Focusing On Communication Strategies To Develop Communication Competence

The main purpose of second language teaching is to enable learners to become communicatively proficient. Using a language (whether first or second) involves something that goes beyond the acquisition of structures and the ability to make appropriate choices in the realization of particular language functions. It also depends crucially on the ability to produce utterances that fit or make sense within a given stretch of discourse and the ability to interpret the meaning of utterances thus produced by others. Second language teaching must be conducted for and by communication. It is suggested that effective use of communicative strategies is of great importance for second language learners to compensate their limited language resources and avoid breakdowns in communication. Nowadays quite many Chinese L2 learners find it difficult to convey their meaning. Therefore, it is very urgent and necessary to develop communicative competence in English teaching. Based on the research into students' actual beliefs and use of communicative strategies in a senior high school through a questionnaire survey and interviews, the findings indicate that there is a general lack of understanding about communicative strategies and communicative competence among the students. This paper aims at pointing out the importance of communicative approach in developing L2 learners' communicative competence as well as analyzing the reasons that affect the development of communicative competence, such as learning situation, cultural background, current testing system, etc. In addition, the importance of teachers' role in communication training is taken into account and how to apply communicative approach is analyzed in order to achieve the improvement of students' communicative competence. The paper also suggests some questions for further research on communicative approach.