Communicative Competence and Language Teaching

[Leslie K Harsch]

> Hey Francis,  After giving you everything you didn't want to consider
> about communicative competence in LT (based on the assumption that to
> understand the LT realization of CC, you need to understand what feeds
> into it, which would include the general notions of language as
> communication "in the air" at the time), I went back to my reading and
> happened to turn to an interesting article you might actually find
> useful:  Watson-Gegeo and Nielsen "Language Socialization in SLA" in
> Doughty and Long 2003, _The Handbook of SLA_.  Beginning on p. 163,
> they critique Canale and Swain's modularizing Gumperz notion of CC,
> contrasting it with Gumperz arguement that CC is not about rules but
> conditions of shared interpretation.  Anyway, you might want to check
> this piece out, despite its overall focus on SLA rather exclusively on
> LT.  - Leslie
>
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>>Francis M Hult wrote:
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>>>hey leslie.  thanks for this response.  it is interesting to think about
>>>where ideas (and developments of ideas come from).  i can't help but
>>>think they were pulling from hymes.  nothing they say really departs
>>>much from what hymes says (at least i don't think so).
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Hi Francis,  The sources and the notion of communicative competence in
>>>>LT are broad, in my view (I wonder what Tere would say).  I remember a
>>>>discussion with Tere in which she pointed out that Sandra Savignon
>>>>applied the notion of communicative competence to language teaching
>>>>right around the same time as Canale and Swain.  See her book, on the
>>>>topic _Communicative Competence_ (1983).  She gives Canale credit for
>>>>reading the MS in the acknowledgements.  In chapter 1, she says CC has
>>>>two sources: (1)  theoretical(psychology, linguistics and communication
>>>>theory and (2) practical/pedagogical.  Theoretical sources include Hymes and Halliday.
>>>>Hymes' response to Chomsky (the best articulation of that, in my view, is in
>>>>Hymes' _Foundation of Sociolinguistics_) might be a place to start.  The pedagogical sources
>>>>she describes come out of criticism of ALM.  [One wonders if the
>>>>deficiencies of ALM didn't become apparent in light of the theoretical
>>>>debates of the time, eg Chomsky's refutation of Skinner's Verbal
>>>>Behavior (1964).].
>>>>
>>>>There is a whole piece of this in the British ELT tradition that is not
>>>>captured in either Canale & Swain or Savignon.  There is, for example,
>>>>formal and functional syllabus design.  Brits to look at in this are
>>>>Breen, Brumfit and Candlin.  Also important is Widdowson's _Teaching
>>>>Language As Communication_ (1978).  You have probably looked at this, but Richards and Rogers on CLT is
>>>>worth a look as a source for others.
>>>>
>>>>Finally, digging futher back, we could touch on Jespersen, Comenius, and
>>>>even St. Augustine (Christian theologians speak about language
>>>>teaching--imagine that)  But that's off your topic.
>>>>
>>>>Love those historical views...Please let me know what you think.
>>>>
>>>>Leslie
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Francis M Hult wrote:
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>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>I wonder if anyone on the list has a knowledge of the historical
>>>>>development of communicative competence in language teaching.  In
>>>>>particular, I'm interested in finding out if anyone knows the 'behind the
>>>>>scenes' thinking of Canale and Swain(1980)/Canale (1983).
>>>>>
>>>>>The timing of their work leads me to think they were operating largely with
>>>>>the findings of people that were doing work in language socialization
>>>>>(e.g. Ochs and Schieffelin), following on Hymes' work in the 60's and
>>>>>70's on communicative competence and the ethnography of communication.  What
>>>>>I'm mainly curious about is the extent to which they were responding
>>>>>particularly to Hymes or more so to the language socialization folks.
>>>>>
>>>>>Francis
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