Functional Approaches and Communicative Competence: English Language Teaching in Non-Native Contexts
Berns, Margie Sue
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Permalink
https://hdl.handle.net/2142/69826
Description
Title
Functional Approaches and Communicative Competence: English Language Teaching in Non-Native Contexts
Author(s)
Berns, Margie Sue
Issue Date
1985
Department of Study
Linguistics
Discipline
Linguistics
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Language, Linguistics
Abstract
Recently considerable attention has been given to communicative approaches to language teaching, which have grown from the realization that knowledge of grammatical forms and structures alone does not adequately prepare learners to use the language they are learning effectively when communicating with others. It is also an outgrowth of renewed interest in the view of language as communication, a view associated with functional approaches to linguistics, which have been acknowledged as the theoretical base of the development of communicative language teaching theory and practice. However, the relationship between communicative language teaching and functional approaches to linguistics is far from clear.
This study explores the relationship of functional approaches and communicative language teaching through a consideration of the Prague and British linguistic traditions, concepts such as communicative competence, intelligibility, and model, the nature of English language use and teaching in the contexts of India, Japan, and West Germany, and the application of American and European communicative approaches to the development of English language teaching materials designed for English language learners in these three non-native contexts.
As an applied study, it does not claim to offer solutions to pedagogic problems, but to provide a means by which such problems may be solved. One of its objectives is to show how a theoretical model for linguistics can be used for classroom purposes by relating a linguistic framework to actual classroom materials and activities. It also offers a clarification of linguistic principles, drawn from the functional linguistic models of the Prague School and the British linguistic tradition, which can guide in the development and implementation of communicative language teaching models which are responsive to the needs of a growing number of learners of English in non-native contexts.
This study also addresses applied and theoretical implications for teacher training, cross-cultural communication, models in the pedagogical context, intelligibility in the classroom, and syllabus design.
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