The importance of acquiring communicative competence in teaching foreign languages through modern innovative technologies



Teaching and learning a foreign language consists of not only learning all theoretical rules or skills, but also acquiring communicative competence. Accordingly, in this article, we have aimed to illustrate the ways of fostering communicative competence at higher education using modern innovative technologies, such as social networking services and messengers. Furthermore, all the theoretical factors of our research are shown with obtainable results based on our research observations.

Key words: competence, linguistic competence, distance learning, sociolinguistic competence, pragmatic competence, virtual environment, approach.

Преподавание и изучение иностранного языка включает в себя не только изучение всех теоретических правил или навыков, но также приобретение коммуникативной компетенции. Соответственно, в этой статье мы стремились проиллюстрировать способы развития коммуникативной компетенции в высшем образовании с использованием современных инновационных технологий, таких как услуги социальных сетей и мессенджеры. Кроме того, все теоретические факторы нашего исследования показаны с доступными результатами, основанными на наших исследованиях наблюдений.

Ключевые слова: компетентность, лингвистическая компетентность, дистанционное обучение, социолингвистическая компетентность, прагматическая компетентность, виртуальная среда, подход.

Communicative competence is a term which is necessary and much more practical in teaching and learning foreign languages rather than other competences. If we look at the historical background of this term, communicative competence is a term in linguistics which refers to a language user's grammatical knowledge of syntax, morphology, phonology and the like, as well as social knowledge about how and when to use utterances appropriately [4]. From this point of view, it can be concluded that acquiring this competence is very important for language learners. As for the reason of our research objective for paying our attention to this factor is that we have been doing our research on consolidation the system of teaching and learning foreign languages at higher education in the example of the English language to first year students whose levels are B1 and B2 on the CEFR descriptors. As a result of this, we have aimed to draw our attention to only our participants’ language skills, such as speaking, reading, writing, and listening ones, but also their communicative competence so as to make them proficient users of their target language. The term was coined by Dell Hymes in 1966, reacting against the perceived inadequacy of Noam Chomsky's (1965) distinction between linguistic competence and performance [4]. In addition to that, we must highlight one factor that while teaching a foreign language to learners, we, as specialists of this field, sometimes pay attention to learners’ mistakes or errors while their doing tasks in the target language, however, we should change our approach towards students at higher education as well. Altering our approach leads to us to make progress in our field much more than our simple approaches which is connected with only ‘their weaknesses’.

Communicative approach is one of the most important basis of forming communicative competence in students at higher education because communicative competence is such a competence which underlies the communicative approach to foreign language teaching [4]. According to the communicative approach theory, the goal of language education is the ability to communicate in the target language [2], and this is also one of the most crucial purposes of learners. Taking the above-mentioned factors into account, we have planned to develop the communicative competence in first year students of higher education based on the sub-competences of teaching foreign languages which are linguistic competence, sociolinguistic competence, and pragmatic competence. Besides that, these sub-competences are used in State Educational Standards of Continuous Education of Uzbekistan [1]. As a result of this, the most important task of our research is to contribute to the consolidation of the system of teaching foreign languages in practice.

Generally speaking, we should mention that the object of our research is teaching the English language utilizing social networking services and messengers as modern innovative technologies. What is more, we have planned to apply these means into process using their effective features and functions in order to innovate the system much more than before. In the following, the methods of fostering communicative competence along with sub-competences are shown step by step:

– Improving communicative competence. It is stated in the Standards that communicative competence in foreign language is generally defined as ‘both the tacit knowledge of a language and the ability to use it’ [1]. So, this competence should be improved systematically in the process of teaching and learning foreign languages. In order to make this task be done successfully, the basic means of teaching foreign languages are chosen beforehand, for example, the platform of Telegram. On the platform, according to the principles of this competence, the students are provided with different sources on grammatical knowledge of morphology, phonology daily by a teacher, and during the lessons at university or in a distance form they are tested by a teacher online. While testing them, a teacher pays attention to their communicative competence, namely interaction with their partners using grammatical rules of the target language and pronouncing words correctly. During this stage, the most important thing is students’ language use within conversations or their answers to their teachers which assists the process work progressively.

– Improving linguistic competence as asub-competence. This competence is mainly fostered in the process of teaching foreign languages, and this process is not totally different at higher education, only the methods and approaches can be varied because students are prepared to be professionals of their specialities. However, we have selected a particular system to increase this competence in students too. In this stage, students are enabled to use their skills independently through different tasks online or offline which is at university, and we provide them with the basic rules of improving language skills on the platform of Telegram continuously.

– Improving sociolinguistic competence. This competence is one of the most necessary competences for learners to acquire because they may come across varied situations or contexts in practice; as a result of this, we have also organized a special system to create a comfortable zone to form and develop this competence in our research participants as well. In order to do this, we provide them with cultural information and vocabulary lists which are used by social groups of the nation whose language is the target one for our participants. After doing so, we test their knowledge via multiple tasks both online and offline. For example, multiple choice tests or contexts which convey culture-specific information can be used in this process.

– Improving pragmatic competence. In this process, we work on their communication skills mostly, and teach them how to start, end their conversations, speeches in the target language. This competence teaches learners how to achieve fluency in the target language gradually and fully. Besides, tasks to improve this competence can be much more interactive and interesting than other competence tasks because students are forced to work their mental abilities in order to achieve their target results in learning this or that foreign language.

In a nutshell, teaching foreign languages is a dynamic process which includes new methods, technologies, and means continuously. Because of this, we have aimed to contribute to the development of this field of science by our research resolving varied problems that students come across at higher education.

References:

1. Uzbekistan State Standard. State Educational Standards of Continuous Education of Uzbekistan. Tashkent, 2013.
2. Leung, Constant (2005). «Convivial communication: recontextualizing communicative competence». International Journal of Applied Linguistics.
3. J., Savignon, Sandra (1997–01–01). Communicative competence: theory and classroom practice: texts and contexts in second language learning.
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communicative_competence#cite_noteFOOTNOTEChomsky1965–2