A Study of Chinese College Students’ English Communicative Competence
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14738/assrj.25.1104Abstract
Developing communicative competence plays a very important role in Chinese college students’ English learning. This study investigates how well the students do in using English to communicate with others with the help of questionnaires, which may help them find out some practical strategies to overcome their difficulties in communicating using English. After careful analysis of the means of the subjects’ scores, some causes for the students’ weak communicative competence are found out. They are students’ lack of enthusiasm in using English to communicate, lack of the related cultural background knowledge of English-speaking countries, being afraid of making mistakes, lack of necessary communicating skills, lack of English linguistic knowledge, etc. Some measures should be taken by English teachers to help their students to actively participate in English communication. They should try a lot to encourage their students to make more efforts in order to improve their English communicative competence.
References
Canale, M. & M. Swain. Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second language teaching and testing. Applied Linguistics, 1980, (1): 1J47.
Hedge, T. Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 2002.
Hymes, D. On communicative competence. In J. B. Pride & Holmes (eds.), Sociolinguistics. New York: Penguin, 1972: 269J293.
Littlewood, W. Communicative Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.
Rivers, W. M. Communicating Naturally in a Second Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Wen, H. Y. Applying communicative approach in teaching grammar to cultivate students’ ability of using language. Foreign Language World, 1998, (1): 39J43.
Widdowson, H. Teaching Language as Communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978.
Zhang, D. B. Oral English teaching and the cultivation of linguistic competence and communicative competence. Journal of Xi’an International Studies University, 2005, (3): 66J69.

