Communicative Competence

Background: It's important to make the difference between grammatical (grammar based) approach to second language teaching and communicative  (communication based) approach to second language teaching, while the first approach stress on grammatical forms and the correct way of using them;  the second one is based on the appropriate ways of communicating and how grammar will help to learners to express properly making their statements, comments meaningful and easy to understand to native speakers of the second language. The paper proposes that, a theory of communicative competence( knowledge of grammar and other aspects of language) should be based on grammar and  sociolinguistic aspects and the relationships among them in order to get a reliable theory.
Communicative Competence:  Grammatical competence should be taught in the context of meaningful communication; using for this, aspects from sociolinguistics in order to organize social context grammar and meaning in a whole, that will allow students to communicate using the language rules and apply semantic aspects to understand what they are told and to express what they really want to express, using the right tone of voice and the right words depending on the situation they are involved.
Framework for Communicative Approach: To develop a Communicative Approach it should be based on; of course; communicative competence that responds to the needs of communication of the learners, giving them the chance to talk and listen to native speakers of the target language, in real situations. Besides, they should know the basic aspects of communicating the same aspects they acquired in L1, that's why it's important to develop strongly L1 and teach the sociocultural aspects of L2. To do this there are some important implications on syllabus, methodology, teachers training and material development.
Suggestions on Directions for Research: There are some areas on which research hasn't been done yet, that's why there are some questions without answers; such as it isn't clear if a communicative approach is enough effective to develop all the functions needed to communicate in L2 or if increases motivation in students and learners.

What's my approach indicator?

Before answering the questionnaire, I've never thought of my style of teaching; now; I've realized, that it's important to make children "think" in English, it's more natural and they don't have to spend energy on translating, so they can use that energy on comprehending and analysing the information received, but to make this happen there must be an intrinsic motivation, every class there should be a game, or song/video, or a "secret object" that catches their attention and make them be focused on the class, then; I think; if they like it they will like everything or almost everything from the class and thererefore, will like  English and we all know that it's easy to learn or do something if you like it. I'm sure that it's important to be gentle and empathetic specially when teaching a new language, but (this is my "contradiction") if you are not demanding are children going to learn what they need to? Until now I've been demanding, but not tough and it seems to work, children learn according to their potential, which is "huge" and we must take good advantage of that potential. That's why we must guide them to develop good and efficient  learning strategies, in this century students must learn how to look for information, figure out what kind of information they need and when it's appropriate to use it, learning contents it's not important any more because information is enlarged every minute; and knowing more than one language will lead them to get the information they need.

Different methodologies through years.

It's interesting to know how these methodologies, were born each one in response to a special need for that time; the Audiolingual Method for instance; comes from the "Army Method " its main characteristic was stress on oral activities, but it change into the Audiolingual Method based in linguistic and psychological theory. Because of this; linguistic patterns were taught, as well as, mimicry drills and oral practices following a model, there were almost any grammatical explanation, vocabulary is learned in context and pronunciation is very important, but as years went by, they discovered that  for language acquisition wasn't important to repeat patterns of pronunciation and that making mistakes helped for learning.
 Then on the seventies came the Community Language Learning which was an affective based method and put its attention in the deep structure of language according to Chomsky. The teacher is considered a "counselor" who translates what the student says in his/her native language and the repeats it. This happens many times until the students are independent from the teacher and they feel very self confident, What's good of this method is that you can adapt it  to  the needs of your class.
 Lozanov, was a bulgarian psychologist who created Suggestopedia, he thought that people could learn huge amounts of information if they are relaxed and listen to good music, baroque music, specifically that allows people to relax and learn, this method was applied to second language teaching using readings, new vocabulary words, dialogs, role playings. we learned from it that relaxation is important and the power of the human brain.
 Then Gattegno proposed The Silent Way, is more cognitive than affective, this method is based on the idea that the learners discovers and learns through problem solving. The teacher is silent most of the time, he/she uses some rods of different colors to introduce vocabulary, repeats a pattern and students do the same without corrections, the problem is that there wasn't a communicative atmosphere.
 TPR claims that principles of child language acquisition are important, that's why he proposed to do a lot of listening and acting, thes activities helped students to want to communicate.
Finally, on the 80s Krashen said that there are 3 stages, pre production, early production the extending production here teachers don't correct the mistakes, in this way learners speak a lot in a natural way.

The Humanistic Tradition

These methods are based on a "common belief in the primacy of affective and emotional factors within the learning process" (David Nunan). All of them propose that learners must feel confident and motivated by the target language and its culture to learn it succesfully; on the other hand if these conditions are not present, not even the latest methods and techniques will make students learn.
 Earl Stevick has interpreted the humanistic methods in language teaching and he concluded that there are five functions of the teacher, because the emotional attitude towards the teacher is really important.
 These functions are:
1.- The cognitive function: the teachers posses the knowledge and students expect to receive it.
2.- The classroom management function, students trust that teachers will organize properly: time, techniques and materials.
3.- Practical goals, teachers have to create correct syllabuses, in order to, show clearly what they are going to learn.
4.-The personal or interpersonal function, teachers are responsible to create an adequate  atmosphere where the emotions are met.
5.-This is the most important function, teachers must be motivated and enthusiastic to radiate it to their students.
The Community Language Learning created by Curran, states that "learning another language is probably the most anxiety provoking activity an individual can undertake in the classroom". So this method claims that a community of learners sholud be created in the classroom and move them to be completely autonomous from teacher. But this method, cuold be non appropriate to be used by unexperienced teachers, because it points to the emotions and attitudes of learners and "destroy the very cohesion and solidarity which the method is supposed to create"
 Another method is called The Silent Way, it was devised by Gattegno, on 1972, the most important  thing for this method is "the importance of the inner state of the learner in the learning process" again the affective carachteristic is pointed as very important to learn.  One of  the problems is that this method suggests to teach very few vocabulary words and language models. Even though the syllabus and the classroom techniques are conventional, the role of the teacher is to assume in an indirect way monitors the process of learning.
 And the last one, called Suggestopedia suggests that the learners are able to memorize a huge amount of information, they just need to be relaxed almost hypnotized, using music and controlling breath they could learn up to three thousand words in a day. This information has been refuted by some researchers.

Strong and weak skills

I like english, but now studying the master, I've noticed that speaking is the weakest skill, I think because I don't speak at my job and because of this I'm not fluent, it looks like I don't know the right words, but I do know them I just can't  use them at the moment I'm speaking. To improve this skill I try to watch T.V. programs in english and keep some  expressions in  my mind, the  thing is, if I don't have the opportunity to use them they will be forgotten. Another idea that comes to my mind is to ask my teachers and classmates to correct me when I make mistakes. Listening is getting better, thanks to T.V. too and of course, classes, I'm getting used to different "pronunciations" from our teachers, but it's great to understand easily.
 I believe that my strongest skills are reading and writing, it's easy to me to write and read about something, I think it's because I have more time to think about and look for the unknown words in the dictionary.
 Even though, reading and writing are a bit easier for me, I think the best way to be fluent in a second language is to practice it in a natural context so, this is what I have to do  from now on, specially speaking in classes, taking a deep breath, think carefully on the best words and ..........speak.

How did I learn English

When I was  eight years old my parents bought a new house in a new niegborhood, so I had to go to a new school. In this school everything was taught in English, everything except Spanish of course. I remember that the teacher spoke in English all day long, but it wasn't hard for me to understand. I had to learn many vocabulary words with their meanings in spanish and learn dialogues by heart to represent in front of the class. We also read stories, listening to the teacher and trying to follow  the lines with our fingers. That's what I remember from third and fourth grade.
 In fifth grade, it was a bit different, there were levels from the higher to the lower. I was in the higher; at the begining I felt lost because the rythm of the class was too fast for me, reading on my own, answering questions aloud, learning vocabulary words in english and of course grammar, many diferent exercises to practice present perfect or past continous. But as we always read a text, those structures were in those texts, so it wasn't so difficult, the teacher taught us a "kind of formula" and then we applied it making the exercises. At the same time, every week, we had to learn 10 or 15 verbs and their tenses, and every week represent different dialogues or tell poems in front of the class. The stories were about different topics, one month travels around the world, the other buying at different shops etc....
 In high school, we wrote many texts and read some books but I remember only one "Tom Sawyer" I don´t know why I forgot all the others.
 Even though learning english was easy for me and I liked it a lot, it was too different from how english is taught now in my school.