The introduction of communicative competence as the goal of second and for eign language teaching has led to recognition of the role of context in language learning and use. As communicative competence is defined by the social and cultural contexts in which it is used, no single communicative competence can serve as the goal and model for all learners. This recognition has had an impact on program design and materials development. One significant change is that the choice of a teaching method is no longer the primary concern. Instead, the first step for the program designer is becoming familiar with the social and cultural features of the context of the language being taught. This includes a consideration of the uses speakers make of the language, their reasons for using it, and their attitudes toward it. Contexts of Competence: Social and Cultural Considerations in Commu nicative Language Teaching explores the relationship between context and com petence from a theoretical and practical perspective. Its audience is applied linguists in general and language teaching practitioners in particular. The overall aim of its five chapters is to provide a framework for consideration of various contexts of language learning and use and to guide the implementation and development of models of communicative language teaching that are responsive to the context-specific needs of learners.

Interpersonal Communication: Competence and Contexts prepares students to communicate successfully in today's fast-paced and complex society through the implementation of a unique competence-building model. This highly readable text provides the theories, concepts, and applications in a pedagogically sound format based on a model of communication competence made up of three elements: motivation, knowledge, and skill. Studying interpersonal communication through this distinct framework will provide a foundation for students' motivation to communicate competently, increase their knowledge about communication, and enhance their acquisition and performance of communication skills. Covering a broad range of interpersonal communication themes, including strategic alternatives and solutions to communication challenges and information about friendship, family, romantic, and workplace relationships, this Second Edition presents theories, concepts, and activities with engaging examples and an attention-getting design.

Bringing together current research, theories and methods from leading scholars in the field, this volume is a state-of-the-art study of intercultural communication competence and effectiveness. In the first part, contributors analyze the conceptual decisions made in intercultural communication competence research by examining decisions regarding conceptualization, operationalization, research design and sampling. The second part presents four different theoretical orientations while illustrating how each person's theoretical bias directs the focus of research. Lastly, both quantitative and qualitative research approaches used in studying intercultural communication competence are examined.

Stressing the use of meaningful language at all stages of language acquisition, this work is about texts and contexts in second language learning. It is intended for teachers and teachers-in-training as an introduction to the theoretical basis for communicative language teaching and as a guide to building a program consonant with those theories.

Drawing on data from a range of contexts, including classrooms, pharmacy consultations, tutoring sessions, and video-game playing, and a range of languages including English, German, French, Danish and Icelandic, the studies in this volume address challenges suggested by these questions: What kinds of interactional resources do L2 users draw on to participate competently and creatively in their L2 encounters? And how useful is conversation analysis in capturing the specific development of individuals’ interactional competencies in specific practices across time? Rather than treating participants in L2 interactions as deficient speakers, the book begins with the assumption that those who interact using a second language possess interactional competencies. The studies set out to identify what these competencies are and how they change across time. By doing so, they address some of the difficult and yet unresolved issues that arise when it comes to comparing actions or practices across different moments in time.

In the disciplines of applied linguistics and second language acquisition (SLA), the study of pragmatic competence has been driven by several fundamental questions: What does it mean to become pragmatically competent in a second language (L2)? How can we examine pragmatic competence to make inference of its development among L2 learners? In what ways do research findings inform teaching and assessment of pragmatic competence? This book explores these key issues in Japanese as a second/foreign language. The book has three sections. The first section offers a general overview and historical sketch of the study of Japanese pragmatics and its influence on Japanese pedagogy and curriculum. The overview chapter is followed by eight empirical findings, each dealing with phenomena that are significant in Japanese pragmatics. They target selected features of Japanese pragmatics and investigate the learners' use of them as an indicator of their pragmatic competence. The target pragmatic features are wide-ranging, among them honorifics, speech style, sentence final particles, speech acts of various types, and indirect expressions. Each study explicitly prompts the connection between pragmalinguistics (linguistic forms available to perform language functions) and sociopragmatics (norms that determine appropriate use of the forms) in Japanese. By documenting the understanding and use of them among learners of Japanese spanning multiple levels and time durations, this book offers insight about the nature and development of pragmatic competence, as well as implications for the learning and teaching of Japanese pragmatics. The last section presents a critical reflection on the eight empirical papers and prompts a discussion of the practice of Japanese pragmatics research.

This volume explores the relationship between 'study abroad' and the acquisition of 'sociolinguistic competence' - the ability to communicate in socially appropriate ways. The volume looks at language development and use during study abroad in France by examining patterns of variation in the speech of advanced L2 speakers. Within a variationist paradigm, fine-grained empirical analyses of speech illuminate choices the L2 speaker makes in relation to their new identity, gender patterns, closeness or distance maintained in the social context in which they find themselves. Using both cross-sectional and longitudinal data, four variable features of contemporary spoken French are analysed in a large population of advanced Irish-English speakers of French. This close-up picture provides empirical evidence by which to evaluate the wide-spread assumption that Study Abroad is highly beneficial for second language learning.

Covers theoretical, psychometric, and practical issues related to the assessment of competencies in educational and vocational settings. This book is suitable for researchers interested in theoretical and psychometric background of assessment, and for readers interested in practical aspects of computer-based assessment and evaluation.

Pragmatic competence plays a key role in the era of globalization where communication across cultural boundaries is an everyday phenomenon. The ability to use language in a socially appropriate manner is critical, as lack of it may lead to cross-cultural miscommunication or cultural stereotyping. This book describes second language learners’ development of pragmatic competence. It proposes an original theoretical framework combining a pragmatics and psycholinguistics approach, and uses a variety of research instruments, both quantitative and qualitative, to describe pragmatic development over one year. Situated in a bilingual university in Japan, the study reveals patterns of change across different pragmatic abilities among Japanese learners of English. The book offers implications for SLA theories, the teaching and assessment of pragmatic competence, and intercultural communication.

This book addresses challenges in the theoretically and empirically adequate assessment of competencies in educational settings. It presents the scientific projects of the priority program “Competence Models for Assessing Individual Learning Outcomes and Evaluating Educational Processes,” which focused on competence assessment across disciplines in Germany. The six-year program coordinated 30 research projects involving experts from the fields of psychology, educational science, and subject-specific didactics. The main reference point for all projects is the concept of “competencies,” which are defined as “context-specific cognitive dispositions that are acquired and needed to successfully cope with certain situations or tasks in specific domains” (Koeppen et al., 2008, p. 62). The projects investigate different aspects of competence assessment: The primary focus lies on the development of cognitive models of competencies, complemented by the construction of psychometric models based on these theoretical models. In turn, the psychometric models constitute the basis for the construction of instruments for effectively measuring competencies. The assessment of competencies plays a key role in optimizing educational processes and improving the effectiveness of educational systems. This book contributes to this challenging endeavor by meeting the need for more integrative, interdisciplinary research on the structure, levels, and development of competencies.