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Raquel Molina Ríos

TOPIC 2.

LA COMUNICACIÓN EN LA CLASE DE LENGUA EXTRANJERA:


COMUNICACIÓN VERBAL Y NO VERBAL. ESTRATEGIAS
EXTRALINGÜÍSTICAS: REACCIONES NO VERBALES A MENSAJES
EN DIFERENTES CONTEXTOS

COMMUNICATION IN THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE: VERBAL AND


NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION. EXTRALINGUISTIC STRATEGIES:
NON-VERBAL REACTIONS TO MESSAGES IN DIFFERENT
CONTEXTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION

2. COMMUNICATION IN THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE

2.1. THE COMMON EUROPEAN FRAMEWORK VIEW IN LANGUAGE USE AND


LEARNING

3. VERBAL AND NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION IN THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE


CLASS

3.1. VERBAL COMMUNICATION IN THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASS

3.2. NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION IN THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASS

4. EXTRALINGUISTIC STRATEGIES

4.1. NON-VERBAL REACTIONS TO MESSAGES IN DIFFERENT CONTEXTS

4.2. THE TOTAL PHYSICAL RESPONSE (TPR)

5. CONCLUSION

6. REFERENCES

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Raquel Molina Ríos

1. INTRODUCTION
The aim of teaching and learning English as a foreign language, according to the
Primary Education curriculum (RD 126/2014; Decree for Primary Education in Andalusia,
181/2020) is the acquisition of seven key competences which are defined by LOMLOE as
capacities needed to apply the different contents of each stage so that our students can
succeed when carrying out activities as well as solving complex learning situations.
LOMLOE proposes the following competences: Communicative competence, Mathematical
competence and competences based on science and technology, Digital competence,
Learning to Learn, Social and civic competences, Entrepreneurship and sense of initiative,
Cultural awareness and expressions.
In the Spanish Educational Law, we can find within the General Aims for Primary Education
(RD 126/2014), the objective (f) which is directly related to teaching a foreign language.
According to the Order 15th of January 2021, the teaching of a foreign language
aims the development of the abilities for Primary Education as do an effective use of the
knowledge, experience and communication strategies acquired in other languages and show
a receptive attitude of progressive confidence in one’s capacity for learning and for the use
of the foreign language.
This topic emphasizes not only the importance of language as a means of
communication but other kinds of communication.

2. COMMUNICATION IN THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE


Communication is the ‘exchange of meaning between individuals through a common
system of signals’. It is a characteristic of human and animal societies, by which the
individuals can transmit information, feelings or emotions.
The elements or components that make communication possible, according to
Jakobson’s model, are: a code through which the addresser transmits a message to the
receiver, within a context or determined communicative situation by way of a channel.
Language is an essential characteristic of human beings; it is the differentiating
element that makes us thinking beings. There is a strong interrelationship between language
and thought, to many studies in the field of Psycholinguistics. This ability to communicate
verbally becomes reality in a particular language, and if we consider that different languages
have different structures, we could postulate that a language or code determines a form of
understanding and interpreting reality, a way of thinking, a view of the world, as a result of
the close relationship between language, thought and culture (‘Linguistic relativity’, Sapir and
Whorf, 1956).
The linguistic relativity hypothesis embody two claims:
1. Linguistic Diversity: languages
2. Linguistic Influence on Thought: the structure and lexicon of one’s language
influences how one perceives and conceptualizes the world
The common element in the teaching of foreign languages consists in understanding
language as a means of communication. For this reason, acquiring a second language (L2)
is associated with interactive practice exercises which promote social communication. This
communicative approach is based on the observation of the natural phenomenon of
language acquisition outside the academic context.

Following Breen and Candlin (1980), Morrow (1977) and Widdowson (1978) and
others, communication is understood to have the following characteristics:
- It involves two persons (sender and receiver)
- It is a form of social interaction
- It takes place in discourse and sociocultural contexts
- It always has a purpose
- It involves authentic language

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Raquel Molina Ríos

2.1. THE COMMON EUROPEAN FRAMEWORK VIEW IN LANGUAGE USE AND


LEARNING
In the CEFR we can find an interesting description of language use and language
learning in line with a communicative approach to language teaching.
‘Language use, embracing language learning, comprises the actions performed by persons
who as individuals and as social agents develop a range of competences, both general and
in particular communicative language competences. They draw on the competences to
engage in language activities involving language processes to produce and receive texts in
relation to themes in specific domains, activating the strategies for carrying out the tasks to
be accomplished.’
Madrid, D. and McLaren, N. (2004) define competences as ‘the sum of knowledge
and skills allow a person to perform actions’ and distinguish two types of competences:
1. General competences:
- Knowledge, concepts, rules, etc. (declarative knowledge).
- Skills, procedures and strategies (procedural knowledge).
- Attitudes and values (existential competence)
- Ability to learn (learning to learn)
2. Communicative language competences.
- Linguistic competences (lexical, semantic, phonological, syntactic knowledge and
skills)
- Sociolinguistic competences (social conditions of language use)
- Pragmatic competences: language functions and speech acts.

3. VERBAL AND NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION IN THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE


CLASS
The ability to communicate in a foreign language is an important need in present-day
society. The main goal in the FL curriculum is the development of communicative
competence, which comprises linguistic/grammatical, sociolinguistic, discourse, strategic
and sociocultural sub competences.
The communicative competence involves understanding and using linguistic and
non-linguistic elements. Communication strategies are verbal and non-verbal procedures
directed toward maintaining communication and reaching a given communicative goal.
There are different types of communication. D. Crystal has designed the following
classification: auditory-vocal, visual, tactile, olfactory and gustatory.
Verbal communication is about the content while non-verbal communication is
persuasive depends largely on the bias and receptiveness of the listener. Non-verbal
communication is separate from content, and communicates vocally through pitch, tone,
cadence, and motion. (Stiff and Demiray, 2011)
While both verbal and non-verbal communication serve as reflections of our pupils’
thoughts, ideas, and emotions, they vary in the extent of use. Verbal communication explains
complex ideas because the use of words and speaking are the main forms of communication
that people use to get any message across.
The Primary FL Curriculum (RD 126/2014) recommends a Communicative Approach
for teaching and learning a Foreign Language, which is based on the theory that language is
a means of communication and facilitates the development of students’ communicative
competence.

3.1. VERBAL COMMUNICATION IN THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASS


Verbal language allows students to receive and transmit information of different sorts.
A person wants to learn a FL if s/he perceives a clear communicative need for it. This need
for communication activities, with a clear purpose.
According to Harmer, Communicative activities have the following characteristics:
- A communicative purpose
- Must be based on content rather than form
- Must use a variety of language

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Littlewood divides into two categories:


1. Functional communicative activities:
- Sharing information with restricted cooperation between interlocutors.
- Sharing information with unrestricted cooperation between interlocutors.
- Sharing and processing information.
- Information processing.
2. Social interaction activities (social context: formal, informal, and neutral register):
- Role-plays
- Free conversation

The FL teacher should be a facilitator of students’ learning. Other roles for the
teacher are those of group process manager, organizer and consultant. It that sense, the FL
teacher should:
- Broaden the students’ experiences
- Give the students the words and expressions they will need to talk about their
experiences
- Present the new language items
- Teach as quickly as possible the formulaic expressions and create situations to use
them in the class
- Exploit every language-learning task so that it will reinforce and facilitate
communication.

THE COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH: COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING


(CLT)
The term communicative denotes a marked concern with semantic aspects of
language (Wilkins, 1978). The crisis of structuralism methods had begun with Chomsky’s
criticism (1957). He argued that children’s minds are not blank slates to be filled by imitating
language they hear. Vygotsky observed the importance of conversations that children have
with adults or with other children.
The Council of Europe asked some experts to study the needs of the European
students. Porf. Van Ek, inspired by Wilkins included in his document “Threshold level of the
Council of Europe'', a list of situations, functions, topics, general and specifications,
adequate language forms and methodological implications. The goal of FLT is to develop
students’ communicative competence (Hymes, 1972). The Communicative approach use a
variety of materials:
- The use of authentic materials: letters, photos, songs…
- Language games composed of three features of communication: information gap,
choice, and feedback
- Role-plays to be aware of different social contexts and roles.
- Pair and group work is frequently used
Finally, a series of advantages and disadvantages:
- The concept of communicative is applied to all four language skills
- Learner’s knowledge and experiences is used in mother tongue
- Too much emphasis on speaking and listening
- Non-native teachers of English are not confident enough

3.2. NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION IN THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE


CLASS
D. Crystal, there are different types of human communication. Some of these modes
have a linguistic nature, such as speech, written language, and deaf and blid sign
languages. The communicative use of the visual and tactile modes in their non-linguistic
aspects is referred as non-verbal communication.
This information presents five functions: psychological, relational, interpretative,
identifying and cultural function.

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The notion of non-verbal communication is too wide and comprises all non-linguistic
elements.
1) Body movement/language: it includes gestures, facial expressions, movements of
the hands/head/feet… eye behaviour and also posture. All these elements play an
important role in human communication and express feelings and emotions in
personal social interaction.
2) Tactile conduct: It is an important factor in the first development stages of
childhood. This category includes caressing, guiding someone else´s movements,
hitting…
3) Paralanguage or paralinguistic elements: It refers to how something is said and
not to what is actually said. The following elements can be distinguished: vocal
qualities, vocal characterizers, vocal qualifiers and personal vocal devices.
4) Proxemics: it is the way a person uses space as a specific cultural element, the
study of the use and perception of social and personal space.
5) Physical characteristics: This category includes physical appearance, hair, skin
tone… and generally remains unchanged during the interaction period of time.
6) Artifacts: It refers to objects used by interacting persons, which can act as
non-verbal stimuli (clothes, perfumes…)
7) Surrounding factors: This category includes those elements that interfere in human
relations, but they are not a direct part of it, such as furniture, decoration, and other
elements within interactions.
We can say that every serious study on communication must have integrative
nonverbal elements, and FL teachers must take them into account in the FL curriculum.

4. EXTRALINGUISTIC STRATEGIES
We must look at research carried out in the field of SLA to find some bibliography on
strategies.
In 1980, the applied linguistics Canale and Wain distinguished four different
sub-competences:
- Grammatical competence
- Sociolinguistic competence
- Discourse competence
- Strategic competence
In this model, the strategic component refers to the ability to solve problems during
communication and communicators must have the ability to repair the inevitable
miscommunication.
O’Malley & Chamot define Learning Strategies as ‘the special thoughts or behaviours
that learners use to help them comprehend, learn, retain and use the information’. There are
three categories:
- Metacognitive strategies
- Cognitive strategies
- Social/Affective strategies
Finally, Rebecca Oxford (1990) provides this useful definition: ‘learning strategies are
specific actions taken by the learner to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable,
more self-directed, more effective and more transferable to new situations.’

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However, Rebecca Oxford (1990) states: ‘At this stage in the short history of
language learning strategies research, there is no complete agreement on exactly what
strategies are, how many strategies exist, how the should be defined and categorized and
whether it is possible to create a real, scientifically validated hierarchy of strategies.’

4.1. NON-VERBAL REACTIONS TO MESSAGES IN DIFFERENT


CONTEXTS
Communication is a collaborative task that implies interrelationship between the
addresser and the receiver. Halliday states that once we perceive the context of the situation
we comprehend and predict the messages sent and communicate successfully.

Other authors claim that we react emotionally to our setting (milieu) and the nature of
our reactions can be explained by the influence that the setting has on us. Every milieu
consists of three components: the setting, the presence or absence of other people and the
architectural and designing features. Movable objects.

We are going to see some communication activities that are carried out without
verbal production on the part of pupils:

- The teacher asks pupils to carry out different actions


- Guessing games
- Non-verbal reactions expressing feelings, emotions…
- Non-verbal reactions to communicative activities instructions
- Action games
- Mime games
- Acting out/simulations…

4.2. TOTAL PHYSICAL RESPONSE (TPR)

Total Physical Response (TPR) is a method that attempts to coordinate speech and
actions. It was developed by J. Asher who parallels foreign language learning to first
language acquisition. He argues that very young children learn their mother tongue through
commands and react to them physically before producing verbal responses.

TPR is related to several methods that share the ‘Comprehension first’ approach.
They consider:

- Comprehension abilities are emphasised more than productive skills


- The teaching of speaking should be postponed until listening skills have been
consolidated
- Meaning rather than form is emphasised
- Stress should be minimised

Asher considers the verb, and particularly the imperative form, as the central unit of
the lessons. The objective of TPR is to teach oral proficiency at a beginning level using
action-based drills in the imperative form.

Example: ‘Walk to the table!’, ‘Sit on the chair!’

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Other classroom activities are role-plays on everyday situations, slide presentations


for teacher narrating, followed by commands or questions and songs can be related to
actions that students- mainly the younger ones- can perform.

Lessons are not based on text-book or materials for beginners but on the teacher’s
voice, actions and gestures.

5. CONCLUSION

6. REFERENCES

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