【大学生英语交际能力的培养】大学生有必要培养交际能力

　　[摘 要] 交际能力是交际成功的重要因素。要想培养和加强大学生的英语交际能力，教师必须努力同时提高学生的语言意识、语言能力和语用能力。在课堂教学中，教师可以通过开展多种可行的交际活动来提高学生的英语交际能力。
　　[关键词] 交际能力 语言意识 语言能力 语用能力 交际活动
　　
　　Cultivation of College Students’ Communicative Competence in English
　　College English Department, Yunnan University, Kunming, Yunnan
　　Abstract:Communicative competence makes successful communications possible and plays an extremely important role in communication. To cultivate college students’ communicative competence in English, educators have to work hard to raise students’ language awareness, improve their linguistic competence and enhance their pragmatic competence. In classrooms, teachers may raise students’ communicative competence through communicative activities.
　　Key words:communicative competence; language awareness; linguistic competence; pragmatic competence; communicative activities
　　
　　1.Communicative Competence
　　Hymes (1972) is the first to put forward the term Communicative Competence (CC), which puts language into a socio-cultural context. Hymes asserts that CC is the ability to use speech appropriately in varying social contexts. According to him, speakers should know not only the language code, but also what to say to whom, and how to say it appropriately in different situations. Thus CC involves the social and cultural knowledge speakers are expected to have which enables them to use and interpret linguistic forms appropriately. In Hymes’ view,a person who acquires CC acquires both knowledge and ability for language use.
　　Generally speaking, CC consists of linguistic competence (LC) and pragmatic competence (PC). Linguistic competence refers to the phonological, grammatical and lexical knowledge of a language; pragmatic competence is the ability to use a language appropriately in any given situations and communicate with appropriate communicative strategies so that communication may continue smoothly and communicative goals can be achieved successfully. LC and PC play equally important roles in communication. Linguistic knowledge is the basis of communication while pragmatic skills ensure the success of the communication. CC, as a superordinate level of LC and PC, is a complex system of knowledge and skills. It requires the communicators to master not only the grammatical rules but also the rules of use. In other words, they have to know not only enough about a language, but also know how to put that knowledge into use when communicating with other people in various situations. CC is the most important linguistic principle for foreign language leaning and teaching. It is the ultimate goal in foreign language teaching and an indicator of foreign language learners’ language proficiency level.
　　2.Cultivating Students’ Communicative Competence
　　2.1 Raising Students’ Language Awareness
　　Language awareness (LA) refers to the development of an enhanced consciousness of and sensitivity to the forms and functions of language in language learners. Cultivation of LA is a very important part in foreign language teaching. According to a report of the British National Council for Language in Education Working Party on Language Awareness in 1985 (Donmall, 1985), LA helps develop a person’s sensitivities and consciousness of the nature of language and its role in human life. As we know, the focus of LA includes not only the linguistic area such as the grammar, but also the sociolinguistic and cultural domains as well. Some researches have even proved that LA owns the following benefits: appreciation of the language in use; greater understanding of language complexity; encouraging speakers to consider transferability; a broader and deeper understanding of the second language; an awareness of the fact that language development is a life-long enterprise. All in all, raising LA in college students may make autonomous learning possible for them.
　　2.2 Improving Students’ Linguistic Competence
　　Generally speaking, linguistic competence (LC) includes the knowledge about phonology, vocabulary, grammar, discourse, etc., of a language from the perspective of knowledge, and includes listening, speaking, reading, writing, etc., from the perspective of skills (Hu Wenzhong & Gao Yihong, 1997). Improvement of linguistic competence can help to cultivate communicative competence in college students.
　　2.3 Developing Students’ Pragmatic Competence
　　He Ziran (1997) defines pragmatic competence as the ability to use language in order to achieve a specific purpose and to understand language in context. Liu Shaozhong (1997) believes that pragmatic competence is language user’s ability to recognize what context s/he is in and what the speaker explicitly and implicitly means and to convey his/her intention accurately. Though the definitions are presented in different ways, there’s something in common. They are all concerned with context, and appropriate use and perception of language. No matter how PC is defined, it can be simply understood as the ability to understand and use language properly and appropriately in any given situations to achieve a successful communication.
　　3.Suggestions for Classroom Teaching
　　3.1 Affective Considerations for the Learners
　　A warm and encouraging learning atmosphere should be created in classrooms so that the learners will not be so anxious over the possibility of being ridiculed because of the errors in speaking. Patient and supportive teachers can make the learners feel secure and confident in their attempt to communicate. The activities designed to develop communication should be motivating, and meet the needs of learners with different English levels. Any attempt of communication should be encouraged and the errors causing incomprehensibility and misunderstanding should be paid enough attention to and be corrected after the activities are over.
　　3.2 Providing Authentic Teaching Materials
　　Few of Chinese students have the chances to communicate with native English speakers. They learn the target language mainly from textbooks and teachers rather than by means of communicating with foreigners. However, we usually see these sentences in the English textbooks in China: where are you going? What are you doing? These sentences, which are just a usual way of greeting in China, can only be said in concrete context in English speaking countries. If students talk to a native English-speaker in the way they learn from these dialogues, they will offend him/her and cause pragmatic failure. So it is teachers’ task to provide authentic language materials so that the students have more opportunities to come into contact with real target language and target culture.
　　3.3 Providing Authentic Contexts
　　Context plays a very important role both in interpretation of utterances and in the choice of words. Without context, words and sentences are just a pile of meaningless letters. Context is something we must always take into consideration during communication. Without making reference to the factors of context, it is impossible for us to measure whether a communication is effective or ineffective.
　　Words, expressions and grammars should be taught in concrete contexts so that students can understand different communicative functions of different grammatical structures in the real communication and experience the meaning in the concrete context. At the same time, students should also be warned of the alternatives which are the same in meaning but different in use in different context.
　　3.4 Introducing Pragmatic Knowledge
　　In learning a foreign language, linguistic knowledge is very important, but more important is to know whom, when, where, and how to apply this knowledge in different contexts. During the classroom teaching, general pragmatic knowledge about context, speech act, conversational implicature, and such pragmatic principles as Cooperative Principle and Politeness Principle should be introduced step by step so as to increase students’ awareness of pragmatic differences, develop their ability to evaluate pragmatic failures and stimulate their curiosity in this field.
　　3.5 Communicative Activities Feasible in the Classroom
　　(i) Pair work. Pair work requires two students working together and doing communicative activities like making up conversations based on the given situations.
　　(ii) Group work. Group work requires 4 to 6 students working together. Topic discussion and such games as crosswords, tongue twisters and riddles, are good choices for group work. If it is possible, the teacher can even arrange students to play English drama. Students can rewrite classical stories such as Monkey King and Romeo and Juliet into plays, or create a new play themselves, and then act it out.
　　(iii) Class work. The whole class and the teacher have to work together for the class work. The teachers can ask some students to tell stories or give speeches and then answer questions from their classmates and the teacher just like what the spokesman does in a press conference. Case study is also a good way of practice for class work. The teacher presents the students with situations in which errors, mistakes and misunderstandings occur, and then let the students find out the mistakes or misunderstandings and correct them.
　　
　　References：
　　1.Canale, M. & Swain,M.(1980).Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second language teaching and testing. Applied Linguistics,1,1-47.
　　2.Donmall B.G.(1985).Language awareness: NCLE reports and papers. London: CILT.
　　3.Canale, M.& Swain, M.(1980).Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second language teaching and testing. Applied Linguistics,1,1-47.
　　4.何自然.(1997).语用学与英语学习.上海:上海外语教育出版社.
　　5.胡文仲,高一虹.(1997).外语教学与文化.长沙:湖南教育出版社.

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