穨Review. Pdf

1.4 Definition of Terms 
The terms defined in this section include (1) oral communicative competence, (2) 
cooperative learning, (3) traditional teaching, (4) Nine-Year Joint Curriculum, and (5) 
high- and low-achievers. 
1.4.1 Communicative Competence 
Communicative competence, according to Savignon (1983), applied to both 
written and spoken language. The present study examines only the oral aspects of 
communicative competence. The working definition of communicative competence 
here refers to oral communication abilities that include (1) linguistic competence 
which consists of five components: appropriateness, grammatical accuracy, 
intelligibility, fluency, and the adequacy of vocabulary for purpose, (2) discourse 
competence which includes cohesion markers and proper length of pause less than 
three seconds, (3) strategic competence that demonstrates how the students react to 
others’ silence and how they fix their own silence, and (4) nonverbal features of 
communicative competence that include the ability to display eye contact, smile, and 
keeping appropriate conversational distance between 60 to 90 centimeters in 
face-to-face communication. 
1.4.2 Cooperative Learning 
Cooperative learning is defined as a system of concrete teaching and learning 
techniques, rather than an approach, in which students are active agents in the process 
of learning through small group structures so that students work together to maximize 
their own and each other’s learning. There are five characteristics that feature 
cooperative learning in this study: (1) positive interdependence, (2) face-to-face 
interaction, (3) individual accountability, (4) interpersonal and small group skills, and 
(5) group processing. 

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1.4.3 Traditional Teaching 
Traditional teaching, or traditional method of teaching, here refers to the method 
that incorporates lectures on grammatical rules and Chinese translation of 
grammatical terms and sentence structures in the teaching English as a foreign 
language.
1.4.4 Nine-Year Joint Curriculum 
The Nine-Year Joint Curriculum (NYJC, henceforth), which integrates the 
curriculum of the elementary school (six years) with that of the junior high school 
(three years), enacted in Taiwan since 2001. It is especially significant to the EFL 
teaching because the official English course starts at the fifth grade in NYJC, instead 
of the first year at junior high school. The major teaching approach advocated in the 
English program of NYJC is communicative language teaching (CLT), or 
communicative approach. The Guidelines (MOE, 2000) of the NYJC also suggest 
teachers employ student-centered activities to replace teacher-centered lecturing.
1.4.5 High/Low Achievers 
The high-achievers defined in this study are students who score over 90 in the 
school-wide monthly examination. The low-achievers are the students who score 
under 40 in the school monthly examination.