Communication in the Foreign Language Classroom: Verbal and Non-verbal Communication

COMMUNICATION IN THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASSROOM: VERBAL AND NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION

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

N epOnline Primary English Teachers TEMARIO English 2 COMMUNICATION IN THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASSROOM: VERBAL AND NON- VERBAL COMMUNICATION. EXTRALINGUISTIC STRATEGIES: NON-VERBAL REACTIONS TO MESSAGES IN DIFFERENT CONTEXTS.LA COMUNICACIÓN EN LA CLASE DE LENGUA EXTRANJERA: COMUNICACIÓN VERBAL Y NO VERBAL. ESTRATEGIAS EXTRA- LINGÜÍSTICAS: REACCIONES NO VERBALES A MENSAJES EN DIFERENTES CONTEXTOS* COMMUNICATION IN THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASSROOM: VERBAL AND NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION. EXTRALINGUISTIC STRATEGIES: NON-VERBAL REACTIONS TO MESSAGES IN DIFFERENT CONTEXTS. *Order of November 9th, 1993 (BOE 21st) INDEX

1. INTRODUCTION. 4
2. COMMUNICATION IN THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASSROOM. 6

THE ORIGINS OF COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH

1. THE ORIGINS OF COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH. 7
2. PRAGMATIC COMPETENCE 8
3. THE NOTIONAL-FUNCTIONAL SYLLABUSES. 9
4. COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING ..... 10

Principles of Communicative Language Teaching

1. Principles 10
2. Techniques 10
3. The Communicative Classroom. 11

VERBAL COMMUNICATION

1. VERBAL COMMUNICATION. 13

ELEMENTS AND NORMS THAT RULE VERBAL COMMUNICATION

1. ELEMENTS AND NORMS THAT RULE VERBAL COMMUNICATION 14

Elements of Verbal Communication

1. Elements. 14
2. Norms that rule verbal communication 15

ROUTINES AND HABITUAL FORMULAE

1. ROUTINES AND HABITUAL FORMULAE 16
2. ORAL VERBAL COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES 16
3. WRITTEN VERBAL COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES 17
4. TEACHING VERBAL COMMUNICATION 17

NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION

1. NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION 18

VERBAL VS ORAL COMMUNICATION

1. VERBAL VS ORAL COMMUNICATION ........... 18
2. FACTORS AFFECTING NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION. 19
3. FUNCTIONS OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION .... 20

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

1. EXTRALINGUISTIC STRATEGIES: NON-VERBAL REACTIONS TO MESSAGES IN DIFFERENT CONTEXTS. 21
2. CONCLUSION. 22

Bibliography

• BRANDL, K. (2020). Communicative Language Teaching in Action: Putting Principles to Work. Cognella Academic Publishing.
• BREWSTER, J. ET AL. (1992) The Primary English Teacher's Guide. Penguin.
• CHOMSKY, N. (2008). Chomsky Essential. Bobley Head Editors.
• GIANNIKAS, C. (2021). Teaching Practices and Equitable Learning in Children's Language Education. IGI Global Publishers.
• HALLIDAY, M. (2004) -3rd ed -. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. Hodder Arnold editors.
• HARMER, J. (2015). The Practice of English Language Teaching. 5th Edition. Pearson.
• HYMES, D.H. (1972). On Communicative Competence. Pride & Holmes.
• JAKOBSON, R. (2012) Main Trends in the Science of Language. Routledge Revival Series. - First edition published in 1973 -.
• LARSEN-FREEMAN, D. (2020). Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching. Second Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• ROCCI & SAUSSURE. (2016). Verbal Communication. De Gruyter Mouton.
• ROUSE, S. (2021). Understanding Body Language: How to decode non-verbal communication. Rockrodge Publishers.

INTRODUCTION

30. INTRODUCTION. "The most important thing in communication is hearing what is not said". Peter Ferdinand Drucker. Austrian Lawyer and Philosopher "Beware of persons whose bellies do not move when they laugh". Chinese Proverb

Today's societies place challenging demands on individuals, who are confronted with complexity in many parts of their lives. What do these demands imply for key competencies that individuals need to acquire? Individuals need a wide range of competencies to face the complex challenges of today's world, and according to the current legislation in Spain and this Autonomous Community, during the stage of primary education, special relevance should be placed on two specific competences, being one of them the Competence in Linguistic Communication. This topic analyses the development of this competence within the realms of the FFL area.

Communication can be understood, following the Collins Master Dictionary definition, as "The exchange and negotiation of information between at least two individuals through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, oral and written/visual modes, and production and comprehension processes". Therefore, from this definition, we can infer that communication:

• Is a form of social interaction, and therefore it's normally acquired and used in such an interaction.
• Always has a purpose.
• Involves a high degree of unpredictability and creativity, and therefore, successful and authentic communication should involve a reduction of uncertainty on behalf of the participants.

Language is an essential tool of communication, but other means should be taken into account, such as gestures, body language and so on, given that non-verbal symbols are also components of the communication process. Hence, Modern Approaches to communication include not only linguistic production but also gesture, behaviour, mime and other aspects occurring in first-language communication. 4There are many theories of communication, but one of the most influential models has been that of Roman Jakobson, a Russian linguist and literary critic, associated with the Formalist school. In his model, Jakobson (2012) distinguishes six Communication Functions, each associated with a dimension of the communication process:

Context 3 2 Sender Message Receiver 5 Channel 6 Code

1) A context, where communication takes place and which determines the registers and function to be used: Referential Function. 2) A sender (addresser), who transmits a message: Affective Function 3) A receiver (addressee), to whom the message is addressed: Conative Function. 4) A message, which could be verbal or non-verbal: Poetic Function. 5) A code, group of signs and rules needed to formulate a message. Metalingual Function. 6) A channel through which the message is sent: Phatic Function

One of the six functions is always the dominant function in a text and is usually related to the type of text. In poetry, for instance, the dominant function is the poetic function: the focus is on the message itself.

• If the main purpose of our use of language is to communicate our ideas, concentrating on the context to which these ideas refer to, then we are dealing with the Referential or ideational function.
• If there is a direct expression of the addresser's attitude toward what is being communicated, tending to produce an impression of a certain emotion, that is the Affective or expressive function (also very common), which differs from the referential one in the sound pattern; and it flavours to some extend all our utterances.
• If we orientate our message toward the addressee because we want a certain reaction, we are dealing with the Conative function.
• If the focus is on the phonetic properties of the message, although not being the sole function of the message, we say that we are using the Poetic function of language.
• If we use the language to talk about the language, such as when checking if the addressee is using the same code as the addresser (Do you follow me? Do you know what I mean?), we talk of the Metalingual function.
• We are making use of the Phatic function when the language we use is to establish or maintain social relationships, to check if the channel or contact works, to attract or confirm the attention of the interlocutor or to discontinue communication, rather than to communicate ideas, and is normally displayed by ritualised formulas (Well ... , How do you do? etc).

To end, we will say that following the thoughts of Chomsky, Halliday (2004) grouped all the functions into what he called the three interrelated meta-functions: 5

• Ideational, to express ideas or experiences.
• Interpersonal, to indicate, establish or maintain social relationships.
• Textual, to create written or spoken texts that fit in the particular situation in which they are used.

Having sketched the theoretical foundations of the most relevant Communication Theories, we should also underscore that the content of this unit is correspondingly connected with both the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, the legal reference among the countries belonging to the European Union, and the Educative Legislation in Spain and the Autonomous Community of ( ) in 2024.

CEFRL Article 2.1.2 committed to Communicative Language Competence, highlights the importance of communication to encourage the social function of language. By fostering communication among students, we expose them to the vocabulary, expressions and cultural features of the native communities whose language is the object of study in the FFL classroom.

Accordingly, LOE 2/ 2006 modified by LOMLOE 3/2020 along with Royal Decree 157/2022 regulating Primary Education nationwide, and Decree ( ) which establishes the curriculum in the Autonomous Community of ( ), all underline the importance of classroom communication as an essential element to achieve an adequate degree of communicative competence in a foreign language.

COMMUNICATION IN THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASSROOM

1. COMMUNICATION IN THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASSROOM. of Communicative Competence. Language teaching is nowadays mainly based on the idea that the goal of language acquisition is Communicative Competence. Primary Education Stage Objective F clearly points out the current demands considering the process of Learning and Teaching of foreign languages in our educational system:

"To acquire in, at least one foreign language, the basic communicative competence allowing the students to express and understand easy messages and manage themselves in daily situations." The desired outcome of the language learning process is the ability to communicate competently, not the ability to use the language exactly as a native speaker does. 6

THE ORIGINS OF COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH

1.1. THE ORIGINS OF COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH. The communicative approach to language teaching was developed, according to Brandl (2020), in the mid-1970s from linguistic approaches that increasingly paid more attention to meaning as a reaction against formalist or structuralist paradigms.

In the 1950's and 1960's, language teaching was dominated by the audio-lingual (USA) method and the situational approach (UK). The term situational was first referred to what had been known as oral approaches since the 1930s.

Consequently, Audio-Lingual and Situational teaching emphasized the learning of language forms. The linguistic origins of the communicative approach owe much to the interest in the study of meaning that grew from dissatisfaction with formalist or structuralist paradigms in three areas: (1) linguistics, (2) sociolinguistics and (3) linguistic philosophy.

Linguistics and the Communicative Approach

1. Linguistics Chomsky, (as cited in Chomsky, 2008) introduced in 1965 a meaning component into his model of transformational-generative grammar. Since then, the study of meaning gained interest in linguistics. Fillmore (as cited in Chomsky, 2008) developed a new model of grammar, called case grammar, that would include semantic roles and was very influential on Michael Halliday. He has a functional view of language, i.e. he wants to explain how the language is used to express meaning. The forms of a language are considered «as means to an end, rather than as an end in themselves» (Halliday 2004). The language system is used for three main functions or kinds of meaning, as we commented in the introduction: Ideational, interpersonal and textual. The importance given to the functions of language together with the introduction of context in his model were of great value to those applied linguists developing the Communicative Approach. Halliday defined the terms field, tenor and mode to refer to context. Field refers to the setting and subject matter, tenor to the relationship between participants and mode to the channel of communication (Halliday, 2004).

Sociolinguistics and Communicative Competence

2. Sociolinguistics The sociologist Hymes (1972) contributed to the communicative approach with the concept of communicative competence and a definition of context. Communicative competence was different from Chomsky's concept of competence. In generative grammar competence, Chomsky (2008) refers to a person's internalized grammar of a language, which enables them to understand and create language and to know which structures are correct and which are not. The concept of Competence shows that, for formalists like Chomsky, language is primarily a mental phenomenon shared by the speakers of every language because it is derived from a common linguistic inheritance. 7