FRAMEWORK FOR FOREIGN LANGUAGE COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE

We suppose the most important components of Foreign Language Com­municative Competence are those enumerated below:

• sociopolitical competence;

• information technology competence;

• sociocultural competence;

• plurilingual and intercultural competence;

• linguistic competence (in grammar, pronunciation and lexis);

• strategic competence and general education competence [83; 12].

By sociopolitical competence they understand forming a psychological read­iness in learners to solve problems. It is directed at prevention of frustration of students as a reaction to some potentially negative future situations in their life. Formation of sociapolitical competence in learners while mastering a foreign language involves them in social life. Acquiring sociopolitical competence in the foreign language, they train themselves, either orally or in writing, in:

• sharing responsibility,

• solving various kinds of problems,

• accustoming themselves to showing readiness to take the initiative and in
suggesting a way out of this or that difficult embarassing situation.

Below there are given some tasks which are appropriate to forming socio­political competence in learners.

A.          CHOOSE ONE OF THE FOLLOWING IDEAS AND PROVE IT:

1.          The construction of the oil terminal in Odessa region

a.threatens the environment; b. is necessary for Ukraine; с is impossible; d. is too expensive for Ukraine.

Speak out in order to prove your choice.

2.          The pre-port plant adjacent to the port of Uzhniy in 45 kilimetres from
Odessa

a. is to be sold; b. is to be privatized; с is dangerous to the environment. Speak out in order to prove your choice.

B.          I. FILL OUT THE BLANKS IN THE TEXT BELOW:

Yesterday we were walking up along the road to our house. It was 11 p.m. We were terrified to see that somedody ... lying of the ground and groaning. The man was old and wounded. I wanted to stop and help .... But... husband told me that the man ... drunk. And the son said.... it.... none of my business. At home I was very unhappy about having left.... man, so I decided that....

II.          Continue the story. Make up two different variants of the end and write
them down.

III.         Retell your stories.

By information technology competence they mean a kind of competence which allows learners to collect and choose proper information.

In higher grades it presupposes learners' need and ability to work with up-to-date information, including skills of information technology and doing an Internet search. Below some tasks of the kind are given:

A.          YOU'VE JUST READ A DESCRIPTION OF OUR TRANSPORT COM­
PANY TO WHICH YOU APPLIED FOR WORK. SUGGEST YOUR OPINION
AS TO WHATKINDSOFVEHICLESOURCOMPANYWOULD NEED. GIVE
YOUR PROOFS.

In primary grades developing elements of information technology com­petence is also possible. It implies tasks in choosing, selecting, classifying, evaluating and comparing data, e.g.:

B.          CHOOSE THE NAMES OF THE FOODS WHICH ARE HEALTHY:
Steak, bread, chocolate, carrots, potatoes, eggs, ketchup, bananas, carrots,

milk, coffee, tea, cakes.

С CHOOSE THE NAMES OF THE FOODS WHICH ARE UNHEALTHY AND TR Y TO EXPLAIN WHY YOU THINK SO.

Burgers, salads, sausages, steaks, fruit, smoked fish, lettuce, ketchup, mus­tard, fat, oil, vegetables, sugar, salt, eggs.

D. PLACE THE WORDS IN THE APPROPRIATE COLUMNS BELOW.

Gate, to peel, back, knee, microwave, blender, shutter, cottage, tin open­er, toenail, coffee machine, sink, thigh, basement, nail, breast, armpit, tap, semi-detached house, cupboard, etc.

By sociocultural competence they understand developing in learners a kind of readiness and ability to communicate, live, interact and cooperate with representatives of countries which have a lot of cultural diversities in comparison with our country. It is the foreign language as a subject along with subjects of historical and literary cycles that suggests an excellent opportunity to develop social cohesion between learners and coherence between different subjects of school curriculum.

To honour the spirit of cultural, historic and religious values of other nations, to develop their tolerance to them, learners should have at least elementary knowledge of the history and culture of leading countries and civilizations of the world, including those of their native country. To make mastering the foreign language work for developing learners' sociocultural competence, text-books of English should include information on reli­gion, history, culture, national symbols and traditions of leading coun­tries of the world. This would help learners understand and treat modern multinational and multicultural world tolerantly and with respect to every nationality.

Dealing with such information teachers must give learners every oppor­tunity to work out their personal convictions and principles. Below some ap­propriate tasks are given.

Learners are suggested a list of holidays and events celebrated in Ukraine, Great Britain and the USA. Then a number of tasks follows.

PLACE THE WORDS GIVEN IN THE LIST IN THE APPROPRIATE COLUMNS AND WRITE THE NAME(S) OF THE COUNTRY IT IS CEL­EBRATED IN.

Religious   Entertaining   Political       Professional   Sports

holidays    events           holidays           events                events

I. Make up a questionnaire on the holidays and events mentioned.

II Retell what you know and what your personal opinion is about the events and holidays you 've copied out.

III. Get ready to conduct an International Conference "Holidays and events in Ukraine, Great Britain and the USA." Divide the group into small teams each representing a country. Choose the Master of Ceremony and start the confer­ence.

Try to describe whether there is any difference in celebrating particular events in this country and abroad

By plurilingual and intercultural competence they mean ability to use a plural repertoire of linguistic and cultural resources to meet communication needs or interact with people from other backgrounds and contexts, and enrich that rep­ertoire while doing so. Plurilingual competence refers to the repertoire of re­sources which individual learners acquire in all the languages they know or have learned, and which also relate to the cultures associated with those languages (languages of schooling, regional/ minority or migration languages, modern foreign or classical languages). Intercultural competence, for its part, makes it easier to understand otherness, to make cognitive and effective connections between past and new experiences of alterity, mediate between members of two (or more) social groups and other cultures, and question the assumptions of one's own cultural group and environment' [68, 6J. Tasks of the following kind can help teachers to form pluringual and intercultural competence in their learners. [The pictures in figures 3 & 4 are taken from 84, 52].

1 .Interview these people. Ask them

what their names are,

where they live,

where their country is situated,

what the capital cities of their countries are

what language they speak,

what they do every day,

what their national food is,

what their plans are.

You may begin the interview with "Hello/ I'm Igor/Sveta. I'm glad to see you
in our city... '

Fig. 3 Interview these people

Fig. 4 Ask your peer about these people

By strategic (or coping ) competence they understand learners' ability of asking for information, seeking clarification, using circumlocution and

whatever other linguistic and nonlinguistic resources they could muster to negotiate meaning and stick to the communicative task at hand. [81,16]. This kind of competence along with grammatical competence and sociolinguistic competence is one of the most important ones in the framework for commu­nicative competence [81, 16]. The communicative curriculum must include special tasks which would invariably lead learners to take risks and speak in other than memorized patterns generating them on the spot. The best condi­tion for developing strategic competence can be provided at non-standard lessons, for example:

At an information project lesson the following assignment can be given to one of its participants:

"Collect all the information available on the cheapest and shortest way of getting from Ukraine to London. Your time is 15 min."

To carry out this task learners are to be able to use a computer and conduct a computer search.

By Linguistic Competence they understand learners' skills in correct usage of lexical, grammatical and phonemic items of the foreign language based on con­sciously-raising assimilation. Owing to their linguistic competence learners can develop their skills in interpretation, expression, or negotiation of meaning [83, 17]. It doesn't, however, mean that learning linguistic rules is the aim of study­ing the foreign language . Learners are to be taught so that in their spontaneous speech they could use these items correctly involuntary and uncontrollably.

The main stages in forming linguistic competence are as follows:

First — interactive introduction and primary assimilation of any lan­guage item in an oral speech-visual-and-graphic situation; it doesn't depend whether the form refers to grammar, lexis or phonetics.

Second — conscious-raising assimilation of language items with the help of linguistic rules, drills and exercises.

Third — the use of language items in natural and spontaneous speech ac­tivity.

The importance of forming linguistic competence in learners can't be over­stated. First of all, it is the linguistic competence which makes speech in any language grammatically correct, euphonic and beautiful. The other reason is that none of the communicative competence types mentioned above can be formed without linguistic competence. Moreover, cultural, historical and social

background of the contents of foreign language teaching can't be completely understood and evaluated by learners without their linguistic competence.

That's why being not an end-in itself the linguistic competence is the foundation of the whole knowledge of a foreign language. Formation of lin­guistic competence in learners can be considered one of the main basis of methodology.

All things considered, we may well conclude that every teacher must be highly professional so that he/she were able to form and develop linguistic competence in learners, i.e. to make them understand in what ways any of the grammatical, lexical or phonemic items are to be used in speech in accord­ance with the linguistic peculiarities of the language studied.

By general education competence they understand gaining by learners the skills they need to master their foreign language speech successfully. The skills include forming and developing in learners various abilities to make learning effective. Among them are learners' self-dependant time distribution, proper evaluation of the relationship between the role of the teacher, the role of the text-book and of their personal role in the process of mastering the language. Ability to get proper data from the Internet or various information and re­source centers also refers to general education competence.

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