O‘zbekiston respublikasi oliy ta’lim, fan va innovatsiyalar vazirligi mirzo ulug‘bek nomidagi o‘zbekiston milliy universiteti huzuridagi pedagog kadrlarni qayta tayyorlash va ularning malakasini oshirish tarmoq (mintaqaviy) markazi

Principles of communicative competence and its practical reflection from your own experience
Homework Tasks that are needed to be completed for the
Microteaching Assignment
Part One: Understanding Language Competencies
Homework Task One
Please choose one English language class (e.g., speaking class or vocabulary class), which you have already taught, and which you will use for your homework tasks in this book. This class could be one you feel has been very successful, mediocre, or not successful. When you choose an English language class, please write a short description about it (e.g., who are the students, language levels, content area, etc.) and explain the challenges you have in making this class communicative. Then, please choose one lesson from your English language class you described above. Please give a brief overview (1 paragraph) of the lesson. You will use this lesson throughout the book and you will have different versions of the same plan with different foci.
As the teacher with 16 years of experience, I have had difficulties. I was in the search of the most effective methods, strategies and techniques of language teaching. I have employed diverse methods and techniques to find the best one to fit my students’ needs and develop their communicative ability in English. The approaches, methods I employed from one class to another ranged from Direct Method, GTM, Suggestopedia, TPR and TBL to CLT, and PPP. I had incorporated one technique from one method into another, tried to mix the methods before I came to acknowledgement that I should think from the perspective of my learners and that every class is the unique and I should adjust my methodology to their needs and interests. Communicative Language teaching, regardless of some critiques from Swan, Bax and Ridge, remains as the most effective method of language teaching for many years. From my own experience, I found CLT as the most effective method, as it is communication-oriented rather than situational; it is student-centered, develops self-regulated skills and autonomous skills of learners, meets individual needs of learners, involves interaction and sets collaboration over competition.
To refer to my teaching experience, I would like to share the moment when I used CLT techniques in my first lesson with an international group. I work at Tashkent Pediatric Medical institute, which trains future doctors. TashPMI is closely collaborating with more than 50 leading foreign medical and educational institutions and international public organizations and funds. Moreover, every year many young people come from foreign countries, especially from South Korea, to study at our institute. Last year I conducted lessons in an international group. There were students with different nationalities. Some of them came from South Korea, others were Indian young people. In addition, there were some students from Uzbekistan. The first lesson was a bit challenging for me. Because I have never taught Korean students before. I started my lesson with an activity, which was meant to be an introduction part of the lesson. I distributed cards with different questions about their interests, hobbies and habits. At this point, I realized the first challenge. The levels of English were different; more over the pronunciation of some Korean students was very specific. That is why other students faced some problems in understanding each other. Another problem was that my students were of different ages, some were too young like 18 years old, while some were over 40. However, fortunately, there was one thing, which was interesting for all of them; they all wanted to be doctors. The topic of my lesson was “Systems of Human body, Endocrine system”. It was my Listening and Speaking class, during this lesson I used different activities. Students take part in pair and group activities, accomplishing these tasks they quickly got along and became a real team.
The lesson was collaborative, student-centered, interactive, and individually-tailored to meet the special needs of learners, focused on communicative production, but the most significant the lesson was interesting as the learners was enthusiastic and motivated and that is the best reward for the teacher.

Homework Task Two

Please refer to the lesson you chose for Homework Task One. In a one-page report lease do the following: First, explain how you understand linguistic competence in general (i.e., what does linguistic competence mean to you); Second, explain how the lesson you chose for Homework Task One (A) can be transformed to have linguistic competence as the focus.
According my knowledge which I have gained through the course, linguistic competence is considered to be the system of linguistic knowledge, which consists of several elements like sentence patterns, morphological inflections, lexical resources, and phonological systems. By other words, these address to the basic tenets of language teaching and learning and examining cognitive, linguistic, and affective factors could play a role in an Uzbekistan EFL teachers’ decision-making process. It is distinguished from linguistic performance, in which the elements are used in communication. When a lesson aims at developing linguistic competence, the teacher and the learner work on the analysis of the grammar rules. To be more precisely linguistic competence means when a language learner learns language strictly following the grammar of the language and a teacher has a lesson that focuses only on grammar and analysis of the grammatical structures of the target language. When a lesson aims at developing linguistic competence, the teacher and the learner work on the analysis of the grammar rules. During the lessons we can see only individual work in which a learners explains the grammar rules and makes up sentences according to the rules. There is only interaction between a teacher and a learner. I think it is one of the competences that can be studied independently.
From this perspective, the following activities of the lesson I have referred to in homework 1 had the focus on linguistic competence:
1. Warm-up activity with cards-when learners have to choose the card and introduce themselves using suggested (by teacher) grammar construction.
2. Group work activity – learners had to make statements with the help of given words and phrases related to the topic.
The lesson I have mentioned was focused on all four components of communicative competence, but if it had to be transformed to focus only on linguistic competence, I would have to exclude the elements of activities focused on other components of communicative competence.
Homework Task Three
Please refer to the lesson you chose for Homework Task One. In a one-page report or less, please do the following: First, explain briefly how you understand pragmatic competence (i.e., what does pragmatic competence mean to you); Second, explain how the lesson you chose for Homework Task One (A) can be organized so that pragmatic competence is the focus.
For me pragmatic competence is considered to be the ability to use the language effectively in different context in an appropriate way. It is one of the main aspects of communicative competence. Pragmatic competence develops student’s ability to interpret meaning. Pragmatic competence is the ability to use the language effectively in a contextually appropriate way. An utterance carries within itself such intentions of a speaker. This intention is tied to time, space and social context.
The lessons that are organized focusing on developing this competence teach students to survive in real life situations. For this reason without being aware of developing pragmatic competence, students become less motivated during the lesson activities. This competence equips students with tools that help them to have successful communication.
The group work has elements of pragmatic competence. During the activity students worked in three different groups, each having different tasks and group members. The successful completion of the activity required students not only ability to understand the meaning of the information but also the skill of explaining or interpreting the spoken message. Each student in the group had to use words and word combinations to talk about systems of body.
Another way of focusing on pragmatic competence could be the use of “case study” technique. The groups could have had the tasks that would help them to focus on the participants, their social status, and language they could use in. Each group could carry the dialogue in different context and a certain area of the task. Moreover, the students could analyze the role-plays and the language used in them in terms of social status, social distance, and intensity. Instead of fostering learners to memorize formulaic expressions of topic vocabulary used in the mainstream culture, the activities developed in the lesson plan target learners’ awareness of the specific sociolinguistic and socio-cultural variables that affect the linguistic choices of speakers engaged in the act of saying own point of views.

Homework Task Four

Please refer to the lesson you chose for Homework Task One. In a one-page report or less, please do the following: First, explain briefly how you understand sociolinguistic competence (i.e., what does sociolinguistic competence mean to you); Second, explain how the lesson you chose for Homework Task One can be organized so that sociolinguistic competence is the focus.
To my preference, sociolinguistic competence is the ability to use the appropriate language taking into account the culture and the variables. In other words, it is the ability to use the appropriate language to social contexts, ability to select a topic that is appropriate to the communicative event (what to say, how to say, whom to say, where to say). Moreover, in my understanding sociolinguistic competence means how culture affects the way people interpret words/sentences/utterances, more specifically how the speakers are influenced by their cultures in understanding and explaining the words/sentences/utterances or messages. The questions for reflection made me call back the process of teaching at the university and analyze to what extent our students are competent in sociolinguistic field. Just now, I have realized that no matter whether a given class is considered more communicatively oriented or less, sociolinguistic instruction is mostly neglected in classroom practice. Although the students have different learning outcomes in speaking and listening skills, they do not differ in sociolinguistic performance.
“Role play” technique is a purely communicative one in which I can easily develop students’ sociolinguistic competence. In any type of text that I use in my listening and speaking class there are certain words/phrases/idioms that need to be explored. Using the very technique I could to implement the sense into my classroom, where sociolinguistic competence targeted at developing students’ ability to understand how different cultures choice different grammar, syntax, semantic, stylistics in describing the same objects, subjects, and processes. While working in groups, students can focus on them and to other groups what it means in their understanding.
In that very lesson my students made a role play following the sample which I had given them. In the sample there were various dialogues between two participants, who work at the same office in English speaking country. It was really difficult especially for girls to use some phrases towards the boys. Because the use of such compliment words towards the boys were not accepted in our culture. Another way of developing this competence in my listening and speaking class can be comparing two cultural events, for example national celebration, on the same field and finding differences. The students can compare them according to certain criteria and be ready to explain what caused those differences the focus will be mostly on culture.

Homework Task Five

Please refer to the lesson you chose for Homework Task One. In a one-page report or less, please do the following: First, explain briefly how you understand strategic competence (i.e., what does strategic competence mean to you); Second, explain how you can include strategic competence in the lesson for Homework Task One.

For me strategic competence is the ability and skill of using techniques in explaining my purpose to my listener if I do not know any particular word/concept, using techniques of explaining it to a person who needs to know it. Strategic competence is relevant to both L1 and L2, since communication breakdowns occur and must be overcome not only in a foreign language but in one’s mother tongue as well. However, since strategic competence involves strategies to be used when communication is difficult, it is of crucial importance for foreign language learners. A lack of strategic competence may account for situations when students with a firm knowledge of grammar and a wide range of vocabulary get stuck and are unable to carry out their communicative intent. Or in other words it is explaining the new topic easily maintaining the meaning with the help of different techniques. For example, if my main focus on developing learners’ strategic competence during the sessions, CCQs can be a good technique in which all the participants will take part using one of the concepts of strategic competence. Strategic competence is considered to be unique in that it relates to the effectively use of strategies to enhance comprehension and solve communication problems.

Focusing the lesson on the home task 1, I can say that on developing my students’ strategic competence during the lessons, “role play” activity can be a good technique in which all students will be taking part in exploring and using one of the concepts of strategic competence. Strategic competence refers to the individual’s ability to use communication strategies such as paraphrase, circumlocution, word coinage, literal translation, lexical approximation, and mime to get their messages across and to compensate for a limited or imperfect knowledge of rules.
One of the possible ways of teaching strategic competence is analyzing as a whole group each role play and come to the types of competences that are necessary to be developed, after groups had presented their role plays. As a teacher, I will take notes of communication strategies used by the Ss while the students are in the process of giving information.
Another possible way of teaching strategic competence is using CCQs. So what is CCQ? The technique Concept Checking Questions is a technique which helps students understanding the topic easily with giving comprehensive questions. The answer should be replied with concrete answers from a topic they have learnt.