ELT1 Seminar Week 4

Topic: Communicative Competence

Lecturer: V Mai Trang Class: 09E7 Group 4: Th Thanh Dung ng Th Hng Trn Th Trang Bi Th Huyn Trang

Outline
1. Introduction 2. Body 2.1. Definition 2.2. Aspects 2.3. Activities 3. Conclusion 4. Discussion

Introduction
What is the goal of language teaching? Hymes, a Virginian linguist, sociolinguist, (1972) believed that the goal of language teaching is to develop communicative competence (CC). What is communicative competence? CC is one of the most controversial terms in the eld of general and applied linguistics.

History of CC
First introduced by Hymes in 1972 in response to Chomskys concept of grammatical competence. Developed by
Canale and Swain (1980) Canale (1983) Bachman (1990)) CelceMurcia, Zoltan and Thurrell (1995) Bachman and Palmer (1996)

Definition
Competence: the ability to do sth well Communicative Competence: a person's ability to communicate information and ideas in a foreign language
Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary, 8th edition

 The ability to converse or correspond with a native speaker of the target language in a real-life situation, with emphasis on communication of ideas rather than on correctness of language form.
http://www.education.com/definition/co

mmunicative-competencelanguages/

Marcelo Melo (2010): To be communicative competent means, roughly speaking, to be able to communicate that which you wish to communicate.

 Hymes: Speakers of a language have to have more than grammatical competence in order to be able communicate effectively in a language; they also need to know how language is used by members of a speech community to accomplish their purposes.

knowledge

ability

CC

 CC = knowledge of the grammatical rules of a language and ability of appropriate use in social contexts. CC includes knowledge/awareness of: when to say where to say to whom to say what to say how to say

Aspects of CC
Discourse Competence

Strategic Competence

CC
Sociocultural Competence

Linguistic Competence

Actional Competence

Discourse Competence
DC is to do with the selection, sequencing and arrangement of words, structures, utterances to achieve a unified spoken/written text. DC can be seen as the ability to understand, create and develop forms of the language that are longer than sentences (stories, conversations, letters, ) with the appropriate cohesion, coherence and rhetorical organization to combine ideas.

Example: Consider the following short discourse in English: Once upon a time there was an old woman named Mother Hubbard, who had a dearly-loved dog named Bowser. Mother

Hubbard was very poor and didn't always have enough food
for herself and her pet.

One day Bowser came running up and barked hopefully to

show his mistress how hungry he was. Mother Hubbard went

to the cupboard to get her poor doggie a bone, because she

felt sorry for him. But when she got to the cupboard it was bare, and so poor Bowser went hungry.

1. Which type of discourse is it? Is it a description, process, narration of argument? Show the evidences. 2. How many characters are there? Underline the words that refer to each of them. 3. Which are the main events of this story?

Linguistic competence
Linguistic competence consists of knowledge of such linguistic systems as syntactic (thuc v c php), morphological (thuc v hnh thi hc), lexical (thuc v t vng), phonological (thuc v m v hc), and orthographic (thuc v chnh t) systems needed to realize communication in speech or writing.

The one who has linguistic competence is able to: Recognize whether the word belongs to the

language or not.
E.g: A. Slip B. Slib C. Sbill

Know the morphology, such as prefix, suffix.

E.g: A. post- graduation B. friendliness C. enrichen

 Distinguish sentence and non-sentences.

E.g: A. The accident was seen by thousands.

B. The accident was looked by thousands. Distinguish some sentences which have the same structure but the different meanings. E.g: A. The cow was found by the stream.

B. The cow was found by the farmer.

Know some sentences with different structure, but

related meanings.
E.g. The police examined the bullet. The bullet was examined by the police.

Communicative activities
Definition: Communicative activities include any activities that encourage and require a learner to speak with and listen to other learners, as well as with people in the program and community. Benifits: help turn the English classroom into an active, safe, and enjoyable place where literacy- and beginning-level learners can learn what they need and want to learn. Challanges: Language learners may be initially disconcerted when their English teacher begins asking them to get up and move around, work in pairs or groups, and talk to one another.

Activities in CLT
Information gap

Class survey

Games

Information gap
Highlights: In information gap, each student has information that the other student(s) dont have. Objective: Learners find and share information by asking and answering questions in order to complete a task. Context: This activity can be used in all levels or with multilevel groups. Estimated time: usually ranges between 20 and 35 minutes. Materials: The teacher prepares a master handout based on information, language structures, and vocabulary the students have been working on. Then, the teacher deletes pieces of information on two sets of handouts Bad point: Teachers cannot evaluate correctly competence of students if they do not observe carefully.

Example
student A: Student B:

Read the story to your partner. When you

find a blank , ask your partner for help. The Pilgrims came from (1) ___________.

Listen to the story. Help your partner with

words on the list. 1 England

They came on the ship, the Mayflower, in the 2. 1620 winter of (2) ________. Before these immigrants 3. The Mayflower Compact

landed on shore at Plymouth Rock, they

signed a document to form a simple government called the (3) _________________.

Read the story to your partner. When you

find a blank, ask your partner for help. The Pilgrims had a difficult time because many were sick from crossing the (1) the weather was very cold, and they had

Listen to the story. Help your partner with

words on the list. 1. Atlantic Ocean 2. Squanto 3. Massasoit Now, take turns reading the entire story.

only a little food. Native Americans including

(2) ____________ and (3)____________ helped the immigrants by giving them food and advice. Now take turns reading the entire story.

Class Survey
Highlights: As ice-breaking activity, especially at the beginning of a course. Objective: Learners gather information about a particular topic. Context: This class survey activity is especially useful for beginning levels. Estimated time: Time varies according to how much information is gathered. Materials: The teacher needs to make a survey form so learners can easily ask the question or questions and record answers. Bad point: It quite boring

Example
Please ask the question of every student in class. Write down the names. Name: _________________________________ Date : __________________________________ What is your first name? (Spell it, please) _________________________________ Where are you from? _____________________________________

Games
Highlights: Games give learners opportunities to use the language they are learning in non-threatening, enjoyable contexts. Objective: Specific goals such as learning numbers or new vocabulary are associated with particular games. Context: depend on level of classes. Estimated time : Games should take less time Materials: Items vary according to the game, but many can be homemade Bad points: it wastes of time and affects to the lesson.

Example

Conclusion
CLT aims at producing students who are communicatively competent. CC = knowledge of the grammatical rules of a language and ability of appropriate use in social contexts. CC includes Discourse competence, Linguistic competence, Actional competence, Sociocultural competence and Strategic competence.

 Reference:
http://www.sil.org/lingualinks/languagelearni

ng/otherresources/gudlnsfralnggandcltrlrnngp
rgrm/whatisdiscoursecompetencetextu.htm

http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/goalsmethod
s/goal.htm

http://www.english-e-corner.com/linguistics

Discussion
1. Due to exam system in Viet Nam, teaching English at high school should emphasize much more on grammar and reading rather than communication skills. Do you agree with the statement. Why and why not? 2. How to motivate your students to balance 4 skills while they only want to learn grammar to pass exams and get high mark?

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR ATTENTION!