Scribd
Upload
75 views2 pages

Communicative Competence: A Jigsaw Task

The article discusses four sub-competencies that are necessary for communicative competence: grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence, and strategic competence. A jigsaw task is an information gap activity where students communicate to fill in missing information. In the video, students were given note cards containing examples that demonstrate deficiencies in one of the four competencies.

Uploaded by

Saadah Mahani
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
75 views2 pages

Communicative Competence: A Jigsaw Task

The article discusses four sub-competencies that are necessary for communicative competence: grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence, and strategic competence. A jigsaw task is an information gap activity where students communicate to fill in missing information. In the video, students were given note cards containing examples that demonstrate deficiencies in one of the four competencies.

Uploaded by

Saadah Mahani
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 2

Communicative Competence

In 1980, the applied linguists Canale and Swain published an influential article in which they argued that the ability to communicate required four different sub-competencies:

grammatical (ability to create grammatically correct utterances), sociolinguistic (ability to produce sociolinguistically appropriate utterances), discourse (ability to produce coherent and cohesive utterances), and strategic (ability to solve communication problems as they arise).

A Jigsaw Task A jigsaw task is a specific kind of information gap task, that is, a task that requires learners to communicate with each other in order to fill in missing information and to integrate it with other information. For example, in the video, the students are not aware that their note cards contain a communicative problem (e.g. a violation of prescriptive grammar, ambiguous reference, etc.) that indicates a deficiency in one of the sub-competencies of "communicative competence." Listen to the students attempt to paraphrase their language sample and see if you can determine which language sample below indicates a lack of which competency.

Sample 1 "OK, now move your cursor over and choose the scene from the menu." "From the what?" "The menu." "Menu? Why do they call it a menu?" "Well, 'cause you choose from a list. Just like in a restaurant. A menu." "Oh, OK." Sample 3 "I told 'em about it." "Told who about what? " "John and Mike about the report. And he wasn't happy about it?" "Who wasn't happy?"

Sample 2 "Hello Mr. Patterson, thanks for dropping by. I've reviewed your bank statement and... " (interrupts) "Dude, you gonna ask me a bunch of lame questions?" "Ah...lame questions...uhm...I don't know, uhm...well, I DO have a few more questions." "Well, make it fast 'cause I am on a tight schedule!"

Sample 4 He eated the ice cream. She no think you right.

"Mike wasn't."

You might also like