Lecture 1: General problems of Foreign Language teaching

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(Breakthrough) (Waystage) (Threshold) (Vantage) (Effective(Mastery)
General Competences
Declarative knowledge (savoir)
Human beings have a highly developed and finely articulated modal of the world and its workings, closely correlated with the vocabulary and grammar of the mother tongue. Indeed, both developed in relation to each other. The question, ‘What is that?’ may ask for the name of a newly observed phenomenon or for the meaning (referent) of a new word. The basic futures of this modal are fully developed during early childhood, but it is further developed through education and experience during adolescence and indeed throughout adult life. Communication depends on the congruence of the models of the world and of language which have been internalized by the persons taking part.
Communicative Language Competences
For the realization of communicative intentions, users/learners bring to bear their general capacities as detailed above together with a more specifically language-related communicative competences. Communicative competences in this narrower sense has the following components:

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  Linguistic competences;
  
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  Sociolinguistic competences;
  
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  Pragmatic competences.
  

Linguistic competences
No complete, exhaustive description of any language as a formal system for the expression of meaning has ever been produced. Language systems are of great complexity and the language of a large, diversified, advanced society is never completely mastered by any of its users. Nor could it be, since every language is in continuous evolution in response to the exigencies of its use in communication.

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  Lexical competences;
  

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  Grammatical competences;
  
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  Semantic competences;
  
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  Phonological competences;
  
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  Orthographic competences;
  
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  Orthoepic competences.