1.- Language as Communication: Oral and Written Language.

Factors that Define

a Communicative Situation: Sender, Receiver, Functionality and Context.

1. Introduction.

2. Language as Communication.

2.1. Linguistic Communication.

2.2. The Basic Components of Human Language.

3. Oral and Written Language.

3.1. Oral Language.

3.1.1. Stages of Oral Language Development.

3.1.2. Oral Language Strategies for an EFL Teacher.

3.2. Written Language.

3.2.1. Stages of Written Language Development.

3.2.2. Written Language Strategies for an EFL Teacher.

4. Factors that Define a Communication Process. Functionality.

5. Language Development and the Communicative Approach to FLT.

5.1. Communicative Competence and its Components.

5.2. Communicative Language Teaching.

6. Conclusion.

7. Bibliography.

7.1. Reference Literature.

7.2. Legal Framework.

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 1. Introduction.

The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t being said.

Language determines what is learned and how learning takes place. The classroom is a
unique context for learning.

The classroom and the language that is practiced in it create many opportunities to
establish personal relationships and meaningful communication between learners in
various situations.

Both learning and acquisition take place in the FL classroom. Learning is a conscious
process, whereas acquisition helps the development of knowledge about the language in
a spontaneous and unconscious way.

Classroom language helps promote acquisition – the language is highly contextualized

with many extralinguistics clues to help comprehension. The learners will only start to
understand rules about the language when their level of cognitive development is
sufficiently high and after exposure to these rules through language in context.

2. Language as Communication.

Language is generally considered as the hallmark of human intelligence. One of the

major driving forces for language evolution is often considered to be language
acquisition. The stages of children’s language acquisition mirror the stages of language
evolution.

2.1. Linguistic Communication.

Communication is a process by which information is exchanged between individuals

through a common system of symbols, signs, or behavior.

The field of communication focuses on how people use messages to generate meanings
within an across various contexts, cultures, channels, and media.

When we communicate we transmit information. Human beings do not exchange data-

we understand information. The goal of communication is shared meaning.

The primary goal of small group communication is to share meaning which leads to
effective decision-making and problem-solving.

In schools all over the world, language teachers have implemented communication-
oriented teaching syllabuses for improving students’ communication skills. In learning a
Second Language, it is necessary for students to acquire ways to communicate with
others using their target language.

2.2. The Basic Components of Human Language.

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Human language involves both receptive and productive use. Both reception and
production utilize the four basic structural components of language:

 Phonology: The system of the sound segments that human use to build up
words.

 Semantics: The system of meanings that are expressed by words and phrases.

 Grammar: The system of rules to make meaningful statements.

 Pragmatics: The system of patterns that determine how humans can use
language.

These four basic systems can be extended and elaborated when humans use language
for special purposes.

3. Oral and Written Language.

3.1. Oral Language.

Main characteristics of oral language:

- It’s the most universal and natural form of human communication.

- It’s the first form of communication.

- Written language appeared as an attempt to represent that oral language.

- Communication in society is mainly oral.

- Every oral communication involves psychological, neurological, phonetic and

articulation mechanisms and it is necessary the presence of the two interlocutors
doing the basic actions of the communication: speaking and listening.

- There’s a great deal of information that can be supposed by the context n oral
language.

- There are non-verbal features in verbal communication that can help us in the
understanding.

- The use of colloquial language is an exclusive feature of oral language.

3.1.1. Stages of Oral Language Development.

These are the main steps a child takes when acquiring her/his oral L1:

- Stage 1: Infant. A child at this stage smiles socially, imitates facial expressions,
cries, play with sounds, repeats syllables…

- Stage 2: 18 months to two years. A child at this stage responds to specific

songs, uses two-word sentences, understand simple questions…
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 - Stage 3: Two to three years. A child at this stage begins to use pronouns and
prepositions, uses “no”, remembers names of objects…

- Stage 4: Three to four years. A child at this stage communicates needs, asks
questions, begins to enjoy humor, knows part of songs…

- Stage 5: Four to five years. A child at this stage has a tremendous vocabulary,
uses irregular noun and verb forms, tell longer stories…

3.1.2. Oral Language Strategies for an EFL Teacher.

- Finger puppets for retellings, creating stories.

- Add new verses to existing poems.

- Activities that help children understand the world, in and out of the classroom.

- Songs, chants, and poems that are fun to sing and say.

- Games and other activities that involves talking, listening, and following
directions.

- Guidance in helping children compares characters, events, and themes of

different stories.

3.2. Written Language.

The main features of written language:

- It’s not as universal as oral language.

- Our own physiological development allows us to speak before to write, writing

is not as natural as speaking.

- The written language is restricted to only some signs to represent the complexity
of oral language, so it’s impossible to reach the level of richness of the oral
language.

- We shouldn’t use colloquial language in written documents.

- In written language, errors are not allowed because we have time to think about
what we’re going to express and how. Nowadays written language is closing to
oral language because of the use of the ICT.

3.2.1. Stages of Written Language Development.

The steps we follow when learning to write in our mother tongue are:
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 - Stage 1: Random Scribing (2 and 3 year olds). Children make marks on paper
randomly with little muscular control.

- Stage 2: Controlled Scribing (3 year olds). Children “write” showing

increased muscular control.

- Stage 3: Letter-Like Forms (3 and 4 year olds). Children make mock letters
and in their work they separate writing from drawing.

- Stage 4: Letter and Symbol Relationship (4 year olds). Children write letters t
present words and syllables.

- Stage 5: Invented Spelling (4 and 5 year olds). Children make the transition
from letter forms to invented spelling.

- Stage 6: Standard Spelling (5, 6 and 7 year olds). Most of the words the
children use are written correctly, some add punctuation.

3.2.2. Written Language Strategies for an EFL Teacher,

Some good techniques for developing our pupil’s writing in the target language are:

- Activities that help children understand that print represents spoken language.

- Alphabetic awareness activities in which children learn the names of letters and
learn to identify them rapidly and accurately.

- Using games and materials that encourage capital and lower case letter learning.

- Activities that are related to the words that children are reading and writing.

- Opportunity and encouragement to use spelling-sound knowledge in reading and

writing.

- Daily sessions for independent and supported reading with attention to both
fluency and comprehension.

4. Factors that Define a Communication Process. Functionality.

The human communication is a complex and dynamic act. Jakobson’s proposal is the
most appropriate to show us the factors that define that situation.

Communication is the transmission of information (message) from sender to receiver

through a channel, with a certain code and within a context.

In any communication act we can find three phrases:

- Encoding: the sender elaborates a message in a determinate code.

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 - Transmission: the message is transmitted through a specific channel

- Decoding: the receiver, taking into account the context, decodes the message.

The factors that intervene in a communicative situation can be defined as follows:

- Sender: the author of the message.

- Receiver: the person to whom the message is addressed.

- Context: we can distinguish between linguistic context and situational context.

- Purpose: the intention of a message.

- Topic: the matter about which the interaction develops.

- Medium: the means by which a message is transmitted (speech or writing).

- Channel: the technical means of transmission (telephone, radio, etc.).

- Code: the communication system shared by sender and receiver.

- Register: it relates all the factors entering into a communication act. We can
distinguish among the following registers: formal, consultative, casual, intimate
or frozen.

Jakobson also proposed six different functions of language, relating them to the
elements in the communication process:

- Expressive or emotive function (sender): we express our feelings and

thoughts.

- Conative function (receiver): somehow, sender is trying to influence the

receiver.

- Representative or denotative function (topic, context): it has to do with the

way we perceive and represent reality within a context.

- Poetic function (message): aesthetic function of the language.

- Phatic function (channel): it’s used to check whether the channel works.

- Metalingual function (code): when we use language to talk about language.

5. Language Development and the Communicative Approach to FLT.

5.1. Communicative Competence and its Components.

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Chomsky was the first linguistic who distinguished between Competence and
Performance:

- Competence: native speaker’s knowledge of the abstract system of rules of the

language. This knowledge provides human begins with the capability to produce
and understand an infinitive number of sentences.

- Performance: actual use of that knowledge in concrete situations.

Hymes then introduced the idea of communicative competence, which refers to the
relationship and interaction between the native speaker’s grammatical competence and
sociolinguistic competence. Communicative competence is all what a speaker needs to
know to produce and understand messages within a speakers’ community.

Communicative competence was further described by Canale and Swain as a

combination of knowledge of basic grammatical principles, knowledge of how language
is used in social contexts to perform communicative functions, and knowledge of how
utterances and communicative functions can be combined according to principles of
discourse.

Canale and Swain further broke communicative competence down into what they
believed were its essential components or subcompetences:

- Linguistic competence: is knowing how to use the grammar, vocabulary,

pronunciation and spelling of a language.

- Sociolinguistic competence: is knowing how to use and respond to language

appropriately.

- Discourse competence: is knowing how to use the different kinds of discourse

and to organize them taking into account the communicative situation or context
where they are produced.

- Strategic competence: is knowing how to recognize and repair communication

breakdowns.

5.2. Communicative Language Teaching.

Communicative language teaching (CLT) emphasizes interaction as both the means and
the ultimate goal of learning a language. CLT main aim is to develop Communicative
Competence.

Here are some of the objectives of Communicative Language Teaching:

- Students will learn to use language as a means of expression.

- Students will use language as a means of expressing values and judgments.

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 - Students will learn to express the functions that best meet their own
communication needs.

Communicative Language Teaching often uses a functional-notional syllabus. Since the

primary aim of the approach is to prepare learners for meaningful communication,
errors are tolerated. The communicative methodology is a learner-centered approach to
language learning.

It becomes part of the whole framework of language teaching which incorporates

different approaches and methods, making use of the advantages of each.

Underwood describes communicative methodology as emphasizing fluency before

accuracy. More effective communicative language learning occurs if emphasis is placed
immediately on getting one’s meaning across rather on grammaticalness and
appropriateness of one’s utterances.

Brown lists six key words of CLT to better understand what it aims at: learner-centered,
cooperative (collaborative), interactive, integrated, content-centered, and task-based.

6. Conclusion.

The FL classroom should include teaching activities which promote the systematic use
of highly contextualized classroom language. It is also important to include language
and expressions closely linked with everyday classroom activities. These expressions
allow the learners to use language appropriately within a defined context and they can
often be learnt through repetition without explanations.

The FL classroom is the place where interactions, relationships and patterns of behavior
take place which draw on the learners’ experience of school.

A link can be seen between the use of classroom language and the Natural Approach by
Krashen and Terrell in that they consider comprehension and the meaningful use of
language as fundamental in language learning. Total Physical Response in the early
stages of interaction in the classroom learners gives non-verbal responses in
communicative situations.

7. Bibliography.

7.1. Reference Literature.

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- Council of Europe (2001). A Common European Framework of Reference for
Languages (learning, teaching, assessment). Strasbourg.

- Harmer, J. (1977). The Practice of English Language Teaching. Longman.

- McLaren, N. Madrid, D. (Eds.) (2004). TEFL in Primary Education. Ed.

Universidad de Granada.

7.2. Legal Framework.

- Organic Act 2/2006 on Education (LOE) of May 3rd (BOE #106, May 4th,
2006).

- Organic Act on Education Quality Improvement (LOMCE), of December 9th

(BOE #295, December10th, 2013).

- Royal Decree 126/2014 of February 28th, which establishes the Basic

Curriculum in Primary Education (BOE #52, March 1st, 2014).