Second journal

   Communicative       Competence

I am a student, a teacher, a lover, a person, I am even an idea, I have a perspective of the world. Does my ideology has an effect in a classroom when I am the teacher? Does my students are affected by it? Does their learning process is influenced by the way I teach? Well, there is neither a true answer nor an absolute one. However, It is utterly obvious, that the methodology and approach that you use or have is going to affect in some way your student’s interest towards their L2 and eventually if the interest is decreasing, then their learning process will be blocked.

Here in our context (Colombia) there is a huge amount of teachers of  a L2 with zero knowledge of  a teaching method and as a consequence of this they are showing only a little part of the huge, diverse and rich that is the field of pedagogy. There is a tendency to teach and even to as students be prone to expect a language class in the traditional way, which is teacher centered. Also, to be strict, to give a lot of homework, to learn by heart a huge amount of words in order to learn vocabulary, to make elaborated evaluations so no one can pass. And definitely the teacher who still reproduce this methodology in their classroom are aiming for students than can be accurate rather than fluent. One method that stands for this way of teaching is the Grammar translation method, for example one activity proposed for this method is 

     "Vocabulary selection is based solely on the reading texts used,  and words are taught through bilingual word lists, dictionary study, and  memorization. In a typical Grammar-Translation text, the grammar      rules are presented and illustrated, a list of vocabulary items are  presented with their translation equivalents, and translation exercises  are prescribed." ( Richards and Rogers, 4).
This approach (as well as the audiolingual method) as you can see is definitely not aiming for a communicative language, its view of language teaching is out of context, basing on meaningless aspect of the language that will no remain in their students memory, it is a mechanization process. So in my opinion I will not recommend it, neither practice it, at least not all the time because it could be useful in some cases, but certainly not for the whole semester, nor even for an entire class.

       Even though the previous method may have positive results, the others methods can not be forgotten, cannot be left out. Moreover, they have to be more regular in the classroom in order that students will actually communicate genuinely in the real life situations using their L2. Besides, it is not only one innovative method that we are talking about, because there are various methods like: the whole language, multiple intelligence, community language and communicative language teaching. All of them are different but they have one thing in common: they are student's center. Me as a future teacher would prefer to give a class using those methods, not just one. The method I choose will differ according to my students needs. I will aim for a class that involves accuracy and fluency, but the main activities and goals will be focused on enhancing fluency.

       Of the 4 "steps" of communicative competence, the one that i will reinforce the most is the social cultural element because language happens in society, in the social context, I want to form human beings that can actually interact with others, Moreover, to understand and being comprehensive with the others, with people from different cultures, different ideas and perspective and gladly thought teaching a language I am able to do that. This element is a perfect to represent or create a classroom and students that are intercultural.

   On the other hand, the discourse element is extremely important, it brings the context to the conversation, here the sintaxis is not evaluated as right or wrong, here what is important is not what you say, but why you say it and how you say it according to the context you are in. Regarding the strategic component, it is unbelievable useful for  taping your students knowledge and creativity, by making them think of a strategy that will help them at the moment they are experiencing or using their L2.

   Learning about different cultures and making students experiment it in the classroom, can enhance students language abilities as well as their knowledge of the world. Different methods that can use this element of the communicative  properly are multiple intelligence, whole language teaching and community language. Because they give more opportunities to speak, listen and practice writing and reading, since they are proposing to experiment language as a whole unit.