FOR COMMUNICATION UTTERANCE MEANING NAMING DEFINING DESCRIBING L EXPLANATING ITEM WORD CATEGORY PERCEPTION SYNTAGMATIC LANGUAGE a tree a plant with leaves large...with fruits ...etc. An apple tree that grows in ... R.Chaviano 2006

13. WORD-MEANING & FORMATION OF CONCEPTS It is a tree . It is a plant . It has leaves and a solid trunk. It’s tall and green. It provides shade and oxygen. It grows in the forest or everywhere around us. It’s a mango tree . It’s grown in tropical areas. It’s well known plant . It bears delicious fruit. Fruit is usually canned during the harvest season so as to have enough fruit available throughout the year. RCh. 10 R.Chaviano 2006

14. TEST YOUR LANGUAGE COMPETENCIES . R.Chaviano 2006 TEST YOUR LANGUAGE COMPETENCIES . CAN YOU NAME THEM?

15. ___________ Greetings ______________1___ Making Questions ___________________9___ Stating Facts of Life ________________________5_____ Expanding Ideas ____________________________2_____ Connecting Ideas ________________________________3____ Making Comparisons _________________________________8______ Telling apart Mass & Unit _____________________________________6______ Building Up Multi-Word Units ___ ________________________________________7____ Understanding Lexical Units ______________________________________________________4_______ Understanding Verb Collocation ____________________________________ 10_____ Understanding the Social Meaning of Language Conveying Meaning PRODUCING UTTERANCES Expected Competencies R.Chaviano 2006

16. TEST YOUR LANGUAGE COMPETENCIES . R.Chaviano 2006 coat-of-arms wall-unit. Utensil tools baby_car_seat toiletries Can you define them?

18. BEING COMPETENT MEANS UNDERSTANDING LEXICAL UNITS TAKE OFF two words (2) several lexical units TO PUT UP WITH multi-word verb one lexical unit TO BE TAKEN FOR literally a) one meaning A RIDE idiomatically b)another meaning A BLACK HOLE several words one lexical unit Adapted from : MA KINGS ENS EOF WORDS, Andrew Sheehan. FORUM. Volume 42, Number 1, page 11. Jan 2004 STANDS FOR IS SAW ONE WORD THREE LEXICAL UNITS R.Chaviano 2006

20. Benefits of a competency-based system Oucomes are measurable and standardized according to language functions and the student individual expected performance in real life situations. The language used to describe competencies is comprehensible for students and teachers as well.(semantics) Competencies are based on what tha average performer does. This approach works in favor of rapidly-changing circumstances by setting one particular group of attitudes and skills. Some behavioural competencies are basically personality traits which an individual may be able or unable to achieve. Relies on conveying word-meaning and the formation of concepts in the target language. R.Chaviano 2006