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INTRODUCTION Every act that a human being performs has a communicative purpose. Language is the most complex system of signs, but it is not the only one that we use. Facial expressions, distance from the speaker, intonations, silences, alone or accompanied by language, communicate something. Every word that we utter conveys a feeling or attitude that is not present in words. We should learn how to use and detect these attitudes to be able to get on well with others. Some non-verbal messages messa ges are so important that they must be included in the area of linguistics. Since the 1970s, the belief that language is a means of communication has inspired a new approach in English language teaching: the Communicative Approach, based on providing the students with communicative activities that will develop their oral and written skills. Our current Educational System has incorporated this functional and communicative potential of language in its objectives objectives and methodology. The ultimate goal is the development of the students’ communicative competence. In this chapter we will analyze the nature of communication and the ideas and principles of the Communicative Approach to Foreign Language Teaching. We will also establish the features of verbal and non-verbal language, and their pedagogical implications in the English class. 1 

COMMUNICATION IN THE FL CLASS

As far as the definition of communication is concerned, this concept has been defined as the exchange of meanings between individuals through a common system of symbols. Savignon (1997) defines language and further emphasizes the contextual dimension of language use and that one’s success in communicating may vary from situation to situation: “Communication “Communicatio n takes place in an infinite variety of situations, and success in a particular role depends on one’s understanding of the context and on prior experience of a similar kind. Success requires making appropriate choices of register and style in terms of the situation and the other  participants”.    participants”. In investigating communication, McLuhan (1960) drew the threads of interest in the field of communication into a view that associated many contemporary psychological and sociological phenomena with the media employed in modern culture. By the late 20th century, the main focus of interest in communication seemed to  be drifting away from McLuhanism and to be centring upon: a)  The mass communication industries  b)  Persuasive communication and the use of technology to influence dispositions

 

c) d)  e)  f)  g) 

Processes of interpersonal communication as mediators of information Dynamics of verbal and non-verbal communication between individuals Perception of different kinds of communication Uses of communication technology for social and artistic purposes, including education Development of relevant criticism for artistic endeavours employing modern communication technology

1.1  THE NATURE OF COMMUNICATION Communication is the understanding which occurs between humans through linguistic and non-linguistic means like gestures, mimicry and voice. Communication between humans is an extremely complex phenomenon, with many variables  – the the  participants, context, purpose and channel are some of the factors that are present in a communicative act. Whenever communication takes place, there is a speaker (or writer) and a listener (or reader) who has a communicative purpose: having a conversation, giving information…and they will use a medium for doing so: a letter, face to face, telephone…  telephone… 

 

If we want our teaching to be communicative we will have to follow these generalizations about the nature of communication and its relevance for the learning and teaching of languages. Jeremy Harmer explains the nature of communication thus –  thus  – first first he makes generalizations about speakers: 1.  They want to say something. 2.  They have some communicative purpose. 3.  They select from their language store. He then makes some generalizations about listeners:

 

1. to listen in to the something. 2.  They They want are interested purpose of what is being said. 3.  They process a variety of language. These generalizations do not just apply to the spoken word, they are applicable to written communication as well, although the difference is that the writer is not in immediate contact with the reader. Thus, when organizing communicative activities, teachers must ensure that the activities students are involved i nvolved in share the process we have just described: 1) the students should have a desire to communicate; 2) they should have a communicative purpose, and 3) they should deal with a variety of language, either receptively or productively. 1.2  THE COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH IN ENGLISH TEACHING The Communicative Approach also called Communicative Language Teaching and Functional Approach is one of the principles on which foreign language methodology is based on at the moment. This approach appeared in the 1970s as a reaction to the Audiolingual Method, which paid more attention to structure than to its function. The changes became a revolution in applied linguistics, l inguistics, that is, the teaching of a language. l anguage. The  person responsible for these changes was Noam Chomsky. Chomsky.  Noam Chomsky rejected the structuralist approach to language description and the behaviourist ideas on language learning: “Language is not a habit  habit   structure. Ordinary linguistics behaviour characteristically involves innovation, formation of new sentences and patterns in accordance with rules of great abstractness and intricacy”. What struck Chomsky about language was its creativity.  creativity.   He proposed an alternative theory of language learning to that of behaviourism. Chomsky argued that sentences are not learned by imitation and repetition but are generated from the learners’ competence. Learners, then, should be encouraged to use their innate and creative abilities. The linguists that pleaded for a new approach based their position on the ttheory heory that learning a language is not only the learning of structures, it implies much more. It is also necessary to learn how to use these structures  by keeping in mind the moment, the place, the social socia l conventions and the channel used. The work of these scholars had a significant impact on the development of a Communicative Approach to language teaching. The Council of Europe incorporated this communicative view into a set of specifications for a First Level Communicative Syllabus called Threshold Level English in the 1980s. These specifications have had a strong influence on the design of methods and textbooks in Europe. The main concept derived from communicative teaching is communicative competence, which is defined as what a speaker needs to know in order to be communicatively competent in a speech community, Hymes coined this term in contrast to Chomsky’s theory of competence. For Chomsky, competence simply implied  implied   the knowledge of the language system. Hymes maintained that Chomsky’s theory was incomplete and that a communicative and cultural dimension should be incorporated. A speaker does not only need the ability to use grammatical structures, but also to learn how to use those structures in a community (appropriateness). Canale and Swain (1980) were two linguists who expanded the previous description of Hymes’, establishing four dimensions of the communicative competence (subcompetences).

 

1.  Grammatical competence. This refers to the correct use of the linguistic code, i.e. the mastery of grammatical structures, vocabulary and pronunciation. 2.  Discursive competence. The ability to relate and combine grammatical forms, in order to achieve coherent texts. 3.  Sociolinguistic competence. The ability to produce and understand messages relating to social context,  participants and purpose; in other words, the appropriate appropriate use of language. 4.  Strategic competence. It refers to participants’ verbal and non -verbal strategies: beginning, maintaining or finishing a chunk of communication, avoiding ruptures in the transmission of the message. These are the procedures which are necessary for communication to be effective. These four skills are complemented by socio-cultural competence, which implies the knowledge of certain cultural facts which are of key importance for us to understand a message completely. The communicative strand relates to conscious and subconscious learning, and to accuracy as well as to fluency and appropriateness. Julian Juli an Edge describes the students’ tasks as juggling with three clubs: 1) accuracy, conforming to the language itself, 2) fluency, using the system quickly and easily, and 3) appropriateness, relating successfully to other people through language. 1.3  IMPORTANT FACTORS IN THE COMMUNICATIVE CLASS In the previous point we have already seen that the student should achieve communicative competence in the language. Therefore, the English class should proceed to favour communication at all times. Next, we are going to analyze factors to bear in mind within the Communicative Approach: Input Input is the language to which the student is exposed. This is an important factor, because if the input is enough, and appropriate, the language the student will acquire will also be adequate. At the beginning, the input should be oral, because a language is learnt by listening. lis tening. The written input will be introduced more gradually, with texts, graphs, readings, etc. the more abundant and varied the input, the better communicative skills the student will develop. But the input that we should offer the students must be comprehensible to them. In order to achieve this we can use any aid that helps with the understanding of the structure that he/she is learning. This is one of the hypotheses of Krashen’s Natural Method, which has had a great influence on the teaching of languages.  languages.  To sum up, this input must have the following features: it should be related to the students’ interests interests;; it should  be applicable to a wide number of situations, with a level of complexity only a little more advanced than the knowledge that the students possess, and it should have enough contextual support to facilitate their understanding. Student groupings The classroom is not the best place to learn a language. It has space and time limitations that prevent real communicative situations. In fact, it is outside the classroom where a language is learnt better. Nevertheless, although in the classroom we lack the ingredients found outside, as teacher, we will try to create an atmosphere which is as similar as possible to a real situation. This will be possible if we organize activities which include a great variety of interactions. In order to achieve varied interactions, it is necessary for space to be organized in a flexible way, to facilitate diverse groupings: 

class. It is the traditional teaching situation in which all the students are working with the   Whole teacher in the same activity. The author Jeremy Harmer calls this type of grouping lockstep, because “all the students are ‘locked into’ the same rhythm and pace”. This interaction is typically used when introducing or explaining a structure, function or vocabulary. But it is also useful for involving the

 

teacher in communicative activities. It is useful usef ul in the imitation stage, where choral repetition and drills take place. The advantages of using lockstep in the imitation stage are: o  Everyone hears the same model from the teacher. o  It provides practice in speaking for many students at the same time. o  The teacher can easily monitor the students’ performance.  performance.   o  Choral repetition and drills are often dynamic activities, providing they go at the right speed, and they aren’t carried out for too long.  long.   o  It encourages the shyest students to speak.

  Pair work. This interaction can be complicated at the beginning, pair work is a very good method to

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 practice a lively livel y way has already learnt. Pair work is usually usuallThe y used in advantages the practiceare: stage sta ge and in a in great number of what activities, whetherbeen speaki speaking, ng, writing or reading. main o  More practice. If the students practice a linguistic form simultaneously, the time they spend speaking is longer than if they had to speak one by one. o  It improves personal relationships. Relationships within partners improve with communicative interaction: they get to know each other better, they can share their knowledge and they have to opportunity to help each other. o  Similarity with real life. The situation of being face to face with a speaker is more similar to real life than being asked by the teacher all the time. o  Increased self-confidence. Pair work increases self-confidence in the student because they are not coerced by the teacher’s figure. Pair work also presents problems: more noise, loss of time during organization, impossibility of correcting all couples, of them using their mother tongue, etc.  –   but, all al l in i n all, the advantages of  pair work outweigh therisk disadvan disadvantages. tages.

  Group work. In group work there is three participant or more involved in an activity. This is ideal for

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activities of freer production. In fact, fluency is developed with this type of grouping. There are many reasons for using group work in the class: o  It increases the amount of time of student talking time. o  It gives students the sense of using the language la nguage communicatively. o  It increases self-confidence in the use of language. i s a greater scope for discuss discussion. ion. o  It is more dynamic than pair work, because there is o  Group work is potentially more relaxing than pair work, since the latter puts greater demand on cooperating closely with only one person. Of course, the problems that apply to pair work can equally be applied to group work. The solutions depend mainly on the good organization and a confident and positive attitude towards these techniques. tech niques. One of the biggest problems with group work is the selection of group members. A teacher can form groups where weak and strong students are mixed together. Materials In the Communicative Approach, materials are considered to promote communicative language use. Three types of materials are set out within this approach: 1.  Text-based materials. Textbooks. 2.  Task-based materials. Communicative language teaching is based on task-based learning, which means the students have to achieve something through the use of language: role-play, simulations, games, exercise handbooks, activity cards, pair work activities…  activities…   3.  Realia. Communicative language teaching advocates the use of authentic materials, such as signs, magazines, songs, chants, videos, stories, advertisements, visual resources. The use of authentic materials contributes to reducing the distance between the classroom and the real world.

 

Communicative activities Communicative activities refer to tasks and exercises that the student carries out for real communication. These activities focus more on the message than on the linguistic features of language. Children learn how to speak without knowing anything about verbs, adjectives or verbal tenses. The Communicative Approach believes that the practice of communicative activities will produce an unconscious learning of the structures of the language. A communicative activity must be:

  Interactive. Two or more people are involved in the communicative interaction.   Unpredictable. A student has to seek the information his/her partner has. This will create the necessity necess ity 

and the desire to communicate.

  Within a context. This refers to the situational context (place, channel) as well as to the linguistic

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context (cohesion in linguistic forms and vocabulary).

  Authentic. The language used should be genuine, that is to say, similar to an English-speaking

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 person’s.    person’s.

  Developed within a relaxed atmosphere. If the student is under normal emotional conditions, the

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learning will be more effective. Teacher’s and learner’s role  role   The role of the foreign language teacher is central to the learning process. While teachers of other disciplines are called upon to inculcate habits, attitudes, knowledge, or skills in a medium already familiar to their students, the foreign language teacher must bring about changes or modifications in behavior, habits, attitudes, knowledge, or skills in an unfamiliar medium requiring additional of different psychological activity. The organs of speech must be taught to move in unprecedented ways; the sounds striking the listener’s ears must  be perceived without distortion from from or confusion with th thee known sounds sounds of the native language. language. The teacher has to be a combination of linguist, sociolinguist, anthropologists, and a pedagogue. The following major dimensions dimensi ons of the teacher’s task can be established:  established: 

  The teacher should modify the curriculum content as he ascertains the strengths, weaknesses, and

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aspirations of his students.

  He should keep the motivation of his students at a high level.   The teacher should provide for individual differences.

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On the other hand, due to the learner-centered teaching, the students’’ role has changed in the last years. In this sense, students do not learn in an individualistic way, but rather in an interdependent way. The emphasis is therefore on the process of communication and not on the mastery of language forms, so or students must negotiate, within the group and the classroom. cl assroom. Successful communication can only be aachieved chieved through group interaction. 2 

VERBAL COMMUNICATION

In the English class, verbal communication is as important as non-verbal communication. It would be very difficult to teach a language only using verbal communication, and without any extralinguistic support. The class is an artificial setting where the teacher tries to recreate the real world. We will first analyze verbal communication which is developed in the English class and, in the next section, we will do the same with non-verbal communication. 2.1  ORAL COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES Oral communication is a two-way process between the speaker and the listener. The addresser initiates a conversation; the addressee listens and then responds. Speakers and listeners are constantly changing roles,

 

following the pattern “speak -listen-respond-listen”. -listen-respond-listen”. It this particular kind of interaction which is difficult for foreign language learners. In the classroom, teachers will need to ensure that the two skills are integrated through situations that allow and encourage authentic communication. To attain this goal, teachers will have to take the students from the stage in which they are mainly imitating a model of the language to the point in which the can use language more freely. The teacher, therefore, will have to give the students two complementary levels of training in verbal communication: 1.  Practice stage, where students practice the manipulation of the fixed ele elements ments of language. During this  practice stage, the teacher can use activities such as: a.  Guided dialogues.  b.  Questions. c.  Language games. d.  Reciting and singing. 2.  Production stage, where students have opportunities for the expression of personal meaning. The following activities are designed to provoke spoken communication between students or between the teacher and the students: a.  Information-gap activities.  b.  Role-play. c.  Problem-solving.

  d.  Personal experiences. e. Communicative games.

2.2  WRITTEN COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES Learning to write a language is important for three reasons: 1.  Because in order to master a language, l anguage, it is necessary to have a good mastery of both the oral and written form. 2.  Because in real life we need to write. 3.  Because it reinforces the learning of oral communications. Writing words or sentences helps retain them. Other reasons are specific to children: 1.  Children usually like writing. For our younger pupils, writing has novelty value, since they have started to write in their mother tongue not long ago. 2.  Most children expect to be taught to write. This is one thing you have to do when you go to school. 3.  Children need to break from oral work. Children need to change activity, and writing provides not only a change from taking, but also a quiet period in the lesson. 4.  Children can work at their own pace when writing, which is relaxing for them. As we can see, communicative writing plays a valuable part in the English class. The following activities acti vities are designed to provoke written communication:

  Writing instructions.   Writing short messages.   Writing short letters.

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Writing to pen friends. Writing questionnaires. Writing imaginary diaries. Filling in forms.

 

  Communicative games.   Project work.

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2.3  CLASSROOM LANGUAGE The English teacher should take every opportunity available to use everyday language in the classroom. The genuine use of language allows the student to learn a series of structures and vocabulary effortlessly in a real context. The objective should be understanding the input, as well as acquiring some language items. The use of foreign language is suggested in these situation: sit uation: 

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At the beginning of the class. The date. Instructions for beginning an activity. Encouraging sentences Correcting. Finishing the class.

3   NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION COMMUNICATION  Non-verbal communication has been neglected in the teaching of of languages. However, nowadays its importance is recognized. This is vital, because:

  It helps to express and to understand messages when the communicative competence is not very

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high.   It favours the learning of social and cultural conventions, that is to say, the sociolinguistic competence.

  It has an enormous pedagogical potential, since the use of expressions, drawings, sounds or

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movements is highly attractive and motivating for children. Gestures and body language This form of non-verbal communication is called non-vocal because the human voiced is not involved. It includes facial expressions, posture, eye e ye and hand movements. In the English class there is abundant use of expressions and body language. Apart from transmitting verbal messages, they have value in themselves, since they also transmit attitudes att itudes and emotions. They are also important when checking the degree of understanding of our message. Facial expression accompanies verbal language and it usually coincides with the emphasis that we are giving our message. Hand movements are also a help to what is being said. Communication with hands in an English classroom is very frequent. With them, the teacher can point out objects, students; use fingers to count numbers or words; clarify temporary concepts or explain grammatical aspects. Physical movements There is a theory in the teaching of languages called Total Physical Response, by James Asher, based on the theory that a child acquires language through movement –  movement – the the child learns a language by listening and executing commands. Asher sees successful foreign language learning as a parallel process to child first-language acquisition. He argues that children respond physically to adults’ commands before the produce verbal responses. Therefore, second language learners should imitate the first-language first -language acquisition process. The principles of this method met hod are:

 

1.  Comprehension abilities to precede productive skills. Speaking is delayed until oral comprehension is established. 2.  Teaching should focus on meaning rather than form. 3.  Teaching should reduce learner stress. The teacher must create a positive mood in the learner by delaying oral production and by demanding game-like movements. Accent and intonation This type of non-verbal communication s denominated paralanguage, because they are aspects of language which accompany the words we produce. We can divide them into prosodic features (loudness, pitch pitc h and stress) and into more general features (grunts, sights, giggles and snorts). Intonation is the melody of the sentence that is raised or lowered according to the question, explanation or statement that is uttered. Intonation is of special importance in English, since this is a language in which there are many inflections. The student should learn how to use intonation correctly to sound like a native  person. Visual aids Visual aids have two functions in the English class: first, to lessen the gap between the real world and the classroom, and second, to foster the transmission of the contents of language. The visual support of pictures, drawings, flashcards, posters, etc., can help understand the message, because of the communicative power of the image. “One image is worth a thousand words”, as the saying goes. Children feel especially attracted attracte d to them, and the pedagogical effect is unquestionable. A child who is listening and seeing at the same time learns more than if he/she just listens. Images help to retain what is  being learnt. Auditory aids Auditory aids, such as sounds, noises, musical melodies and rhythms, have great communicative and an d  pedagogical power, just like visual aids. They are communicative communicative because we are surrounded by noises, sounds and melodies which have meaning. They are of great pedagogic value because help to retain what is  being learnt: if the child is learning means of transport, hearing the noise of the train, car…while listening  to the word is very effective. Melodies and rhythms have other functions: they foster the pronunciation of words, they foster the learning of structures and vocabulary, they transmit cultural elements and they create a pleasant atmosphere in class. 4  EXTRALINGUISTI EXTRALINGUISTIC C STRATEGIES: NON-VERBAL REACTIONS IN DIFFERENT CONTEXTS Everything we communicate which is not related to the formal aspects aspect s of language is extralinguistic. In this section we will explain several communicative situations in which the reaction of the student to the t he message will not be verbal. The student will understand the message, but he/she he/s he will not be requested to utter a verbal answer.  4.1  PEDAGOGICAL REASONS TO USE EXTRALINGUISTIC STRATEGIES There are three pedagogical reasons to use this type of activity in an English class: 1.  Oral understanding precedes oral production. The student, especially in the first fi rst stages, understands  better than he/she speaks and, in fact, according to James Asher, in order or a person to acquire a language, the level of understanding should be slightly beyond their current level of competence. 2.   Non Non-verbal verbal answers reduce anxiety. According to James Asher’s theory TPR, a fundamental requirement for learning is the absence of stress. s tress. If the child does not feel pressure to produce an oral answer, he/she will feel more relaxed rela xed and thus will concentrate more on the learning.

 

3.  Greater independence in the communicative process. If the student uses communicative strategies, he/she will have less limitations limita tions when understanding and being understood in English. Besides, he/she will not depend on the teacher to be able to communicate. 4.2   NON-VERBAL REACTIONS REACTIONS IN DIFFERENT CONTEXTS Although there is a vast array of possibilities, we have selected a few non-verbal reactions that can take place in different situations:

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Physical responses to actions Physical responses to the lyrics of songs Responding to instructions with drawings Responding to instructions in order to build something Pointing out Miming a story Sequencing Responding with proper expressions or intonation Predicting strategies

CONCLUSION The main objective of the English class is to communicate. When communicating, we do not only use words, we also use expressions, drawings, intonation, sounds. In short, we use verbal as well as non-verbal communication.  Non-verbal communication accompanied or not not y verbal communication, has great communicative  potential, which should not be ignored ignored when teaching English.  Non-verbal communication is useful in the English English class because it helps the student develop communicative strategies and, in short, improve communicative competence, which is the aim of our current.