Olga Tolstykh, Anastasia Khomutova

General and Professional Education

2/2012 pp. 38-43
ISSN 2084-1469

DEVELOPING THE COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE
OF THE UNIVERSITY TEACHING STAFF:
AN INTEGRATED-SKILL APPROACH

Olga Tolstykh
Anastasia Khomutova
South Ural State University, Chelyabinsk, Russia,
454080, Chelyabinsk, Lenin Avenue, 76,
e-mail: [email protected]

Abstract: The article is devoted to the integrated-skill approach applied in teaching English in the
framework of the project Lingva launched in the South Ural State University (SUSU), Chelyabinsk,
Russia, in January, 2006. The authors present the components of the communicative competence
(linguistic, socio-linguistic, discourse and strategic ones) which become the goal of any language
acquisition and compare the integrated-skill approach with the segregated-skill approach or task-based
education. The above-mentioned approaches seem ineffective and out-of-date. The integrated-skill
approach applied in the project Lingva in the South Ural State University (2006 2012) is considered
to be the most efficient method of language teaching in the modern world.

Keywords: communicative competence, integrated-skill approach, segregated-skill approach, task-
based education.


Introduction

Nowadays communicative competence is a
highly topical linguistic term which refers to a
language user's grammatical knowledge of
syntax, morphology, phonology, as well as
social knowledge about how and when to use
utterances appropriately. The term appeared in
1966 thanks to Dell Hymes, a famous American
linguist, sociolinguist and anthropologist. Since
those times communicative competence has
become the target of numerous hot debates
among scholars.
Such debate has occurred regarding linguistic
competence and communicative competence in
the second and foreign language teaching
literature, and scholars have found
communicative competence as a superior model
of language following Hymes' opposition to
Chomsky's linguistic competence [1]. This
opposition has been adopted by those who seek
new directions toward a communicative era by
taking for granted the basic motives and the
appropriateness of this opposition behind the
development of communicative competence.
Through the influence of communicative
language teaching, it has become widely
accepted that communicative competence
should be the goal of any language education,
central to good classroom practice. Language
teaching both in European countries and Russia
is also based on the idea that the goal of
language acquisition is communicative
competence: the ability to use the language
correctly and appropriately to accomplish
communication goals.
Canale and Swain (1980) defined
communicative competence in terms of three
components:
1. grammatical competence: words and rules;
2. sociolinguistic competence: appropriateness;
3. strategic competence: appropriate use of
communication strategies [2].
Canale later refined the above model, adding
discourse competence: cohesion and coherence.
Communicative competence at present is made
up of four competence areas: linguistic,
sociolinguistic, discourse, and strategic.
Linguistic competence is knowing how to
use the grammar, syntax, and vocabulary of a
language. Linguistic competence asks: What
words do I use? How do I put them into phrases
and sentences?
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DEVELOPING THE COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE OF THE UNIVERSITY

Sociolinguistic competence is knowing how
to use and respond to language appropriately,
given the setting, the topic, and the
relationships among the people communicating.
Sociolinguistic competence asks: Which words
and phrases fit this setting and this topic? How
can I express a specific attitude (courtesy,
authority, friendliness, respect) when I need to?
How do I know what attitude another person is
expressing?
Discourse competence is knowing how to
interpret the larger context and how to construct
longer stretches of language so that the parts
make up a coherent whole. Discourse
competence asks: How are words, phrases and
sentences put together to create conversations,
speeches, email messages, newspaper articles?
Strategic competence is knowing how to
recognize and repair communication
breakdowns, how to work around gaps in ones
knowledge of the language, and how to learn
more about the language and in the context.
Strategic competence asks: How do I know
when Ive misunderstood or when someone has
misunderstood me? What do I say then? How
can I express my ideas if I dont know the name
of something or the right verb form to use?
Communicative competence is more than
acquiring mastery of structure and form. It also
involves acquiring the ability to interpret
discourse in all its social and cultural contexts.
The complexity of learning to speak in another
language is reflected in the range and type of
subskills that are entailed in L2 (the Second
Language) oral production. Learners must
simultaneously attend to content, morphosyntax
and lexis, discourse and information
structuring, and the sound system and prosody,
as well as appropriate register and
pragmalinguistic features.
In the 1990s, many researchers concluded that
exposure to and communicative interaction in
an L2 enables learners to attain L2 speaking
fluency.
In an age when English has become a primary
medium for international communication, most
cross-cultural interactions take place between
non-native speakers of English rather than
between native and non-native speakers.

The Project Lingva

Todays university world is undergoing rapid
change which is caused by globalization
process. The purposes for which people learn
English today have also evolved from a cultural
and educational enterprise to that of
international communication. This process
affects all spheres of knowledge and human
activities, giving rise to numerous projects
concerning language acquisition and language
proficiency and highlights the extreme
importance of developing communicative
competence.
There is an alternative way the language-
based approach according to which the
language itself is the focus of instruction
(language for language's sake). In this
approach, the emphasis is made not on learning
for authentic communication. Unfortunately,
practice shows that this approach is out-of-date
as it does not allow keeping up with the modern
trends. Thousands of university teachers who
attended numerous linguistic courses are able
only to read and translate using dictionaries.
They are not ready to communicate with native
speakers at all as their speech abounds with out-
of-date conversational clichs and obsolete
words.
All university teachers need English to conduct
their research, prepare papers for scientific
journals, take part in international conferences
and establish their international contacts. These
objectives embrace all the four primary skills
listening, reading, speaking, and writing as well
as associated or related skills such as
knowledge of vocabulary, spelling,
pronunciation, syntax, meaning, and usage.
This necessity leads to optimal English as a
Second Language (ESL) or English as a
Foreign Language (EFL) communication when
the skills are interwoven during instruction.
This is known as the integrated-skill approach.
If this weaving together does not occur, the
strand consists merely of discrete, segregated
skills parallel threads that do not touch,
support, or interact with each other.
That is why the South Ural State University
(Chelyabinsk, Russia) launched a program
aimed at university teaching staff called Lingva
(2006 2012).
The goal of this program was to encourage the
academic mobility and increase the number of
publications in foreign journals in the
framework of the integrated-skill approach. The
program included several stages placement
tests, team distribution, and classes. There were
formed several groups from elementary to
advanced learners. More than one thousand
teachers participated in this project and
39 General and Professional Education 2/2012
Olga Tolstykh, Anastasia Khomutova

improved their English speaking and writing
skills.
Among the particular goals of this program we
can mention the following:
increasing the competitiveness of the SUSU
educational programs for foreign partners, post
graduates and master students by means of
enhancing international contacts and delivering
lectures and classes in the English language;
increasing the academic mobility of the
teaching staff, post graduates, young scientists
as regards attending training courses abroad and
taking part in international conferences,
preparing reports in the English language and
applying for various grants and scholarships at
various universities all over the world.
The program was also targeted at the following:
providing linguistic assistance for the
educational programs directed at preparing post
graduates and master students with the
combined forces of the SUSU faculty of
Linguistics;
providing linguistic assistance for the
research activities of the SUSU teaching staff
on the basis of developing their professional
communicative competence;
providing linguistic assistance for the top
management of the SUSU university.
The program had the following three stages:
The first stage the selection of the
participants by the expert commission.
The second stage the educational process
itself arranged in several directions.
The third stage the assessment of the
effectiveness.
The participants of the program included
promising post graduates, doctoral candidates,
young scientists, lecturers and tutors working in
the framework of the most demanded at present
scientific directions and having the best
references of their departments.
The requirements for the candidates were the
following:
language requirements necessary for their
proposedstudy(fromPreIntermediate);
abilitytodiscusstheprofessionalsubjects;
ability to prepare the draft of the scientific
articles,provideitsabstract;
ability to write the review in the English
language,applicationsforgrantsetc.
All these requirements coincide with the
requirements of the international exams in
English that is why participating in the program
candidates could prepare for such universally
acknowledged exams like Cambridge ESOL
exams or TOEFL.

Segregated Vs Integrated-Skill Approach

When the program Lingva was launched it
became clear to the English teachers that they
were to solve the task of great importance.
There were two possible ways to grasp the
project: by means of segregated-skill approach
which has another title for this mode of
instruction the language-based approach,
because the language itself is the focus of
instruction (language for language's sake), and
the second variant was integrated-skill
approach, in which the emphasis was not on
learning for authentic communication.
Let us analyze the first option as far as by
examining segregated-skill instruction, we can
see the advantages of integrating the skills and
move toward improving teaching for English
language learners.
In the segregated-skill approach, the mastery of
discrete language skills such as reading and
speaking is seen as the key to successful
learning, and language learning is typically
separate from content learning [3]. This is
contrary to the integrated way that people use
language skills in normal communication, and it
clashes with the direction in which language
teaching experts have been moving in recent
years.
Skill segregation is reflected in traditional
language programs that offer classes focusing
on segregated language skills. Why do they
offer such classes? Perhaps teachers and
administrators think it is logistically easier to
present courses on writing divorced from
speaking, or on listening isolated from reading.
They may believe that it is instructionally
impossible to concentrate on more than one
skill at a time.
Even if it were possible to fully develop one or
two skills in the absence of all the others, such
an approach would not ensure adequate
preparation for later success in academic
communication, career-related language use, or
everyday interaction in the language. An
extreme example is the grammar-translation
method, which teaches students to analyze
grammar and to translate (usually in writing)
from one language to another. This method
restricts language learning to a very narrow,
non-communicative range that does not prepare
students to use the language in everyday life.
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DEVELOPING THE COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE OF THE UNIVERSITY

Frequently, segregated-skill ESL/EFL classes
present instruction in terms of skill-linked
learning strategies: reading strategies, listening
strategies, speaking strategies, and writing
strategies [4]. Learning strategies are strategies
that students employ, most often consciously, to
improve their learning. Examples are guessing
meaning based on context, breaking a sentence
or word down into parts to understand the
meaning, and practicing the language with
someone else.
Very frequently, experts demonstrate strategies
as though they were linked to only one
particular skill, such as reading or writing [4].
However, it can be confusing or misleading to
believe that a given strategy is associated with
only one specific language skill. Many
strategies, such as paying selective attention,
self-evaluating, asking questions, analyzing,
synthesizing, planning, and predicting, are
applicable across skill areas [5]. Common
strategies help weave the skills together.
Teaching students to improve their learning
strategies in one skill area can often enhance
performance in all language skills [5].
Fortunately, in many instances where an ESL or
EFL course is labeled by a single skill, the
segregation of language skills might be only
partial or even illusory. If the teacher is
creative, a course bearing a discrete-skill title
might actually involve multiple, integrated
skills.
For example, in a course on intermediate
reading, the teacher probably gives all of the
directions orally in English, thus causing
students to use their listening ability to
understand the assignment. In this course,
students might discuss their readings, thus
employing speaking and listening skills and
certain associated skills, such as pronunciation,
syntax, and social usage. Students might be
asked to summarize or analyze readings in
written form, thus activating their writing skills.
In a real sense, then, some courses that are
labeled according to one specific skill might
actually reflect an integrated-skill approach
after all.
The same can be said for ESL/EFL textbooks.
A particular series might highlight certain skills
in one book or another, but all the language
skills might nevertheless be present in the tasks
in each book. In this way, students have the
benefit of practicing all the language skills in an
integrated, natural, communicative way, even if
one skill is the main focus of a given volume.
In contrast to segregated-skill instruction, both
actual and apparent, there are at least two forms
of instruction that are clearly oriented toward
integrating the skills.
These two types of integrated-skill instruction
are content-based language instruction and task-
based instruction. The first of these emphasizes
learning content through language, while the
second stresses doing tasks that require
communicative language use. Both of these
benefit from a diverse range of materials,
textbooks, and technologies for the ESL or EFL
classroom.
In content-based instruction, students practice
all the language skills in a highly integrated,
communicative fashion while learning content
such as science, mathematics, and social
studies. Content-based language instruction is
valuable at all levels of proficiency, but the
nature of the content might differ by
proficiency level. For beginners, the content
often involves basic social and interpersonal
communication skills, but past the beginning
level, the content can become increasingly
academic and complex.
At least three general models of content-based
language instruction exist: theme-based,
adjunct, and sheltered [6]. The theme-based
model integrates the language skills into the
study of a theme (e.g., urban violence, cross-
cultural differences in marriage practices,
natural wonders of the world, or a broad topic
such as change). The theme must be very
interesting to students and must allow a wide
variety of language skills to be practiced,
always in the service of communicating about
the theme.
This is the most useful and widespread form of
content-based instruction today, and it is found
in many innovative ESL and EFL textbooks. In
the adjunct model, language and content
courses are taught separately but are carefully
coordinated. In the sheltered model, the subject
matter is taught in simplified English tailored to
students' English proficiency level.
In task-based instruction, students participate in
communicative tasks in English. Tasks are
defined as activities that can stand alone as
fundamental units and that require
comprehending, producing, manipulating, or
interacting in authentic language while attention
is principally paid to meaning rather than form
[7].
The task-based model is beginning to influence
the measurement of learning strategies, not just
41 General and Professional Education 2/2012
Olga Tolstykh, Anastasia Khomutova

the teaching of ESL and EFL. In task-based
instruction, basic pair work and group work are
often used to increase student interaction and
collaboration. For instance, students work
together to write and edit a class newspaper,
develop a television commercial, enact scenes
from a play, or take part in other joint tasks.
More structured cooperative learning formats
can also be used in task-based instruction.
Task-based instruction is relevant to all levels
of language proficiency, but the nature of the
task varies from one level to the other. Tasks
become increasingly complex at higher
proficiency levels. For instance, beginners
might be asked to introduce each other and
share one item of information about each other.
More advanced students might do more
intricate and demanding tasks, such as taking a
public opinion poll at school, the university, or
a shopping mall.
As for the advantages of this approach, as
contrasted with the purely segregated approach,
it exposes English language learners to
authentic language and challenges them to
interact naturally in the language. Learners
rapidly gain a true picture of the richness and
complexity of the English language as
employed for communication. Moreover, this
approach stresses that English is not just an
object of academic interest nor merely a key to
passing an examination; instead, English
becomes a real means of interaction and sharing
among people.
This approach allows teachers to track students'
progress in multiple skills at the same time.
Integrating the language skills also promotes
the learning of real content, not just the
dissection of language forms. Finally, the
integrated-skill approach, whether found in
content-based or task-based language
instruction or some hybrid form, can be highly
motivating to students of all ages and
backgrounds.
In order to integrate the language skills in
ESL/EFL instruction, teachers should consider
taking these steps:
- they should learn more about the various ways
to integrate language skills in the classroom
(e.g., content-based, task-based, or a
combination);
- they should reflect on their current approach
and evaluate the extent to which the skills are
integrated;
- they should choose instructional materials,
textbooks, and technologies that promote the
integration of listening, reading, speaking, and
writing, as well as the associated skills of
syntax, vocabulary, and so on. Even if a given
course is labeled according to just one skill, one
should remember that it is possible to integrate
the other language skills through appropriate
tasks;
- they should teach language learning strategies
and emphasize that a given strategy can often
enhance performance in multiple skills.
We present here part of the plan for a content-
based unit on Architecture using the unit plan
inventory.
Step 1.
Language in Use. Describing, giving
information, asking for information.
Subject Content. Architecture, geography,
seasons, weather.
Culture. Doors and windows of a target country
and students' home town.
Vocabulary. Colors, shapes, sizes, materials
(wood, stone), architectural details (ironwork,
balcony, ornate), geographical terms (snow,
rain, sun, clouds).
Grammatical Structures
Verbs in command form--open, close, touch,
point to.
Verbs in present tense--to be, to see, to think, to
paint.
Step 2
Essential Materials
Photographs from both target and home
cultures of doors and windows, geographical
landmarks, and seasons.
Paper, ruler, tape measures, paints, markers.
Map of target country.
Step 3
Activities
Introduce vocabulary through Total Physical
Response (TPR) sequence with photos of
classroom doors and windows.
Sort photos by doors/windows, target
country/home town, size, shape, material, color.
In pairs, estimate then measure doors and
windows in classroom.
Use TPR sequence of map geography, seasons,
and weather of target country and home town.
In small groups, paint the original window with
a view in the target country or home town.
Describe a window in writing or orally.
Display windows in the classroom, have
students choose the window they like the best
and write why they like it.
Step 4
Assessment
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DEVELOPING THE COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE OF THE UNIVERSITY

43 General and Professional Education 2/2012
Observe students' participation, assess for
understanding.
Observe students' participation, assess for
accuracy and pronunciation.
Assess for participation, use of target language,
and accuracy.
Assess for inclusion of all elements,
presentation, and participation in group project.
All the above-mentioned educational strategies
were taken into consideration by the teaching
staff working in the framework of the project
Lingva. The main goal of these classes was to
simulate the real conditions of language
practice, as well as to prepare language learners
for attending real international conferences and
maintaining international communication by
means of Internet messengers and specific
software programs.

Conclusion

Thus, the integrated-skill approach became the
leading mode of instruction in the project
Lingva. All the participants were to pass a final
test which involved various ways of checking
communicative competence. The test included
5 sections: listening, reading, use of English,
writing and speaking. Besides all the
participants were to prepare the report with the
PPT presentation devoted to their recent
scientific results. The so-called conference was
held at the end of the academic year and all the
participants made their reports there and took
part in the scientific discussion afterwards.
One more requirement of final assessment was
connected with the preparation of the paper for
the International scientific journal with the
abstract written according to the standard. The
expert commission checked a great amount of
professionally written articles which are being
published all over the world at the present
moment.
These fruitful results of the program Lingva in
the South Ural State University proved the
effectiveness of new approaches in the field of
language teaching. The speed of the modern
world development forces English teachers to
apply new methods of teaching improving the
old, tried and tested ones.
With careful reflection and planning, any
teacher can integrate the language skills and
strengthen the tapestry of language teaching
and learning. When the tapestry is woven well,
learners can use English effectively for
communication.



References

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Mouton, 1966. P. 114158.
2. Canale, M., Swain, M. Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second language teaching
and testing. Applied Linguistics 1, 1980. P. 147.
3. Mohan, B. Language and content. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley, 1986.
4. Peregoy, S.F., & Boyle, O.F. Reading, writing, and learning in ESL. New York: Addison Wesley
Longman, 2001.
5. Oxford, R. Language learning strategies. What every teacher should know. Boston, MA: Heinle &
Heinle, 1990.
6. Scarcella, R., & Oxford, R. The tapestry of language learning: The individual in the communicative
classroom. Boston: Heinle & Heinle, 1992.
7. Nunan, D. Designing tasks for the communicative classroom. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press, 1989.