Article # 4

Communicative competence: A pedagogically motivated model with content specification

by Celce-Murcia, Dörnyei, Thurrell

Summary and Analysis:

This article present and explain a description of language teaching area reference to a detail model of communicative competence.  Argues the need for an updated and explicit description of language teaching areas generated with reference to a detailed model of communicative competence. Also describes two existing models of communicative competence and proposes a pedagogically motivated construct, which includes discourse, linguistic, actional, sociocultural and strategic competence.

They define communicative competence as the uses of all grammatical knowledge as syntax, morphology etc and the uses social knowledge to apply when it necessary.  In their paper they explain the different point of view of competence.  They analyze the position of three authors:

1. Chomsky (1965) in “Aspects of the Theory of Syntax.” quoted by Beaugrande (1991) differs competence from performance. Here the word “competence” appears as the reflection of perfect knowledge of an ideal speaker-listener of the language in a homogeneous speech community in which linguistic knowledge is separated from sociocultural features
2. Dell Hyme- (1972) stated that Chomsky’s notion of performance seems confused between actual performance and underlying rules of performance
3. Canale and Swain (1980) elaborated about communicative competence which covers four aspects: grammatical, discourse, socio-linguistics and strategic competence.

The base of the propose model by Celce-Murcia, Dörnyei, Thurrell are in the job performed by Canale in 1983.  Canale model possess four components in communicative competences:

1. Grammatical competence-define as the knowledge of language code.
2. Sociolinguistic competence- defines as the knowledge of the sociocultural rules of uses in a particular content.
3. Discourse competence-define as the knowledge of achieving coherent and cohesion in a spoken or written test.
4. Strategy competence- defines as the knowledge of how to use communicative strategy to handles breakdown in communications.

They are happy with this four position of competence because help define the uses of communicative language.  With this the authors refined the model making finer distinctions in the area of sociolinguistic competence.  They proposed the CMDT’s Model.  

 

Celce-Murcia divided communicative competence into linguistic, sociocultural, strategic, discourse and actional competencies. In analyzing these components they start with the center that is discourse competence, which concerns the selection and sequencing of sentences to achieve a unified spoken or written text. This competence is placed in a position where linguistic, sociocultural and actional competencies shape in a triangle that cover the discourse competence, Linguistic competence entails the basic elements of communication, such as sentence patterns, morphological inflections, phonological and orthographic systems, as well as lexical resources. Sociocultural competence refers to the speaker’s knowledge of how to express appropriate messages within the social and cultural context of communication in which they are produced. Actional competence involves the understanding of the speakers’ communicative intent by performing and interpreting speech act sets. Finally, these four components are influenced by the last one, strategic competence, which is concerned with the knowledge of communication strategies and how to use them. This model thus provides a clear picture of the interrelationship among all the components.

                If we can see the Discourse competence is the main competence which should be achieved by the students. This covers the ability of communication both written and spoken in a communicational event, the interpersonal ability in communication and the channels used in communication. A speaker will be considered successful in participating in various communication events if he or she acquires discourse competence which is shown in the small circle of the diagram. In order to acquire discourse competence, a speaker should domain the linguistic competence, actional competence, socio-cultural competence, strategic competence and discourse supporting competence.

Personal Opinion:

After read this article we can observe that the tendency to continue the analysis of communication competence is increasing.  The expert continues the search in order to improve the communication skill for our students and people.  I still believing that the communication skill at this moment is changing and the interpersonal communication are decreasing.  If we can observe right now the increase in the technology are reducing the interpersonal communication.  The uses of the text message, internet (Facebook etc.) are affecting the communication.  The implementation of code for the conversation, reduce of the words are some of the process that affect the language.  We as a teacher are responsible to educate and help to maintain the develop of the communication skill between student.

Article # 2

The Whats, Whys, Hows and Whos of Content-Based Instruction in Second/Foreign Language Education.

By: Maria Dueñas.

This document present an analysis performs by Maria Dueñas for the second/foreign language education.  She explain and analyze the what, why, how and who of the content based instruction for the second/foreign language education.  The author divides and defines the concepts as follow:

• What as the nature and the scope.
• Why as the theory.
• How as the model and the parameter uses in the educational level.
• Who as the authors that helps to teach and explain the concepts.

The Whats: Description and Background.

Summary

The author explain that the optimal condition for learning a second/foreign language occurs when the language to be learn and some content are integrate in the classroom. Also explain that the uses of grammatical rules, vocabulary, operative functions and contextual situation are the base for the instruction of the language.

The Whys: Theoretical Underpinnings

Summary

In this section the author explain the theory that is the base for the second/foreign language teaching.  Different approaches for some authors are established in this section.

The Hows: Model of Content-Based Instruction.

Summary

In this section she explain four prototype for the model of CBI

1. Immersion education-In this model in the early ages the children are introducing to the education of a second language.
2. Sheltered courses- The sheltered course a second language is introduce by specialist to a group of students who are segregate from the native speakers.  This is use as a second language teaching. 
3. Adjunct courses- Is the integration of the language and content, because the classes are not implemented on their own but aim at assisting an existing regular subject matter class.
4. Theme based model-This model is the most popular and most used prototype of CBI at all level.  They used an integration of different methods as presentation, video, recording guest lecture also written techniques as newspaper, articles, essays and literature.

The Whos: Authors, Experiences and Scopes in the Existing Literature.

Summary

The author establishes that are a lot of authors that investigate the communication language instructions.  She mentions that the CBI has cross all over the nations and boundaries.  Additionally the term in the content field and improvement practice have increase in the areas.

Personal Opinion

After read this articles it really clear that the investigation in the area of the second foreign language still grow.  The author presents the different opinion and position in this matter. The opinion in which could be the best methods or strategy are variables.  Everyone have their position in how to teach the language.  I believe that the best time to teach the first and any other language are in the early age during the primary and secondary grades.  In this age the children are capable to retain and learn.  If we are capable to teach in the correct way the grammatical rule, increase their vocabulary using different method like reading, situation, they will be capable to learn any language.  Also in these days we still have another learning method that the children uses a lot, like internet, cable TV and others.