Considerations on Communicative Competence and Its Assessment

Abstract

The present article provides an overview of communicative competence, the way it was treated in the 1960s through the early 1980s, and how its component competences were described and have been updated in recent investigations. The article also touches upon approaches, methods and methodological tools and their application has been paid great attention to. The assessment of actual language use in the moment of testing and test-taking competence are types of communicative competence in the study of language acquisition. The theoretical models of communicative competence have been supplemented and enhanced by empirical approaches known as domain of analysis. The domain of analysis refers to the forms, meanings and use, assemblies of knowledge, skills and competences. Scholars and educators interested in communicative competence would also like to engage with related models such as communicative or functional adequacy that will create useful mechanisms by applying communicative competence for specific fields, skills, genres and contexts. This concept focuses attention on the particular task which is performed and wonders to what extent communication was adequate by examining the following dimensions: task requirements, content, comprehensibility and coherence. Functional adequacy may require reflection necessary for determining what is considered adequate. Related models will help broaden the traditional views of communicative competence.