浅谈在英语教学中交际能力的培养

[Abstract] Language is an important tool and means of the social intercourse. The ultimate purpose of studying language is for the sake of communication. The paper attempts to analyze the problems existing in the traditional teaching method in China: students’ lacking opportunities for application of the language, the defects of examination system and the backward teaching method. So it is necessary to train students’ communicative competence. It demonstrates the importance of communicative competence and then puts forward some suggestions in training students’ communicative competence. Training students’ communicative competence is the need of new century. It enables students to exchange knowledge and emotions in different cultural backgrounds. Development of communicative ability is conducive to the effective communication. [Key Words] communicative competence; the defects of teaching; traditional teaching; the importance of communication  【摘 要】 语言是交际的重要工具和手段，教学的最终目的就是为了交际。本文分析我国学生缺乏运用英语的机会，考试制度的弊端及落后的教学方式等传统英语教学中存在的问题，提出要全面提高教学质量，必须培养学生的实际语言交际能力。同时，通过阐述了交际能力的重要性，提出一些培养学生交际能力的建议。培养交际能力是新世纪的需要，是为了让学生能够在不同文化背景下进行情感交流和知识传递，交际能力的培养有利于交际的顺利进行。 【关键词】交际能力；教学缺陷；传统教学；交际重要性 1. Introduction The language is an important tool and means of communication. The purpose of studying language is for the sake of communication.[1] According to new course target, it emphasizes that the point of English reforming is to reform English course which used to value the grammar and explain the phrases in detail, neglect the training of students’ practical use of language. It emphasizes that a course should base on the student’s interest, the life experience and the understanding level, such as experience, practice, participation, cooperation and the task-based teaching method. It should develop the student’s ability of comprehensive use of language.  The beginning of the 1970s saw a shift towards teaching methods that emphasizes communication. At the beginning it was largely a matter of redefining what the students had to learn to foster communicative competence rather than linguistic competence. “Communicative competence is the ability to use the language appropriately rather than the knowledge of grammatical rules implied in the academic style or the ‘habit’ of the audiolingual.”[2] In China the communicative approach has been very much in vogue during the 1990s. The ‘new’ middle school English textbooks resulted from the communicative wave. This set of textbooks pay much more attention to communicative competence than before. Some experts write books about it. “For example, Professor Xuqing(2000,9) mentions the difference between traditional English testing and Communicative testing. The former is system-referenced, indirect and discrete, but the latter is performance- referenced, direct, integrated.” [3] It is useful to improve English teaching quality completely and to train the student’s actual language communicative ability. Furthermore the substance of the teaching is communication. First, the teaching practice is the communication between teachers and students, an exchange of thought, the process of the information exchanges, the result of the teaching. Secondly, teaching is an activity. Through the social intercourse activity, students understand and master the language by operating the material. By interaction we can understand each other. But if we want to achieve this goal, we have to know something about the defect of traditional teaching. 2. The defects of traditional teaching method 2.1 Students’ lacking opportunities for application of the language  This is an objective factor. The reality is that students study English in a Chinese environment where the main medium of the language is through written form and English is the language reserved for contact with foreigners. We exchange information with foreigners in English. If we want to achieve this, we have to speak English. However, in our teaching we don’t provide opportunities for students to use the target language. As we know, in the traditional classroom, the teacher focuses on some English knowledge. The teachers just try their best to finish the teaching task so that they can’t provide students with enough time to practise their oral English. Students learn it passively. And it is impossible for an English teacher to take good care of each student in such a classroom. Obviously, it is difficult for each student to get the chance to practise using English in communication and most students are just wait-and-seers.  2.2 The exam system China has a very rigid national college entrance examination system which plays an important part in the teaching process in middle schools. Given the pressure to enter university, it is not surprising that all efforts in the Chinese classroom tend to be focused on the exam, students are judged on examination results. And the exam papers mainly focus on reading comprehension and grammar knowledge, oral competence is never tested. Consequently, students are more interested in acquiring knowledge of language to pass the traditional examinations than in practising the language in use. This exam-oriented teaching just revolves around the explanations of vocabulary items and grammar rules and the preparations for the tests. As a result, students may get high scores in the exams but can’t even use simple English for the purpose of real communication. 2.3 The backward teaching method Many teachers incline to analyze grammar by doing some translation exercises. They are unfamiliar with current trends in English language teaching and are still used to the traditional way of teaching, which focuses on grammar and structure, on linguistic competence rather than on communicative competence. In the traditional teaching, language is treated as a knowledge subject-analyzed, explained and practised in much the same way as other subjects. The communicative skills, which require learners to practise in real situations, are totally ignored. English is taught and learned mostly in reading and reciting activities. So in the traditional teaching, teaching English is not for communicative purpose. From the above, we can find that the traditional teaching has emphasized too much on the teaching of the language components and neglected the training of language skills. Although students learn English very well, they fail to communicate with the other people in English. That is, to achieve effective communication, it is of importance for teachers to develop students’ communicative ability as well as the linguistic knowledge. Here let us have a look at what communicative competence is. 3 Communicative competence 3.1 Definition of communicative competence Communicative competence includes both the knowledge about the language and the knowledge about how to use the language appropriately in communicative situations. “The term communicative competence is used in contrast to Noam Chomsky’s term linguistic competence, which is understood as the tacit knowledge of language structure and the ability to use this knowledge to understand and produce language. For Chomsky, competence simply means knowledge in other words. However, if we look at how language is used in real communication, we have to accept that real language use involves far more than knowledge and ability for grammar. In Hymes’s words, there are rules of use without which‘ the rules of grammar would be useless’, which simply means, besides grammatical rules, language use is governed by rules of use, which ensure that the desired or intended functions are performed and the language used is appropriate to the context.”[4] “According to Hymes, communicative competence includes four aspects: (!) knowing whether or not something is formally possible(grammatically acceptable), which is roughly equivalent to Chomsky’s linguistic competence; (2) knowing whether something is understandable to human beings; (3) knowing whether something is in line with social norms; (4) knowing whether or not something is in fact done: Do people actually use language this way?”[5] In other words, communicative competence entails knowing not only the language code or the form of language, but also what to say to whom and how to say it appropriately in any given situation. Communicative competence includes knowledge of what to say, when, how, where, and to whom. 3.2 The importance of communicative competence When we master the communicative competence, we can speak. Speaking is the skill that students will be judged upon most in real-life situations. It is an important part of everyday interaction and most often the first impression of a person is based on his/her ability to speak fluently and comprehensibly. So, as teachers, we have a responsibility to prepare the students as much as possible to be able to speak in English in the real world outside the classroom and the testing room. When we can communicate with each other that means we have mastered a skill, just like swimming, driving a car, or playing ping-pong. When we know how to communicate, we can exchange information with other countries which has become necessary for the development of the country. The training of communication is the need of new century and the exchange of knowledge and emotions in different cultural backgrounds. The training of communication is also a part of self-living. So it is very important for us to learn communicative competence. But how can we train students’ communicative competence? It is a difficult question. Now let’s discuss some practical ways of training students’ communicative competence. 4. Suggestions on training students’ speaking 4.1 The teaching principle In the communication teaching, there are there principles: first, all activities designed and organized by teachers in classroom teaching should revolve around communication. Second, reappear the communicative process as much as possible. The communicative teaching should make a distinction from other teaching methods in that we should emphasize the communicative process of using language. Third, don’t rectify mistakes all the time. When students make mistakes about phonation or grammar, we adopt a more tolerant attitude. “The communicative method emphasizes the delivering of meaning between people, the freedom of choosing language and the realization of communicative purpose.”[6] Although people’s understanding of communicative language teaching varies, Richards and Rodgers(1986:72)generally agreed upon: (1) “Communication principle: Activities that involve real communication promote learning.”[7] (2) “Task principle: Activities in which language is used for carrying out meaningful tasks promote learning.” [8] (3) “Meaningfulness principle: Language that is meaningful to the learner supports the learning process.” [9] According to the communicative principle of English, English teaching should adopt some useful practice 4.2 The useful ways of training (1) Pair/group work and the teacherWe can use pair/group work to do communication practice. While organizing pair/group work, we can let the groups practise together and then ask various pairs/groups to model their competence in the front of the class. One point to be emphasized is the need to prevent the learners from relying too much on teachers’ involvement. The teacher may try to do as follows:1 strengthen the learners’ confidence in learning and cultivate their independence.2 make the task of the activity clear to the learners at the very beginning3 adjust the degree of difficulty: it should suit the level of the learners’ ability.4 offer reasonable and encourage comments on the learners’ activity. Even if the task is somewhat difficult, the teacher should interfere as little as possible, for the teacher’s interference may confuse the learners’ enthusiasm. But this doesn’t mean that the teacher should just stand by and do nothing. If the learners meet some difficulties or have different opinions, the teacher can help them resolve their dispute. And while commenting on their results, the teacher should pay attention to the strengths and weakness for later analysis and improvement. During the practising period, the teacher can walk through the classroom and guide the students’ communication. The students watch, listen, read, speak and think throughout the entire process, so they will have a greater involvement in the lesson. The students’ participation takes the greater part of the lesson time and in this way the students’ communicative ability of the language can be strengthened and widened. (2)Topics arising from the learner’s personal life and real-life situationCommunicative Language Teaching makes use of real-life situations that necessitate communication. The teacher sets up a situation that students are likely to encounter in real life. The real-life simulations change from day to day. Students’ motivation to learn comes from their desire to communicate in meaningful ways about meaningful topics. Margie S. Berns, an expert in the filed of communicative language teaching, writes that “language is interaction; it is interpersonal activity and has a clear relationship with society. In this light, language study has to look at the use(function) of language in context, both its linguistic context(what is uttered before and after a given piece of discourse)and its social, or situational, context(who is speaking, what their social roles are, why they have come together to speak)”[10]For most learners it is important to recreate their own identity in the second language. A person’s life-style, daily activities, interests, thoughts, in short his whole person, is bound up with his first language. Any contact with native speakers if the target requires that at least some experience should be expressed in that language. Two prototype situations can be envisaged: the student as host entertaining a second language speaker, and the student as guest in the second language environment. These relationships can be rehearsed in the language class when students interact with each other in pairs, small groups, or with the teacher. Such classroom interactions do not have the same degree of authenticity and communicative force as real-life communication, but they can approximate to it if they are treated seriously. Interactions of this kind in the language class are not only a rehearsal; they become ‘real’ communication if the participations are encouraged to get to know each other and to treat the simulated situations as authentic. There is no single inventory of topics that can be offered as universally applicable. The topics depend largely on the learners’ personal situation, their dominant interests, and the relationship envisaged with the target community. Typically, learners provide information about themselves and enquire or receive information about the target language interlocutor on the following topics:Self, personal background, and daily life: name and address, home town/village, country or place of origin, personal status, occupations. Customs vary as to how acceptable it is to talk about oneself of enquire into the circumstance of one’s interlocutor(‘How old are you?’ ‘How much do you earn?’)Daily life: normal routines, the main events of the year(festivals, special days), one’s personal calendar.Family: in the case if young students’ talk is likely to be about parents, grandparents, brothers, and sisters. In the case of older students it would also include talk about one’s marital status or children. Personal and family history and biographical reminiscences can bring individuals closer to one another. However, one may also touch sensitive areas of personal life and it is important to avoid lack of discretion in a language class.Personal interests and activities: artistic, musical, literary, dramatic, sports and games, hobbies and leisure interests, such as stamp collecting, care of pets, sewing, carpentry, computers, gardening.  (3) Managing the classroom interactionSpeaking activities are probably the most demanding for students and teachers in terms of the affective factors involved. Trying to produce language in front of other students can generate high levels of anxiety. Students may feel that they are presenting themselves at a much lower level of cognitive ability than they really possess; they may have a anxiety about being incomprehensible; they may have cultural inhabitations about losing face, or they may simply be shy personalities who do not speak very much in their first language. It is therefore a major responsibility for the teacher to create a reassuring classroom environment in which students are prepared to take risks and experiment with the language. Role-play and simulation also require precise structuring at the planning stage as they integrate a number of thing: input, sometimes from a number source both written and spoken; preparatory activities to do with the information content of the role-play, and others to do with its language demands, and various interactions such as pair-work leading into group-work and followed by whole-class discussion. And all of this will need to be phased throughout one or several lessons. The key principle is gradual introduction of more complex tasks, beginning with simple pair-work activities and building through intermediate stages of complexity to more ambitious activities. This may be particularly important with secondary school students who are unaccustomed to moving around in the classroom, and who may be more difficult to control than motivated adults who are learning English from choice. It also means developing clear classroom procedures.(4)Some background knowledge of foreign countriesIn order to increase students’ background knowledge, better understand the cultural difference and expand knowledge of the language custom and practise English communicative ability, teachers must let the students understand some of the English-speaking countries’ background knowledge, merge the life, the science and technology, the custom, the literature, and so on into a whole, pay more attention to raising language sense, otherwise they can use Chinese thinking mode to inspect other countries’ characters and styles. They cannot correctly utilize English, for instance, when the foreigners meet each other, they discuss the weather, which has something to do with their culture and history. At the same time it is not wise to ask some personal questions straightforwardly, like the age, the marriage, the income and so on. In order to raise the student’s communicative ability, we should understand the tradition, the human sentiment, the local conditions and customs of the foreign countries.We can find that there are so many kinds of ways of training students’ speaking. And we can conduct different activities to practise. And we should pay attention to different students’ speaking levels and we can choose different kinds of activities according to their differences.(5)Speaking and listeningSpeaking can't be taught separately. It is often connected with listening. So we often speak of listening and speaking. The traditional way of listening and speaking is aural-oral method. Now, the new method of two-way communication is very popular. As you know that any teaching method has its psychological base. The aural-oral method began in the 1940's. It is based on behaviourism. One of its psychological theories is that learning a language is forming a set of new language habit. This is its usual process: Stimulus-Response-Reinforcement. The aural-oral method is fit for the teaching of beginning stage. It focuses on the practice of oral English drills. But too many drills are being practised without any context or given conditions. So what is learned is isolated clauses. And it has few communicative functions .The two-way communication makes up for the defect in communicative ability in the traditional teaching. Two-way means the relationship of the communication between teachers and students. This relationship is connected with the communicative activities between two people. This method is different from the traditional aural-oral method. But it is also based on the process of S-R-R. So we call it a new type of aural-oral method with some characteristics. It can create a fresh environment for speaking English. It needs some necessary explanations of Grammar, including some sentence structures. Hints are the major way of practice. Teachers can control the practice wholly or partly. The practice can also be controlled by students freely. The internal force of study is not due to the interests in phonetic structure, but the content of the material. To make the correct response, the students are asked to pay more attention.Example:Teacher: Ask me if I am a student.Student: Are you a student?T: Tell me-No, You're a teacher.S: No, I'm a teacher.In this example, "Ask me" means that the student must say a question sentence while "Tell me" shows that the student must say a decretive sentence. But before doing this, the teacher must explain something about the exchange of interrogative sentence and declarative sentence.The two-way communication can lengthen the dialogue limitlessly. This is its advantage. At the same time, if the student wants to give the correct response, he has to think it hard. The sentence is not easily forgotten which is created by themselves through thinking, sometimes with the teacher's hint. You can talk freely. You can express yourself as well as you can.5. ConclusionThrough the discussion of the reason of training communicative activities and the notion of competence, it is important to improve the communicative ability in the English teaching practice. The training of communication is the need of new century, the exchange of feeling and knowledge in different cultural background. The training of communication is also a part of self-living. But now it is also a hard task to search and promote a set of appropriate teaching approach to effectively develop students’ communicative competence and achieve the goal of language teaching. In the teaching practice, teachers should make full use of all effective methods to develop students’ communicative ability to help students achieve effective communication as well as master the linguistic knowledge. References[1] 韩明莲.英语教育：重在培养交际能力[J]. 山东教育科研. 1998 P4[2] 申春英. Communicative Classroom Activities In English Language Teaching[J] P1[3] 同[2] P1[4] 王蔷. 程晓堂. 英语教学法教程[M]. 北京：高等教育出版社，2007.7 P15[5] 同[4] P15[6] 徐强. 交际法英语教学和考试评估[M]. 上海：上海外语教育出版社，2002 P102-108[7] 同[4] P16[8] 同[4] P16[9] 同[4] P16[10] C.J.Brurnfit K.Johnson. The Communicative Approach to Language Teaching.  上海外语教育出版社. 2001. P14 [11] Canale, M. 1983. From Communicative Competence to Language Pedagogy in Richards and Schmidt. Language and Communication Longman 转引自曾文雄   On Developing Communicative Competence Through Communicative Approach[J]. 广西大学梧州分校学报. 第一期[10] Patrick Allen and Bright Harley. Issues and Opinions in Language Teaching [M].  上海外语教育出版社  P190[11] Willian Littlewood . Communicating Language Teaching[M]. 外语教学与研究出版社. 剑桥大学出版社. 人民教育出版社  P19[12] 杨阳. 英语教学法—技能与技巧[M]. 高等教育出版社  [13] 张兴旺. 英语教学与交际能力[M]. Ed by汪家树. 语言教学与研究. 上海外语教育出版社. P276[14] 张正东. 黄泰铨. 教学法双语教程[M]. 科学出版社[15] 王赛风， 熊惠平， 肖学农. 浅谈英语交际法教学与交际能力的培养[J]. 中国成人教育. 2005. 第5期  P88[16] 苏红. “以学生为中心”的教学模式与交际能力的培养[J]. 运城学院学报. 第3期  P64[17] 刘红梅. 改革教学方法，培养交际能力---英语交际性教学实验报告[J]. 嘉应大学学报（哲学社会科学）. 第2期  P85[18] Trica Hedge. 语言课堂中的教与学[M]. 外语教学法丛书之十四[19] 程国元. 优化教学过程，培养交际能力[J]. 宜春学院学报. 2004年[20] 张庆芳. 高校学生英语交际能力培养的现实意义与教学原则[J]. 洛阳大学学报. 2004年3月