Name: OGUNJINRIN PETER OMOTOLA ASE405 Matric No.

: 140303002

Question: The goal of communicative language teaching extends beyond mere grammatical

competence. Discuss.

To start with, the goal(s) of communicative language teaching need to be examined.

According to Ikonta N. R. (2010: 63), the ultimate goal of this approach is communicative

competence; a complex measure of ability to function in a language.” This explains that the

ultimate goal of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is the fact that the learners should be

able to use the language in meaningful communicative context or situation(s). Thus, grammatical

competence is like a subset of communicative competence. So, having communicative

competence requires that one has, alongside or in a whole, grammatical competence. This can be

backed up with Canale and Swain (1980)’s categorization of communicative competence. They

claimed that communicative competence encompasses four components, viz:

1. Grammatical competence

2. Discourse competence

3. Sociolinguistic competence

4. Strategic competence

From above, it is obvious that the goals of Communicative Language Teaching extend

beyond grammatical but also to discourse, sociolinguistic and strategic competence. All these

then sum up to give the communicative competence which is the ultimate goal of

Communicative language teaching.

REFERENCE

Ikonta, N. R. (2010). Current Trends in Curriculum and Instruction in English Language. Onitsha,

Nigeria. Africana First Publishers, plc.

Name: OMOLEGBE AZEEZAT FUNMILAYO

Matric No.: 150303507

Cohort: English Education

Course Code: ASE405

Question: The goal of communicative language teaching extends beyond mere grammatical

competence. Discuss.

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) lays much emphasis on attaining communicative

competence. Here, Communicative Language Teaching is also referred to as a new wave of

interest in language teaching. This is so because it aims at ensuring that the students gain

communicative competence. This means that they should be able to use the target language (that

is language being learnt) in meaningful communicative situations or contexts. In order to attain

this competence, there are certain components that need to be pulled together. These components

come together to form the communicative competence which is the ultimate goal of

communicative language teaching. They are:

 Grammatical competence

 Discourse competence

 Sociolinguistic competence

 Strategic competence

Grammatical competence is one of the components of communicative language teaching. So,

it is obvious that the goal of communicative language teaching is beyond mere grammatical

competence but it extends further to communicative competence and grammatical competence

happens to be one of the components of the communicative competence.