Communicative competence.

Communicative competence.

Communicative competences.

Communicative competence (CC) was defined by Dell Hymes in 1972. In his own words, it is competence for language use and not only “the tacit knowledge of language structure”. It is competence of language the appropriate use of the language in a communicative interaction to the given  social context and situation. Sometimes in the schools the focus in real situations it is not the main point, other situation could be that the errors are not corrected at the moment. Learning grammar and vocabulary is not enough, it is necessary to learn how to apply that grammar and that vocabulary in the real world, the development of the language in its own context would help us to handle real situations.The four communication competencies should be followed as will help to the learner to have an asap increase of his language skills. To use strategies for recognizing and managing communication breakdowns has to be a priority from the beginning, sometimes when the learners are more growth the lack of confidence harms then at the moment of development.

Hymes, D.H. (1972) “On Communicative Competence” In: J.B. Pride and J. Holmes (eds)

Sociolinguistics. Selected Readings. Harmondsworth: Penguin, pp. 269-293