Communicative competence refers to the ability to communicate effectively and involves several competencies. It includes grammatical competence involving language rules, discourse competence involving coherent texts, pragmatic competence involving context-appropriate language, and strategic competence involving communication strategies. Being communicatively competent means having the skills to convey one's intended message. Teaching should focus on developing all competencies together through authentic language use involving listening, speaking, reading and writing.

1. Communicative competence:
Def: To be communicative competent
means, roughly speaking, to be able to
communicate that which you wish to
communicate.

2. To be communicative competent
you need skills within the following areas:
Grammatical competence
•
the ability to use the rules of the language to understand and produce the
language correctly
Discourse competence
•
the ability to understand and produce coherent texts (written and oral) within
various genres
Pragmatic competence
•
the ability to understand and produce utterances that are suitable for the
context in which they are uttered
Strategic competence
•
the ability to efficiently use the skills available to you to get your message
across - strategies
Fluency
Interrelation between the elements of communicative competence

3. Competence – definition:
Competence:
• proficiencies within and knowledge of the
competences described above
• meta-communicative knowledge (knowing
about): language and language usage
and elements which affect various
communication situations

4. Communication:
•
•
•
•
•
written and oral communication proficiencies
sender and receiver
speaking, listening, writing, and reading
all communication is unique
authentic communication is demanding in terms
of collaboration, and it’s unpredictable
• we communicate and understand communication based on the context in which it takes
place / in which we find ourselves

5. Teaching from a communicative
perspective
• focus on both form and content and their
interdependence
• involve all the 4/5 competences – together
NOT separately
• listening, reading, writing and speaking
(the 4 proficiencies)
• authentic language usage

6. Grammatical competence
= the linguistic code
• Phonetics
– Pronunciation and prosody
• Morphology
– Word function and inflection
• Syntax
– Structure of language
• Lexis
– Vocabulary and semantics

7. Grammatical competence
= the linguistic code
• Lexis
– What does it mean to know a word?
• Semantic networks
• Using context to process input (current lang.acq. theory)
• Interlanguage
– Teaching grammar
• Language acquisition view vs. teaching methods
– Why grammar?
• The rules of the game
– Grammar in practice
• Communicative need – relate form to content
– Correction or reparation?
• Errors are natural

8. Interlanguage definitions I
• ”…intersprog består af strukturer, som finpudses
og udvikles cirkulært i retning af målsproget.”
(Sprogfagenes didaktik, p. 48)
• ”Det specielle elevsprog, som man i dag
antager, at en elev udvikler på vejen mod
fremmedsprog – udviklende og dynamisk.”
(Tornberg p. 64)

9. Interlanguage definitions II
• “A learner’s developing second language
knowledge. It may have characteristics of the
learner’s first language, characteristics of the
second language, and some characteristics that
seem to be very general and tend to occur in all or
most interlanguage systems. Interlanguages are
systematic, but they are also dynamic. They change
as learners receive more input and revise their
hypotheses about the second language.”
(Spada and Lightbown p.201)

10. Interlanguage definitions III
• “Thus interlanguage consists of both the rules about the
target language that have become automatic and of the
language which is still being developed.”
(Tornberg p.66 min oversættelse)
• “Extensive empirical research suggests that grammar
teaching has no direct effect on the pupil’s interlanguage.
Interlanguage rather seems to develop in sequences that
follow certain rules independent of grammar teaching.”
(Tornberg p.67 min oversættelse)

11. Discourse competence
• Oral
– Gambits/samtalemarkører = tools to organize who
says sth. in a conversation /whose turn it is to speak
• Written
– coherence: to do with the content and structure of
the text (global)
– cohesion: more formal, linguistic context (local)
• content related
• logical/ structure related
• Why is discourse important to teach? And is it?

12. Pragmatic competence
• Pragmatics: the social context in which the language is
used
– Speech acts
– Culture
• Pragma-linguistics
– how speech acts are realised in the target language
• Socio-pragmatics
– factors in the social context which influences the linguistic
realisation
• Why?
• What about culture and language? How are they linked?
– World Englishes…

13. Strategic competence
• AIM: to make available problem solving
strategies on all levels of the communicative competence (communication strategies)
• Why important? (in EFL teaching)
• Strategic competence as problem solving
strategies
– evasive approach
– creative utilization approach

14. Strategic competence
continued I
• Utilization strategies as learning strategies
• Communication strategies (utilisation
strategies)
– based on native language
– based on interlanguage
– based on interaction

15. Strategic competence
continued II
• Which strategies are best?
– most researchers agree that strategies based
on the interlanguage will be more successful
than those based on native language when
the aim is communicative
– conscious knowledge of strategies ―› help
pupils utilize their potentials
• Why teach communicative strategies – is it
necessary?
• Draw backs

16. Why teach from a communicative
perspective?
• Karen Lund argues:
• AIM: to achieve as high a degree of correctness as
possible within all levels of communicative competence
(p.8)
• “The core reason for using communicative syllabuses in
teaching is that it drives the acquisition of a new
language forward….” (p.20)

17. Why teach from a communicative
perspective?
continued
• “…the central factor in acquisition of a new language lies
in the student’s search for means that enable them to
communicate and interact with the aid of language[…the
student’s search for linguistic means of expression that enables them to
encode and decode communication (p.20)…] It is this search that
drives acquisition forward.” (p.19)
• “…communicative teaching in itself is the means towards
this end…” (p.20)
• “So there are not only one but two good reasons for
communicative teaching: one based on a view of
language, the other on acquisition” (p.20)

18. Intercultural competence
• Should it be a separate competence? Why
/ why not?
• Where do you see it in this communicative
competence perspective?

19. Intercultural competence
• Grammatical competence: direct translations are
not always possible (i.e. ‘small pizza’ vs. ‘personal pizza’);
connotations (the owl: wisdom – stupidity)
• Discourse competence: genre manifestations;
gambits; pause between utterances
• Pragmatic competence: speech acts in
communication contexts; politeness;
• Strategic competence: might vary which are
most effective

20. Literature
• Vivian Lindhardsen og Bjarne Christensen,
Sprogfagenes didaktik, 2. reviderede udgave, Kroghs
Forlag 2006
• Karen Lund, Communicate competence – where do we
stand? Sprogforum nr. 4, 1996
• Ulrika Tornberg, Sprogdidaktik, L&R Uddannelse 2001
• Patsy Lightbown and Nina Spada, How Languages are
Learned, 3rd edition, OUP 2006