impossible without words and thinking in concepts does not exist beyond
verbal thinking.”
It goes without saying that, although the above reasons are presented as being
distinct, in fact they are closely related. Allwright (1984: 157) stresses that: “…the
process of communication is, in an important sense, a learning process.” while
Vygotsky (1962) draws a link between learning and development by pointing out that:
“… the two are interrelated from the child’s very first day of life.”
1.2 What to teach
Having justified the need for teaching speaking, it is time to define the content
of a speaking lesson. This refers to the characteristic features of spoken language
which students need to be familiar with in order to communicate effectively and
which comprise the following:
1.2.2.3. Speaking is an act of communication
West (2000, Unit: 11) refers that in the traditional foreign language classroom
speaking is considered as a means to demonstrate learning rather than an end in itself.
This attitude limits the focus of the teaching of speaking to the students’ ability to
respond to the teacher’s questions and to produce grammatically correct sentences.
However, Hymes (1971: 278) stresses that: “there are rules of use without which the
rules of grammar would be useless” and he proposes a wider notion of competence,
that of communicative competence.
The notion of communicative competence was further explored by Canale and
Swain (1980: 27) who identified two of its elements, that of sociolinguistic
competence (i.e. the ability of the speaker to take under consideration the social
context within which language is produced), and strategic competence (i.e. the ability
of the speaker to use negotiation strategies in order to clarify meaning). Finally,
Blum-Kulka and Levenston (1983) also added the element of semantic competence
(i.e. the characteristic of language to carry meaning).
The above elements of communicative competence allow the speaker to speak
naturally and appropriately according to the situation and to adjust her speech
according to the topic, the relationship and the shared knowledge between the
interlocutors.
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