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“COMMUNICATION IN T HE FOREIGN LANG LANGUA UAGE GE CLAS CLASSR SROO OOM: M: VERB VERBAL AL AND AND NONNONVERBAL COMMUNICATION. EXTRALINGUISTIC STRA ST RATE TEGI GIES ES:: NON NON VERB VERBAL AL REAC REACTI TION ONS S TO MESSAGES IN DIFERENT CONTEXTS”.-
INTRODUCTION.-
Communication is a key word for us as English teachers. Not only is it the essence of human interaction, it is the centre of language learning. Chomsky was one of the first language investigators to try to e!lain why a child learns language" he says that the enfant #egins to !roduce language #y a !rocess of deduction using the in!ut received and with natural resources construct an internal grammar. grammar.
$ut later, linguists such as Hyms, noted that a child doesn%t know &ust a set of rules. 'e(she learns how and when to use them, and to whom.'e says that when a native !erson s!eaks, he or she takes into account factors such as) 1. Syst System emic ic pote potent ntia ial. l. *hether something +word, structure... works grammatically or not if it fits into the grammatical system. 2. Appropriacy. *het *hethe herr a word word or stru struct ctur uree is suit suita# a#le le in the the contet according factors such as the relative social class of the s!eakers, regional variations, age and status differences, the to!ic #eing discussed and so on. 3. Feas Feasab abil ilit ityy. -nowing whether a construction is !ossi#le or not. It may #e !ossi#le grammatically #ut seem ridiculous in real use such as the use of six adverbs together. together. 4. Occur ccuren ence ce.. knowledge of how often something a!!ears in the langu anguag agee +ea +eam m!le) !le) foreign foreign learners of nglish from latin countr countries ies often often use more more latin! latin!soun soundin ding g "ords "ords than than a typica typical l native spea#ers. spea#ers.
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H!""#$!y considers that language is, indeed, learned in a functional contet of use. To summari0e all the a#ove, a communicative contet governs language use, and language learning im!lies an ac1uisition of these rules of use.
rammar is not enough, as we can #e grammatically correct and socioculturally incorrect or with ill3designed strategies. nd so communication #reaks down. C!%!" !%$ S&!#% develo!ed the idea of communicative com!etence, a design taken on #y the 4.E.C. as the #asis for o#&ectives in the curricular design and as a guide for teaching methodology.
This communicative com!etence consists of 5 su#com!etences) grammatical, discourse, sociolinguistic, strategic and sociocultural.
- 644TIC7 or the a#ility to use the rules of the language
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system. +eam!le) the position of the ad$ective in nglish. systemic !otential. 8I9CO:69E or the a#ility to use different ty!es of s!eech o writing #ased on the situation and to do it coherently and cohesively. 9OCIO7IN:I9TIC or the a#ility to ada!t utterances to a !articular social contet +socialclass, regional languages, registers. a!!ro!iacy. 9T6TEIC or the a#ility to influence the course of the communicative situation +#ody movement, intonation. 6elated to redundancy. The aim is to mantein the channel of communication o!en or to im!rove the rece!tion. 9OCIOC:7T:67 ; #eing familiar with the social and cultural contet, the #ackground where the language is s!oken. +eam!le)when we say
This communicative com!etence and its su#com!etences seeks to hel! children to !rovide o!!ortunities for gaining real language in real use. Communication is the activity or !rocess of giving information to other !eo!le or to other living things, usign signals such as s!eech, #ody movements or radio signals.
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Communication is then the #asis of a foreign language class from the #asic curricular design and aims to lesson !lans and methodology. In the 2> th Century worl of international travel, commerce, culture, technology and news(information, communication needs to #e o!timun and our !u!ils will want to, or need to have the four skills in language on many occasions for communicative !ur!oses. *e shall now look at what this means in terms of ver#al and non ver#al communication. This is !art of their !re!aration for life in general, and for their develo!ment as !eo!le. ?E6$7 CO44:NICTION) This consists of two skills, namely listening and s!eaking. ()S*+)+, !recedes s!eaking. It consists of the decoding of sound according to ac1uired rules.It can #e defined as the !rocess of discriminating the sounds of the English language through a !rocess of hearing and understanding them. 7istening is related to P'ONO7O@ This science studies the !honemes, the relationshi! #etween units of sounds and differences in meaning. *e need to remem#er that there are differences #etween the 9!anish sounds and the English sounds. *e must allow the children to #e clear on these differences, using accent, rhythm and entonation. ll material used in teaching sounds and meaning should #e #ased on its usefulness in real communicative interaction. There are many ways of !resenting material so that it can #e a means of hel!ing children in oral3com!rehension. *e may use flash3cards, real o#&ects, !ictures from maga0ines, gestures, mime, language la#oratory, radio, t.v., fims, ta!e3recorder and so on. S-A)+, is the encoding of the ac1uired sounds, deduced #y listening, into signals.The end of this is to communicate something to someone and is related to P'ONETIC9 The study of sounds) how they are !roduced and how they are received. Pu!ils need a lot of !ractise in com!rehension +listening in order to hold a conversation in English. $oth skills +listening and s!eaking are
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linked in the learning !rocess, since the !eo!le need to a#sor# the elements of a message if they are going to contri#ute to a conversation. This encoding and decoding is not only on a grammatical level, as Chomsky inferred at first, #ut as uiraud affirms a !rocess which takes logic from !honology, semantics, etc, #ut also su#&ective e!erience and social rules. 9o, we will #egin talking a#out oral3com!rehension techni1ues. If we want to develo! this a#ility in our children we shall need to o#serve the !rocesses used #y the learner in listening com!rehension. t first, the !u!il hears a series of noises and he(she can%t tell what the difference is #etween them. fter some time, he(she #egins to note that the sounds are in some sort of order, with regularity in the !auses and voice !attern. s he(she learns some sim!le e!resions, he or she #egins to see that there are recurring sounds, and he(she associates them with meaning. 9o, he or she is starting to recognise familiar elements, #ut doesn%t see all the relationshi!. 'e(she does not really understand. s he or she #ecomes more familiar with the language, he(she recogni0es the different elements, #ut doesn%t remem#er what he(she recogni0ed. This is #ecause he(she is recogni0ing single elements and not the whole message. The mind is eliminating information which it can%t take at first" only a certain amount can #e taken into short3term memory. The rece!tive system in the #rain then takes these selected elements into long3term storage. $ut only a small !art of the total message will #e remem#ered, this is why !u!ils seem to #e a#le to understand very little at first. They have to concentrate very well to #e a#le to take in not only the sounds, #ut their meaning, the #rain is not a#le to do this too fast, and we must remem#er this. That%s why we hel! our !u!ils #y giving them short se1uences of sounds so that they can get the meaning easily and store it automatically. 9o, 6EPETITION is essential for ac1uiring this !rocess The 7O9E, in its B o#&ectives of the curricular design, reflects the im!ortance of !roficiency in these skills.
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No child can ever really communicate in English without some a#ility to listen and s!eak. In traditional <rammar Translation= these skills were often neglected. The reason for this neglect was that some !eo!le consider s!eaking and listening to #e !rimitive skills. They saw that children ac1uired these a#ilities naturally and so it was felt that ver#al communication was less sofisticated than the written form of the language. 9o, more im!ortance was given to a study of the written language and for many years ver#al communication was nor considered to #e worthy of study. This is reflected in the a!!roaches to teaching of languages wich followed a classical methodology imitating latin and greek a!!roaches which #y their very nature center on reading and writing. In this century however, and thanks to the contri#utions on social anthro!ologists and linguistics we have come to understand that the s!oken form of a language is a valua#le communication tool full of so!histicated rules of use and which is a vehicle for social interaction. *e can think of ?igotsky studies on ethnic grou!s where he demonstrates how com!le the ver#al communication is within societies which some !eo!le consider to #e !rimitive. 9o, s!eaking and listening are com!le skills and even though they are ac1uired in an a!!arently natural way there is a !rocess involved which is intricate. s an eam!le of this we can look at some of the features which are uni1ue to ver#al communication. offman highlited some of these. *e could mention that in ver#al communication there are signals which the adresser and adressee recogni0e as o!en3close signals such as the word
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These strategies include #ack signals such as the hearer nodding his(her head or e!ressions such as
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In all ver#al communication we are aware that the message is sent through a code that is made u! of sounds travelling trough the air, having #een emitted trough the articulation of the s!eaker%s s!eech organs. $ut this message is communicated #y non ver#al signals too real com!onets of normal communication. The following are ty!ical contetual non ver#al elements. -na!! clasifies the non ver#al as!ects as follows) /. $ody movements) includes gestures, movements of the #ody, lim#s, hands, head, feet, facial e!ressions +smiling, eye #ehaviour such as #linking, direction of sight and also !osture. 2. Physical characteristics) includes !hysical a!!earance, general attraction, #ody scents, height, hair, skin ton +these characteristics are constant. A. Paralanguage) refers to how something is said and not what is said. It uses the non ver#al vocal signs surronding s!eech +tone, 1ualities of the voice, rythm. . Proemics) is the manner in which man uses s!ace as s!ecific cultural !roduct, the study of use and !erce!tion of social and !ersonal s!ace. The individual determines his own s!ace #ase on social and !ersonal rules +!erce!tion and use of !ersonal and social s!ace. 5. Tactile conduct) kissing, hitting, guiding ... . rtifacts) include the mani!ulation of o#&ects, which can act as non3ver#al stimuli, with interacting !ersons.These artifacts can #e) !erfume, clothing, li!stick ... F. 9urroundig factors) this category includes those elements that intervine in human relations which are not a direct !art of it) furniture, interio decoration. The !ur!ose of non ver#al communication is to #e !art of the functional as!ect of communication) a to communicate emotions # to regulate communication(conventions. c To inter!ret. d To identify social status, etc. The cultural s!ecificness of these elements should highlited +9!anish and English gestures are different.
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4eaningful language includes a knowledge of these as!ects for true communication. The im!ortance of drama, mime, action songs, role3!lays, simulation of real life situations to include as many non3ver#al elements as !ossi#le cn not #e underestimated. EXTRALINGUISTIC STRATEGIES: NON VERBAL REACTIONS TO MESSAGES IN DIFFERENT CONTEXTS.-
In this !art of the to!ic we will see how the use of etralinguistic elements is linked not only to achieving grammatical and sociocultural com!etence #ut to strategic com!etence. This is the a#ility to !lan and ada!t communication, so that the desired end is achieved. In different contets different strategies are re1uired. *e should make some !oints here) / 9trategies develo! and are sought when a need is seen. Children look for etralinguistic hel! when they are interested in, or enthusiastic a#out, or are seeing the advantage in communicating. 2 *e shoul !ut children in different situations of ver#al communication and hel! them to develo! non ver#al aids with games and activities which link non3ver#al elements with the contet and communication need. A This ac1uisition of language skills and non3ver#al strategies re1uires an atmos!here of relaation, with no tension, ridicule, !ressure. Children should see how language ver#al and non ver#al changes in different contet, ruled #y situation,climate, social class, age, formality and informality and so on.
One method which focuses on the aid of non3ver#al communication is Total Physical 6es!onse. Every etralinguistic resource its use is develo!ing communication #eginning with the listening skills, where im!eratives are inferred #y movements, actions, etc.
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Though we may not wish to use a TP6 methodology with all its im!lications, the contri#utions it makes to the teaching3learning !rocess as !art of our methodological !lan in an eclectic a!!roach can #e valua#le. s teachers we will #e aware that elements such as furniture, s!ace, decorations and so on can hel! or hinder communication. There will #e occassions when we will want to re3arange desks, chairs, decorations, !osters or other o#&ects, so that they can hel! in a communicative !rocess. Dor eam!le, if we are !erfoming a !lay we can set u! various o#&ects as scenary so that the children fell contetuali0ed. Dor instance, in a !lay a#out oldilock and the three #ears we could !ut a ta#le in the centre of the classroom with three different3si0e chairs #eside it.This etralinguistic elements hel! children, who can use them as aids in communication. To give an eam!le of a Total Physical 6es!onse methodology which uses etralinguistic strategies we can consider for instance the game of <9imon says= where, in the contet of a game, children learn to understand sim!le im!eratives along with associated !arts of the #ody. They o#ey the orders of the teacher only when he or she s!eaks on #ehalf of 9imon. To hel! the children the teacher !erforms the action, which the children initate. Eventually they do not need this etralinguistic #ack3u!. Drom the very first days of learning a foreign language, children #ecome accostumed to deducing meaning from the contet, which is full of etralinguistic clues. *hen we say) 3 < close the door, !lease= !ointing to the o!en door and miming a closing movement. This is a very sim!le #ut effective T.P.6. activity. Not only do children learn to understand s!oken messages in this way. They #egin to try to communicate using non3ver#al and stralinguistic strategies at their dis!osal, from gestures to mime and with the use of other artifacts. CONCLUSION.-
In this to!ic we have attem!ted to demonstrate the nature of ver#al communication. The s!oken language in each !roductive and rece!tive forms de!ends not only on the understanding of sounds or the creation of these sounds.
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The contet of this communication includes many elements which are aids in the !rocess and we should #e aware of how we can maimi0ed ver#al and non3ver#al items to encouraged children to infer meaning and to use all sorts of etralinguistic strategies to im!rove communication. $y means of meaningful, motivating activities which use as!ects such as #ody3movement, gestures, artifacts, the five senses, we can motivate our young learners of English to #elieve that communicating in the English language is within their reach.
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