New Perspectives on the Development of Communicative and Related Competence in Foreign Language Education

Izumi Walker, Daniel Kwang Guan Chan, Masanori Nagami, Claire Bourguignon, Izumi Walker, Daniel Kwang Guan Chan, Masanori Nagami, Claire Bourguignon

• Publisher: De Gruyter Mouton
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9781501514289
• eBook ISBN:
  9781501505010
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Sign Language
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Nearly half a century has passed since Hymes proposed the concept of communicative competence to describe the knowledge and skills required for the appropriate use of language in a social context. During these decades, a number of scholars have applied and refined this concept. In language education, communicative competence has been identified as a major objective of learning.

This book will inform readers about communicative competence as a highly complex construct encompassing an array of sub-competencies such as linguistic skills and proficiencies, knowledge of socio-cultural and socio-pragmatic codes, and the ability to engage in textual and conversational discourse. Findings from research in related disciplines have pointed to the significance of factors that can contribute to the attainment of communicative competence. Various teaching practices and relevant Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools will be also introduced and discussed to achieve communicative competence as a complex ability. It is a timely contribution to current research on key areas in the teaching, learning and acquisition of second/foreign languages.

Izumi Walker, Daniel Kwang Guan Chan and Masanori Nagami

1 New perspectives on the development of communicative and related competence in foreign language education: An introduction to the book

Izumi Walker, Daniel Kwang Guan Chan and Masanori Nagami, National University of Singapore, Singapore

1 Communicative competence in foreign language education

The ability to communicate in foreign languages undeniably plays a key role in today’s era of globalisation. In fact, communication in foreign languages is one of the eight key competences “individuals need for personal fulfilment and development, active citizenship, social inclusion and employment” under the European Reference Framework (ERF), established in 2006 in response to the challenges brought about by globalisation. The ERF highlighted the need for people to develop “a wide range of key competences to adapt flexibly to a rapidly changing and highly interconnected world” (European Union 2006: L.394/13). Specifically, “communication in foreign languages” is defined in the ERF as follows (European Union 2006: L.394/14):

Communication in foreign languages broadly shares the main skill dimensions of communication in the mother tongue: it is based on the ability to understand, express and interpret concepts, thoughts, feelings, facts and opinions in both oral and written form (listening, speaking, reading and writing) in an appropriate range of societal and cultural contexts (in education and training, work, home and leisure) according to one’s wants or needs. Communication in foreign languages also calls for skills such as mediation and intercultural understanding. An individual’s level of proficiency will vary between the four dimensions (listening, speaking, reading and writing) and between the different languages and according to that individual’s social and cultural background, environment, needs and/or interests.

It is made quite clear in this definition that communication in a foreign language involves not only linguistic or grammatical competence (i.e. the four basic language skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing), but also the ability to use the language appropriately depending on the context of language use or purpose of communication and additionally, the capacity to deal with and act skilfully in the light of intercultural differences.

The complex nature of communicative competence is also recognized in the National Standards in Foreign Language Education Project (NSFLEP 2015), which sets the benchmarks for the performance outcomes of foreign language learners in the United States. Identified as the first of five key areas of achievements (commonly referred to as the 5 Cs), communication – together with cultures, connections, comparisons and communities – is a goal that enables foreign language learners to become world-ready educated citizens with the ability to communicate and interact effectively with local and global communities, in different types of situations and for various purposes. Under the NSFLEP, the “communication” goal is measured by three standards, corresponding to three communicative modes, contexts or purposes. These include the foreign language learner’s ability to:

• – interact and negotiate meaning in spoken, signed or written conversations to share information, reactions, feelings and opinions (NSFLEP 2015, “Interpersonal Communication”)
• – understand, interpret and analyze what is heard, read or viewed on a variety of topics (NSFLEP 2015, “Interpretive Communication”)
• – present information, concepts and ideas to inform, explain, persuade and narrate on a variety of topics using appropriate media and adapting to various audiences of listeners, readers or viewers (NSFLEP 2015, “Presentational Communication”)

The crucial role of communicative competence in the teaching and learning of languages can be traced back to the 1960s. The term “competence” first emerged in a dichotomy made by Chomsky (1965: 4) between “a speaker-hearer’s knowledge of his language” (competence) and his “actual use of language in concrete situations” (performance). As Hymes pointed out, such a dichotomy between language knowledge and language use fails

to account for the fact that a normal child acquires knowledge of sentences not only as grammatical, but also as appropriate. He or she acquires competence as to when to speak, when not and as to what to talk about with whom, when, where, in what manner. In short, a child becomes able to accomplish a repertoire of speech acts, to take part in speech events and to evaluate their accomplishment by others

(Hymes 1972: 277).

In response to the inadequacy of Chomsky’s dichotomy, Hymes (1971, 1972, 1973, 1974) coined the term “communicative competence” to include not only grammatical competence (the ability to use language correctly), but also the (sociolinguistic) ability to use grammatical competence in different communicative situations (including the ability to know when, how and to whom language can be used appropriately). He defined “communicative competence” as “the most general term for the speaking and hearing capabilities of a person” (Hymes 1971: 16). He makes a distinction between competence and performance: the former depends “upon both (tacit) knowledge and (ability for) use” (Hymes 1972: 282), while performance “takes into account the interaction between competence (knowledge, ability for use), competence of others and cybernetical and emergent properties of events themselves” (Hymes 1972: 283).

Half a century later, Hymes’ concept of communicative competence continues to be fine-tuned and still influences research areas in language teaching and learning, while helping to shape the objectives of foreign language education. As shown with the ERF and the NSFLEP, attempts have been made to formalize the theoretical construct of communicative competence so that reference frameworks can establish instructional objectives and standards for the measurement of foreign language learners’ proficiency levels. Other earlier examples include Canale (1983), who examined how a theoretical framework of communicative competence is instrumental in designing and implementing a testing programme for students learning French as a second language in some Canadian elementary and secondary schools. Similarly, Bachman (1990) used a “communicative language ability” framework to develop language tests that demonstrate reliability of test scores and validity of test use. Celce-Murcia, Dörnyei and Thurrell (1995), motivated by the practical needs for language teaching and teacher training, also argued for the need to have a comprehensible and accessible description of components of communicative competence so as to serve as an elaborated ‘checklist’ that practitioners can refer to (see Section 2).

In sum, communicative competence is a relevant and crucial concept in foreign language education, especially in the ERF and the NSFLEP, two of the most influential reference frameworks and benchmarks in foreign language education. To better understand the complexities of communicative competence, it is useful to recall why and how the theoretical construct of communicative competence has evolved over the past few decades, as well as its impact on foreign language education. This in turn puts the chapters in this volume into perspective and context.

2 Theoretical developments of the communicative competence model and their impact on foreign language education

In this section, we present some of the more well-known theoretical models of language ability and how they have developed over the past decades. We then discuss their impact on foreign language education in today’s contexts.

2.1 Canale and Swain (1980)/Canale (1983)

For Canale and Swain (1980) and Canale (1983), communicative competence is viewed as a synthesis of underlying knowledge and skills that are required for communication. Knowledge is understood as an individual’s (conscious or unconscious) knowledge about language and other aspects of language use. Based on the ideas of Hymes (1971, 1972, 1973, 1974) mentioned above, Canale and Swain (1980: 27–31) first produced a model of “communicative competence” involving just three types of knowledge:

• – Knowledge of grammar, lexis, morphology, syntax, semantics and phonology (“Grammatical competence”)
• – Knowledge of sociocultural rules of language use and rules of discourse (“Sociolinguistic competence”)
• – Knowledge of how to compensate for breakdowns when faced with difficulties in communication (“Strategic competence”)

In the later model by Canale (1983), rules of discourse were separated from sociolinguistic knowledge, leading to four competence areas of communicative competence:

• – Grammatical competence: the mastery of the language code (verbal or non-verbal) including features and rules of the language such as vocabulary, word formation, sentence formation, pronunciation, spelling and linguistic semantics.
• – Sociolinguistic competence: the knowledge of sociocultural rules of language use. It addresses the extent to which utterances are produced and understood appropriately in different sociolinguistic contexts depending on contextual factors such as status of participants, purposes of the interaction and norms or conventions of interaction.
• – Discourse competence: the mastery of how to combine grammatical forms and meanings to achieve a unified spoken or written text in different genres. Unity of a text is achieved through cohesion in form and coherence in meaning.
• – Strategic competence: the knowledge of how to overcome problems when faced with difficulties in communication.

2.2 Bachman (1990)/Bachman and Palmer (1996)

Bachman (1990) proposed a more comprehensive model of communicative competence by building on Canale and Swain’s (1980) model with three components relating to language ability: (1) language competence, (2) strategic competence and (3) psychophysiological mechanisms. His model, known as the communicative language ability, is different from earlier models as it clarifies two things, which were left unclear in that of Canale and Swain’s. Firstly, it clearly distinguishes what constitutes knowledge from what constitutes a skill. Secondly, it explicitly “attempts to characterize the processes by which the various components interact with ea...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Preface
• Contents
• 1 New perspectives on the development of communicative and related competence in foreign language education: An introduction to the book
• Part I: Theoretical and pedagogical issues in the development of competence
• Part II: Empirical research on the acquisition of competence
• Part III: Practices in developing competence
• Index