Speaking in the Framework of Communicative Competence

By Irfan Nugroho (nugrohoirfan@gmail.com)
The discussion of speaking a foreign language (especially English) usually begins with the explanation of communication. Indeed, it is because one of the main goals of language teaching and learning is to reach ‘the ability to communicate’ (Dalton-Puffer, 2009: 197; and Labov in Rasool, 2008: 469). Communication is defined by Richards and Schmidt (2002: 89) as:

            “the exchange of ideas, information, etc., between two or more persons. In an act of communication there is usually at least one speaker or sender, a message which is transmitted, and a person or persons for whom this message is intended (the receiver). Communication is studied from many disciplinary perspectives, is often viewed as a discipline in its own right, and is central to sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, and information theory.”

Simply people may assume, after reading the above definition, that speaking is merely about communicating ideas to receiver. Speaking a second language (L2), however, is considered ‘the most challenging of the four skills’ because it consists of an intricate process of constructing meaning (Celce-Murcia & Olshtain in Martinez-Flor, Uso-Juan & Alcon, 2006). There are some factors greatly influences the effectiveness and efficiency of someone’s communication in foreign language (Shumin, 2002: 204).

To speak in a foreign language, therefore, is not only about expressing ideas in linguistically correct ways, but it also considers some other factors that Scott Thornbury (2003: 11) calls the ‘extralinguistic knowledge.’ The term ‘extralinguistic knowledge’ alone is actually a simplification from what Dell Hymes calls the ‘Communicative Competence.’

In the last three decades, communicative competence has become the most frequent debatable topic in the field of second language acquisition, especially its importance to the teaching and learning of speaking. The detailed explication of communicative competence alone will be available later in this chapter. The writer would first provide some definitions of speaking, which are dominantly based on the framework of ‘communicative competence.’

Speaking is almost the same as writing, if both are viewed as productive language skills. The two skills are modes of ‘expressing linguistic meanings’ (Halliday in Burns, 2006) and therefore Halliday (in Burns, 2006) further argues that both are ‘different ways of saying.’ Deriving from this point of view of speaking, Anne Burns (2006: 236-240) defines speaking as:

            “ephemeral, contextually, and culturally mediated, less standardized than writing, subject to rapid variation and change, and challenging to codify linguistically. It is not discrete communicative skill, and therefore is highly interactive and thus the participants make personal references to each other (I, you, he) and interpersonally focused, with speakers making direct references to their thoughts, emotions, and judgments relating to the events.”

Speaking would be ephemeral when it refers to a conversation between two or more people in a specific situation and context. And such a view of speaking is supported by Brown and Yule (in Nunan, 2001) who characterize speaking as ‘short and often fragmentary utterances.’

For its nature to be ephemeral (short and fragmentary), speaking then tends to be less standardized if compared to writing. The use of contraction (I’m; He’s; or They’re) is allowed in spoken conversation between two or more people; but, it is not liable to the field of writing wherein “I am looking forward to hearing from you” is much more favourable than “I’m looking forward to hearing from you.” The view of speaking as less standardized gets “Amen” from Brown and Yule (in Nunan, 2001) who state that speaking is ‘the loosely organized syntax, the use of non-specific words, and phrases and the used of fillers make spoken language feel less conceptually dense than other types of language.’

When two or more people are having a conversation, they found it short and less standardized. For that reason, the anxiety to get involved in the ongoing conversation decreases significantly. This contributes to the next characteristics of speaking as suggested by Burns (2006) saying that speaking is interactive, interpersonal, and subject to rapid variation and change. ‘Changes in language styles’[1] occur in frequent times when anxiety to speak decreases. If that so, the conversation becomes so interactive that interpersonal exchange between the speaker and hearer is obvious.

While the above definition is almost comprehensive to detail the definition of speaking, Burns (2006) did not explicitly mention one of the determining characters of speaking; that is the social value. For that reason, Sari Luoma (2006) in her book Assessing Speaking defines speaking as:

            “part of the shared social activity of talking that is mutually interesting and relevant in the situation” (p. 20).

William Littlewood (2002: 43) suggests the inclusion of ‘social acceptability’ as another determining factor – along with ‘functional effectiveness’ will make a communication effective. To him, speaking is:

            “not only a functional instrument, but also a form of social behaviour. This means that the language someone produces will be evaluated in terms of its social acceptability as well as its functional effectiveness (p. 43).”

This, once again, suggests that speaking is not merely about communicating ideas to receiver in linguistically correct ways (grammatical competence), but there are some factors highly needed to be considered, amongst them is the social dimension around the speaking activity (sociolinguistic competence). Another determining factor in effective spoken communication is the awareness of when to talk and when to be silent, listening to other people speaking (strategic competence). The last determining factor in speaking is that a speaker must be aware of the ways he/she arrange the ideas in logic order; and this contributes to the existence of “discourse competence.” These four factors – grammatical, sociolinguistic, strategic, and discourse competences – then contribute to a concept that is called “communicative competence.” For that reason, the next part of this chapter will discuss about the communicative competence.     

References:
Dalton-Puffer, Christine. 2009. “Communicative Competence and the CLIL Lesson.” In Zarobe, Yolanda Ruiz de & Catalàn, Rosa Marià Jimenez (Eds.). Content and Language Integrated Learning – Evidence from Research in Europe. Toronto, US: Multilingual Matters.

Rasool, Naz. 2008. “Language Policy in Britain.” In Hornberger, Nancy H (Ed.). Encyclopedia of Language Education. New York, US: Springer Science+Business Media.

Richards, Jack C & Schmidt, Richard. 2002. Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics. London, UK: Pearson Education.

Martínez-Flor, Alicia; Usó-Juan, Esther; & Soler, Eva Alcón. 2006. “Towards Acquiring Communicative Competence through Speaking.” In Usó-Juan, Esther & Martínez-Flor, Alicia (Eds.). Current Trends in the Development and Teaching of the Four Language Skills. New York, US: Mouton de Gruyter.

Shumin, Kang. 2002. “Factors to Consider: Developing Adult EFL Students’ Speaking Abilities.” In Richards, Jack C & Renandya, Willy A. (Eds.) Methodology in Language Teaching – An Anthology of Current Practice. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Thornbury, Scott. 2003. How to Teach Speaking. London, UK: Longman Pearson Education.

Burns, Anne. 2006. “Teaching Speaking – A Text-based Syllabus Approach.” In Usó-Juan, Esther & Martínez-Flor, Alicia (Eds.). Current Trends in the Development and Teaching of the Four Language Skills. New York, US: Mouton de Gruyter.

Nunan, David. 2001. Designing Tasks for the Communicative Classroom. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Louma, Sari. 2006. Assessing Speaking. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Littlewood, William. 2002. Communicative Language Teaching – An Introduction. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

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[1] This is what Mauranen (2008: 144) refers to ‘the prime motor of language change’ in speaking.

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How to make a summary (paragraph, whole passage, long passages, and textbook chapter)

By Beatrice S Mikulecky & Linda Jeffries

Another key strategy for learning and remembering the ideas in a text is to summarize what you have read. This means rewriting the important parts in a much shorter form, using some words from the text and some of your own words. Summarizing is especially useful for:

• Reviewing and memorizing information in textbooks for exams;

• Preparing information or ideas from different sources so you can include them in a report or paper.

Summarizing a Passage

When summarizing a passage, the first step is to write a one-sentence summary of each paragraph. Then you can combine the sentences to write a summary of the whole passage.

Step 1. Summarizing a paragraph

• Write a single, complete sentence that is much shorter than the paragraph.

• Include the main idea and supporting facts and ideas.

• In the summary sentence, follow the same pattern of organization as in the paragraph.

• Do not add any facts, ideas, or opinions that are not in the paragraph.

Step 2. Summarizing a whole passage

• Read the passage all the way to the end and mark the overall thesis and the supporting points.

• Determine the overall pattern of organization.

• Write a one-sentence summary of each paragraph.

• Write a short paragraph by combining the summary sentences of the paragraphs (with any necessary changes to connect them).

• The main idea of the summary paragraph should be similar to the thesis of the whole passage and the pattern of organization should be the same as the overall pattern of the passage.

Summarizing Long Passages

When you summarize a long passage (more than four or five paragraphs), you need to add an additional step:

• Read the passage all the way to the end and mark the main points (including the thesis and the supporting points).

• Determine the overall pattern of organization.

• Divide the passage into parts. Each part should match a supporting point and may include several paragraphs. (In textbooks, the chapters are usually already divided into subsections or parts.)

• Write a summary sentence for each part.

• Write a paragraph that combines the summary sentences (with any necessary changes to connect them).

• The main idea of the summary paragraph should be the same as the thesis of the original passage, and the pattern of organization should be the same.

Summarizing a Textbook Chapter

Summarizing a textbook section or chapter is easier in some ways than summarizing an article or essay because the passages are usually already divided up into sections and subsections.

In a textbook, the introduction to a chapter or chapter section usually contains a statement of purpose that functions like a thesis statement, and explains what the passage will be about and how it will be organized. The headings of the chapter or section usually correspond to the topics mentioned in the statement of purpose.

While textbook sections are often organized in a listing pattern, each subsection can have a different pattern of organization. It is easier to understand and summarize the subsections if you first identify their patterns.

Source:

Mikulecky, Beatrice S &Jeffries, Lind. 2007. Advanced reading power: extensive reading, vocabulary building, comprehension skills, reading faster. New York: Longman.

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How to Choose the Right Definition of a Word from Dictionary

By Beatrice S Mikulecky & Linda Jeffries
If you are able to infer the general meaning of a word from the context, you can make better use of the dictionary. In fact, many words have more than one definition and you need to choose the most appropriate one. For example, the word laugh (as a verb) has eleven different definitions in the Longman Advanced American Dictionary. Definitions for the word “get” cover three pages!

Below are guidelines for choosing a definition in the dictionary:
One, determine the part of speech of the unknown word. This is necessary because there may be several dictionary entries for one word as different parts of speech.

Two, look at the words that are used with it. If it is a part of a frequent combination of words, the definition may be listed separately. For example, you will find separately numbered definitions for “sign up” and “sign off”. The same is true of “on sight” and “sight unseen” (both listed in the dictionary under sight).

Three, analyze the context for clues to the general meaning of the word.

Four, think about the topic and the meaning of the sentence in which the word is found.

Five, look at the definitions listed in the dictionary and choose the most appropriate one – the one that best fits the way the word is used in the sentence.

Taken from:
Mickulecky, Beatrice S. & Jeffries, Linda. 2007. Advanced Reading Power. New York: Pearson Longman.

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Reducing speaking fears

By Trudy Wallace et. al
Children, adolescents and adults sometimes fear the challenge of sustained, formal speaking before large groups. Teachers can help reduce unrealistic fears by pointing out how common they are among people and what to do about them. They can also help to reduce such fears by maintaining a friendly atmosphere in the class and providing opportunities for students to practice alone or with one other student and then before increasingly larger groups. Thus, students can practice speaking in front of their peers who face the same situation.

Students can practise presenting information, answering questions and holding group discussions. Frequent classroom presentations and discussions enable teachers to diagnose and remedy problems.

Students can benefit from learning by setting themselves presentation goals and assessing their own progress. Observing proficient speakers can help students to set such goals. Practising oral presentation in these ways can lessen students’ anxieties while, at the same time, helping them to learn the subject matter of the lesson.

Students are less likely to be fearful and anxious and more likely to do well if they are well prepared. Preparedness can be enhanced by in-depth mastery of the subject matter, appropriate organization and rehearsing the presentation.

Provide opportunities to practise speaking before increasingly larger groups.

Taken from:
Wallace, Trudy et.al. 2004. Teaching Speaking, Listening, and Writing. Paris: International Academy of Education.

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Strategies for Collaborative Teaching

By Judi Moreillon
What is collaboration? Friend and Cook explain interpersonal collaboration as “a style for direct interaction between at least two coequal parties voluntarily engaged in shared decision making as they work toward a common goal” (1996, 6). Collaboration describes how people work together rather than what they do. It is a dynamic, interactive process among equal partners who strive together to reach excellence. In the 21st century, educators’ overarching common goal is increasing achievement for all learners.

Collaboration can happen in the planning, implementation, and assessment stages of teaching. It begins with planning the partnership itself. In formal collaborations, collaborators must schedule time to meet. Ideally, they preview the lesson ideas to each other in advance of the meeting so that planning can be more focused. Each person can then bring possible goals and objectives to the meeting, along with ideas for curriculum integration, instructional strategies, student grouping arrangements, and potential resources. In the planning process, educators establish shared goals and specific learning outcomes for students as well as assessment tools to evaluate student achievement.

They discuss students’ background knowledge, prior learning experiences, and skill development and determine what resources will best meet learners’ needs. Educators decide on one or more coteaching approaches, assign responsibilities for particular aspects of the lesson, and schedule teaching time based on the needs of students and the requirements of the learning tasks. They may set up another meeting before teaching the lesson and schedule a follow-up time to coassess student work and to evaluate the lesson itself.

Using a collaborative planning form can help guide the initial planning meeting. (Web Supplements 1A, 1B, and 1C are sample planning forms; these planning documents do not replace formal lesson plans.) The goals and objectives are the most important sections on classroom-library collaborative planning forms. While negotiating the best way for the teacher-librarian to coteach curriculum standards and to integrate information literacy skills, the “backward planning” framework (Wiggins and McTighe 1998) charges educators with knowing where they are going before they begin determining instructional strategies and resources. This planning model is centered on student outcomes.

Many teacher-librarian resources provide sample collaborative planning forms. The software program Impact! Documenting the LMC Program for Accountability (Miller 1998) combines both advanced planning and lesson plan support. It also helps teacher-librarians create reports that graphically and statistically document their contributions to the school’s academic goals.

During lesson implementation, collaborators can assume different coteaching roles. In Interactions: Collaboration Skills for School Professionals, Friend and Cook describe various coteaching approaches (1996, 47–50). Depending on the lesson, the students’ prior knowledge and skill development, the expertise of the educators, and their level of trust, collaborators can assume one or more of these roles during a lesson or unit of instruction.

Of these five approaches, team teaching requires the most collaboration and is the approach needed to teach the sample lessons offered in this book most effectively. Team teaching requires careful planning, respect for each educator’s style, and ultimately a shared belief in the value that this level of risk taking can offer students and educators themselves. Teacher-librarians, working within a supportive learning community, must develop interpersonal skills as well as teaching expertise that can allow team teaching to flourish.

Collaboration can also occur during assessment. After coplanning and coimplementing lessons and units of instruction, it is logical that evaluating student learning is part of a shared responsibility for instruction. Checklists, rating scales, and rubrics, developed with colleagues and in some cases with students in advance of instruction or early in the lesson, establish the criteria for postlesson assessment. Students should use these tools to guide, revise, and self-assess their work. Educators can use the same criteria to inform their teaching and modeling, guide student practice, and assess students’ learning process and final products.

Educators may decide to divide assessment on the basis of components of the lesson for which each one took primary responsibility. For example, teacherlibrarians may take the lead in teaching notemaking skills and may then take responsibility for assessing students’ notes with a rubric. Joint assessment can happen before designing a lesson when educators administer pretests to determine the students’ level of skill development or prior knowledge of a particular concept. Even if they did not coteach a lesson, educators might ask one another to provide another set of eyes to evaluate the effectiveness of instruction based on students’ learning products. In Assessing

Learning: Librarians and Teachers as Partners, Harada and Yoshina (2005) provide a comprehensive guide to best practices in assessment. Coassessing the lesson or unit of instruction is too often overlooked. After coplanning, coteaching, and coassessing students’ work, collaborating educators must make time to debrief in order to determine which aspects of the lesson went well and which could use revision. If educators are team teaching, then some of this evaluation occurs as they share responsibility for monitoring and adjusting the teaching and learning while the lesson is in progress. Taking the time to reflect on the lesson after it has been taught is important for professional growth. Reflection helps educators more clearly articulate the relationships between their goals and objectives for student learning and student outcomes.

Reflective practitioners focus on students’ learning as well as on improving their own practice. In “TAG Team: Collaborate to Teach, Assess and Grow,” Schomberg (2003) offers a glimpse into her learning team’s collaborative teaching journey, a journey through the initial planning stages, coteaching and modeling learning tasks, coassessing student work, and sharing responsibility for revising the team’s solar system unit for future use.

Source:
Moreillon, Judi. 2007. Collaborative Strategies for Teaching Reading Comprehension – Maximizing Your Impact. Chicago: American Library Association.

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Components of Communication by Randy Fujishin

By Randy Fujishin

Even though the following seven components of communication operate almost instantaneously, we will examine them separately to more clearly understand their specific function. The seven components are source, message, receiver, encoding, channel, decoding, and context.

Source

The source is the originator of the message. It is the person or persons who want to communicate a message to another person or a group of people. The source of a message can be an individual speaker addressing a group, a child asking for candy, a couple sending out invitations to a family reunion, or a person writing a letter.

Message

The message is the idea, thought, or feeling that the source wants to communicate. This message is encoded or converted into verbal and nonverbal symbols that will most likely be understood by the receiver.

Receiver

The receiver is the recipient of the message. The receiver can be an individual or a group of people. Once the receiver hears the words and receives the nonverbal cues from the sender, she must interpret or decode them if communication is to occur.

Encoding

Once the source has decided on a message to communicate, he must encode or convert that idea, thought, or feeling into verbal and nonverbal symbols that will be most effectively understood by the receiver. This encoding process can be extremely creative because there are unlimited ways for the source to convert the idea or feeling into words and behaviors.

Consider a simple message such as “I want to see you again.” The source can simply say, “I want to see you again,” and smile as he says the words. He can also say, “Let’s get together again,” and cast a humorous glance, or he can murmur, “I need to see you again,” with direct eye contact and outstretched arms. He could simply scribble a note on a napkin saying, “We need an encore,” and place it gently in front of the other person. There are countless ways to encode this simple message and each one would be received and interpreted by the recipient in a slightly different way.

The important thing to remember is that you can open yourself up to the endless possibilities of selecting, arranging, and delivering messages you want to communicate. Your willingness to put greater creativity into the encoding process will enhance and deepen your communication with others.

Channel

A channel is the medium by which the message is communicated. The source can utilize the channels of sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste. For instance, if you want to communicate affection for another person, you can utilize a variety of channels or combination of channels. You can say, “I like you” (sound). You can give a hug (touch). You can wink an eye (sight). You can send cookies that you baked (taste). Or you can deliver a dozen roses (smell). You can creatively select the channels of communication to productively communicate your message.

Decoding

Decoding is the process of making sense out of the message received. The receiver must decipher the language and behaviors sent by the source so they will have meaning. After the receiver decodes the message, the receiver (now the source) can encode a return message and send it back to the other person.

Context

All communication occurs within a certain context. The context is made up of the physical surroundings, the occasion in which the communication occurs, the time, the number of people present, noise level, and many other variables that can influence and affect the encoding and decoding of messages. The context plays an important role in the communication process.

As you consider the effects that the context can have on communication, you might want to put your creativity to good use. Think of ways you can create a serene, healthy, and productive communication environment. Simple things like choosing a time when you both have an opportunity to meet. Making the actual physical surroundings clean, uncluttered, and peaceful. Maybe straightening up the house, buying some flowers to cheer the place up, and even putting on some soothing background music. Perhaps a drive in the country or a walk in a park will create a more relaxed context in which you can communicate more effectively. Whatever you do, remember that you can have some influence over the context in which communication occurs within your life.

Source:

Fujishin, Randy. 2008. Creating Communication: Exploring and Expanding Your Fundamental Communication Skills (2^nd). Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield Publisher, Inc.

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Features of a Good Intensive Reading Exercise

By I.S.P. Nation
Let us look at what a good reading exercise should do.
1. A good reading exercise directs the learners’ attention to features of the text that can be found in almost any text, or to strategies for dealing with any text, with the aim “to develop in the language learner the ability to comprehend texts, not to guide him to comprehension of a text” (Davies and Widdowson, 1974: 172). To put it another way, when learners study a reading text, we want them to gain knowledge that will help them to understand tomorrow’s reading text. We want them to learn things that apply to all texts. We want them to gain knowledge of the language and ways of dealing with the language rather than an understanding of a particular message. If a reading exercise does not focus on generalisable features of a text, it does not provide much opportunity for any useful, cumulative learning to take place. This requirement is particularly important for teaching reading.

2. A good reading exercise directs the learners’ attention to the reading text. That is, the learners need to read the text or at least part of it in order to do the exercise. It is also important that some reading exercises require the learners to consider parts of the text in relation to their wider context, that is, other parts of the text, and information from outside the text.

3. A good reading exercise provides the teacher and the learners with useful information about the learners’ performance on the exercise. If the learners were not successful on some parts of the exercise, then they should be aware of what they have to learn in order to do the exercise successfully with another text. Also, the teacher can get guidance from the learners’ performance to improve teaching. Good exercises provide useful feedback for the teacher and the learners. Also, if the teacher understands what an exercise is trying to teach, they can judge the value of the exercise according to what they think is important for teaching reading.

4. A good reading exercise is easy to make. Teachers have to choose texts suited to the particular needs of their learners, and if these texts do not have satisfactory exercises, the teachers must make their own. Often teachers may want the learners to work with a textbook that is used in another discipline they are studying, and so they will have to make their own exercises. This should require a minimum of skill and time. If the preparation of language teaching materials becomes the job only of experts, then language teachers will have lost the flexibility needed for successful teaching.

So, a good reading exercise focuses on items or strategies that apply to any text, requires the learners to read the text, provides useful feedback for the learners and the teacher, and is easy to make.

Source: Nation, I.S.P. 2009. Teaching ES/EFL reading and writing. New York: Routledge.

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