Summary #3

Communicative competence: A pedagogically motivated
model with content specifications

The main goal of this article is to show the relationship between models of communicative competence and pedagogical specification of content. Also, it defines what competence is in a pedagogical view stating that competence is standard; this means that is focused on what the student needs to master. Finally, according to the information provided in this article, we could mention Mikhail Bakhtin Theory which is based on dialogism. Dialogism is the interaction between the reader and the writer. For Bakhtin, the audience shapes the utterance as it is being made—which I suppose is another way of saying that every utterance is, as Bakhtin puts it, a “two-sided act,” “the product of the reciprocal relationship between the addresser and addressee,” “territory shared.” (Morson, 1981) . “The thought becomes different from what it was, which means expressing may be a form of learning.” (Morson, 1981)

Journal #3

Which technique seems to be more feasible and convincing for you to use in your own teaching?

Teaching and learning English may become challenging in our society. Teachers are experiencing day after day students with a huge lack of motivation, interest and wiliness of learning. Nevertheless, teachers should focus on the student’s necessity and interest to be able to encourage them to learn English as a second language. One way to make this possible is by using a teaching technique that may be more feasible and convincing to be used in our teaching process.

As an English teacher of kindergarten, first and second grade, I consider the Total Physical Response more feasible and convincing in my teaching process. Even so, other techniques may be practical as well but it’s good to know that the effectiveness of each technique or approach is when is used correctly in the correct setting. TPR encourage the students to become listener as well as performers. On the other hand, the teacher’s role is to become more active and direct. In my personal experience the TPR has being effective in my teaching process because it helps my students stay more focused at the learning process specially when the class involves the use of physical items (realia) to create meaning. The level that I’m teaching it requires plenty of commands and actions, therefore, I believe that TPR is more effective to teach my students the basic speaking skills and the best of all is that it doesn’t require the use of materials, since it permits me the use of my voice, actions and gesture as basis for classroom activities.

The best part of teaching is that our students are the center. They learn from us as well as we, teachers, learn from them. As an English teacher, I should always recognize the success in my teaching process, establish goals and objective, establish communication as first and last and finally, create a conditions for learning. What I mean by this is, be more dynamic, involve the students in a varied activities and interaction, make them feel able and confident. Teachers must take the lead in establishing positive atmosphere, planning appropriate activities, and encouraging the students to learn English as a second language.

Summary #2

Content-Based Instruction in Second/Foreign Language Education

by Maria Dueñas

English learners face difficult challenges when asked to perform academic tasks in their less developed language. Content-based ESL instruction, which integrates language instruction with content areas, can meet both the linguistic and academic needs of English learners. Thus content-based ESL instruction offers a more meaningful path to academic language acquisition. Therefore I invite you to learn more about the What’s, Why’s, How’s and the Who’s of Content-Based Instruction in Second/Foreign Language Education.

What is Content-Based Instruction (CBI)?

According to the article, Content-Based Instruction in Second/Foreign Language Education (2004), CBI is defined in a diversity of ways; nevertheless, it said that in a content-based approach, students simultaneously acquire subject matter expertise and greater proficiency in English, the medium of instruction. Additionally, they learn to master skills necessary for academic success.” Raphan & Moser (1994). Also, the term content-based instruction is commonly used to describe approaches to integrating language and content instruction, but it is not always used in the same way. In other words, students are learning content (for example, math, science, social studies, business, etc.) at the same time they are developing their target language skills.

Why is CBI important in a second language education?

The article points out a variety of findings based on CBI, which can be recapitulated as follows:

*Students acquire language while learning about other content areas.
*Content areas are relevant to learners' academic and/or professional needs.
*Language is contextualized through these relevant content areas, and thus, is also relevant to learners' needs.
*Support is provided for learners' linguistic development.
*A focus is placed on developing academic and/or professional language proficiency.
*Authentic materials are used to present content matter.
*The use of authentic materials lends itself to the integration of skills, to increased motivation, and to increased cognitive and linguistic complexity.

How is CBI used or applied in a second language education?

Content-Based Instruction is a teaching method that emphasizes learning about something rather than learning about language. Therefore, some class activities should be to elicit knowledge of content, acquisition of thinking skills, and development of English language abilities. The class activities may be the following:

*Build background knowledge
*Teach new vocabulary
*Awaken learning motivation and interest
*Enhance four modes and critical thinking abilities
*Promote cooperative learning

All of the programs, models, and approaches that integrate language and content share a common phenomenon: students engage in some way with content using a non-native language. The instructional experiences in which students engage may be placed on the continuum below. (Figure 3- www.carla.umn.edu/cobaltt/.../decisions.html)

Who’s: Authors, Experiences and Scopes in the existing literature

The article provides an extensive body of authors and works that reflects the amplitude of the lines of work, trends and interest in CBI. As for example, CBI is also referred to as one of the most representative contributions to contemporary foreign language pedagogy both in the updated editions of seminal books in the field of methodology —Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language (Celce-Murcia, 2000), Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching (Larsen-Freeman, 2000), and Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching (Richards & Rodgers, 2001)—, and in newly published volumes in language methodology such as Methodology in Language Teaching. An Anthology of Current Practice (Richards & Renandya, 2002). Interest in CBI is perceived as well in relevant reference works in applied linguistics, as it is the case of the recently published Oxford Handbook of Applied Linguistics (Kaplan, 2002), which titles one of the only three chapters in the part of ‘The study of second language teaching’ as “Communicative, task-based and content-based instruction” (Wesche & Skehan, 2002).

In conclusion, CBI employs English at a comprehensible level so as to increase students' understanding of the subject matter and build language skills simultaneously. Therefore, teachers must familiarize with the effectiveness and importance of using literature in the content-based foreign language instruction. By applying the collaborative content-based literature teaching technique, students can acquire English abilities, not only to communicate, but also to use as a tool to comprehend the subject matter in school.CBI attempts to motivate and encourage students to learn more about how to express their ideas through language.

Summary #1

Communicative Competence and Communication

Language Teaching by Atsuko Ohno

English has also become an official language in Puerto Rico, even though, Spanish is the dominant language, as the majority of the Puerto Ricans are not proficient in English. Regardless the fact that Puerto Ricans are taught English as a second language from kindergarten through high school, communicating in English can be a little difficult at times. Nevertheless, teachers should be concern that teaching English now-a-days is a challenge.

The article, Communicative Competence and Communication Language Teaching (2006), provides a significant information on how communication, communicative competency and communicative language teaching can improve the English language teaching in our school. Therefore, Ohno (2006) address some of the confusion by discussing several theoretical communicative concepts and their application to language and methods of teaching language. Ohno presents several points of view regarding to communicative competence and communicative language teaching. In first place, he presents the idea of communicative competence with reference to Hymes' work. In second place, he discussed Widdowson's work regarding communicative language teaching. In third place, he addressed Canale and Swain's theoretical framework of communicative competence. Finally, Ohno explained the application of communicative competence to language teaching with reference to Stern and Rivers' framework.

According to Hymes' (1972), the concept of communicative competence was approach from Chomsky’s distinction between competence and performance. When is about competence, Chomsky defines it as shared knowledge of the ideal speaker - listener set in a completely homogeneous speech community. In the other hand, Hymes states that performance is concerned with the process of applying the knowledge to the actual language use; encoding and encoding. He also points out that linguistic competence co-varies with the speaker, using Labov's work. According to what Labov’s work states, Hymes maintains that social life affects not only performance but inner competence itself. He disputes that social factors interfere with or restrict grammar use because the rules of use are dominant over the rules of grammar. Finally, Hymes defines communicative competence as knowledge of the rules for understanding and producing both the referential and social meaning of language.

According to Widdowson’s (1972), language learning not merely as acquiring the knowledge of the rules of grammar, but also as acquiring the ability to use language to communicate. Widdowson says that knowing a language is more that how to understand, speak, read and write sentences, but how sentences are used to communicate. His ideas seems to be influenced by Hyme’s thought about children acquire not only knowledge of grammar, but also how to use it. Widdowson strongly belief that communicative and linguistic skills should be develop at the same time. Being able to understand how to teach both linguistic and communicative competence, he distinguishes two aspects of performance: "usage" and "use". He defines "usage" as: makes evident the extent to which the language user demonstrates his knowledge of linguistic rules. In the other hand, "use" is to make evident the extent to which the language user shows his ability to use his knowledge of linguistic rule for effective communication. Finally, for a better understanding Widdowson also distinguishes two aspects of meaning, “significance" and "value". "Significance is the meaning that sentences have in isolation from the particular situation in which the sentence is produced; and "value refers to the meaning that the sentence take on when they are used to communicate. He believes that linguistic context and communicative context must be used in class. (Widdowson, 1978)

According to Canale & Swain (1980), they believe that is important to focus on social context, grammar, and meaning. Therefore, they agree with Hymes when he states that there are values of grammar that would be useless without rules of grammar. However, they maintain that there are rules of language that would be useless without rules of grammar.

When the author talks about the application of the concept of communicative competence to language teaching, he makes reference to Stern (1981) and Rivers (1972) works. Both, Stern and Rivers, focused on two levels of language teaching: "skill-getting" and "skill - using". According to them, through "skill-getting" activities, the teacher isolates specific elements of knowledge and provides the learner with opportunities to practice them separately. In the other hand, " skills-using", at this point the learner should be on her own and not supported or directed by teacher.

The goal of language acquisition is communicative competence: the ability to use the language correctly and appropriately to accomplish communication goals. In the early stages of language learning, teachers and students may want to keep in mind the goal of communicative efficiency: That learners should be able to make themselves understood, using their current proficiency to the fullest. They should try to avoid confusion in the message (due to imperfect pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary); to avoid offending communication partners (due to socially inappropriate style); and to use strategies for recognizing and managing communication breakdowns. Emphasizing on this article, its important to point out that teaching a second language is crucial understand and use an approach that will be significantly for the students learning process. Working with communicative language teaching takes time, effort, wiliness, motivation and teamwork between teacher and student.

Creating Class Dynamics

Development of Communications Skills in ESL Students
Journal #2

Nowadays, the population received in the public schools of the country lacks of motivation, self-esteem, interest and positive attitude. Because of this, we see as the students fear to learn English as a second language. Therefore, English teachers should have the premeditation of wanting to innovate and to diversify their teaching strategies so that it motivates the student to learn English and to make aware the youth and their families of the enormous importance of acquiring this language. Learning English is no longer a luxury, but a necessity and its not other to mention that it said that people who don't dominate English is in a clear disadvantage, since, the domain of both languages, Spanish and English, provide better opportunities in the labor world and the survival of all human being. Hence, teachers should be consistently changing the learning environment of their students by creating dynamic classrooms in which encourage the student to learn and feel motivated and self-confident at all time. Therefore, some class dynamics that an English teacher may consider are the following:

Role playing
Debates
Brainstorming
Open discussion
Demonstrations
Case studies
Cut and paste activities
Create maps and/or newspapers
The use of flash cards (visual)
Transition activities

Each activity has its own purpose and objective. Nevertheless, each activity will persuade the student to use the oral approach and foments a significant and cooperative learning. The students will have the opportunity to communicate in a second language in a flexible and actively way being exposed to real-life situations.

Development of Communications Skills in ESL Students
Journal #1

When we talk about communications skills for ESL students, teachers acknowledge many concepts related to communication. Some of these concepts are mention on the following paragraphs.
The first two concepts are usage and use. Usage is the way in which words and phrases are actually used (as in a particular form or sense) in a language community and use the act or practice of employing something. In other words, the difference between usage and use is that usage is how to communicate and use is to put communication in practice.

The next two concepts are fluency and accuracy. Fluency is the quality or state of being fluent; able to speak or write smoothly, easily, or readily and accuracy is the condition, quality, precision or/and exactness in communication. Namely, fluency is when a person domains a foreign language being able to express oneself easily and accuracy is when your total-self is participating when speaking, that is, your mind, body, spirit or soul.

Fluency is often associated with speed, but speed in itself has no value. What is important is the ability to work with the rhythm, pace, and accuracy that is appropriate to the purpose for reading or writing. Being measured and deliberate may be right for one purpose, and reading or writing quickly, or expressively, may be best for another. Whatever the purpose, fluency should not be thought of as separate from comprehension.
(Ministry of Education, 2006, page 24.)

In additional to the concepts, teachers must also understand the importance of a syllabus and the difference between a functional syllabus and a structural one. A syllabus is an outline or other brief statement of the main points of a discourse, the subjects of a course of lectures, the contents of a curriculum. Two types of syllabus are the functional syllabus and the structural syllabus. The functional syllabus is based on communicative and social functions; it emphasizes language approach not grammatical and the structural syllabus is a syllabus in which grammatical structures form the central organizing feature. A structural syllabus proceeds from simple grammatical structure to more complex grammatical structure.

Can a Classroom Be Too Communicative?

Can a Classroom Be Too Communicative?

TESOL Matters Vol. 9 No. 6 (December 1999/January 2000)
From the column of the TESOL English as a Foreign Language Interest Sectionby Irene E. Schoenberg

An indirect communicative approach, one in which learning takes place indirectly and the focus is on communication, has been regarded for years as an effective way of getting students to develop fluency in English. Indeed, a communicative approach has become the mission of many ESL programs, and many material writers, teacher trainers, and program directors have successfully incorporated this approach into their materials and classrooms. But a communicative approach has not always worked as well in the EFL setting.

A communicative approach is more difficult in an EFL environment because the students' use of English is unnatural, their motivation is weaker, and their expectations of how a class should be conducted often conflict with the notions underlying a communicative classroom. A good communicative activity asks students to do a task, gather information from a partner, or express an opinion about an engaging topic. ESL students have no alternative but to use English to communicate because their classmates and teacher do not know their language. In the EFL situation, on the other hand, we as teachers expect students to communicate with equal enthusiasm in the target language, even though everyone speaks the same language. We aim for authenticity of materials and situations, but we ask students to willingly ignore their highly developed communication skills in their own language and communicate in the target language at what for them is often the level of a 4-year-old child.

It is unnatural, some may think absurd, to communicate important information in a second language when both speakers are articulate in the same first language. And the need to use the target language is always more distant for the EFL student than for the ESL student. ESL students have the real, immediate need to speak English as soon as they leave the classroom. If they learn in class how to ask for pizza with mushrooms, they will get immediate gratification upon leaving the classroom and asking for such a pizza in the pizza place next door. By the time EFL students get to a pizza place that requires the use of English, their appetites and enthusiasm will surely have dampened.

Another difference between the ESL and the EFL setting is the students' cultural expectations with regard to teachers' roles and classroom management. ESL students are uncertain what to expect because they are the outsiders. They are therefore more willing to accept or go along with untraditional or unusual methods. EFL students, on the other hand, may lose confidence in a teacher who abdicates some authority and waits for students to take more responsibility, as is necessary in a communicative approach. For instance, EFL students may even think their teacher is betraying cultural norms by the loss of authority that accompanies methods in which the teacher is not the focus but is rather a coach or facilitator. Finally, EFL classrooms are often large and have unmovable seats, which inhibits the pair and group work that typifies communicative activities.

Even ESL programs have begun to realize that an indirect communicative approach has some drawbacks. Although communicative activities can add fun and excitement to classes, problems occur in programs or classes that overuse an indirect communicative approach. First, it is extremely difficult to assess what students have learned, and it is difficult to recycle material taught. It is also hard to improve accuracy without focusing on form and teaching it explicitly. Finally, there is the issue of planful learning. Applied linguists and cognitive psychologists have found that most people learn best and most efficiently when they know what they are trying to learn, focus on it, and practice it in a progression from a more controlled to a more natural process.

An awareness of the differences between EFL and ESL students may help EFL teachers come to a comfortable balance between a language and a communicative focus. In fact, most ESOL programs today are using an eclectic approach that features a lot of communicative activities but at the same time focuses on language form and accuracy.

The popularity of an eclectic approach today stems from the awareness that the art of teaching lies in being sensitive to the particular needs and expectations of students, not by being tied down to a particular methodology or approach. So, although a communicative approach is a wonderful technique, there are instances in which a classroom can be too communicative.