Microsoft Word Chapter13-DiscourseCompetenceelcompletoa111004b doc

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Chapter 13 
DISCOURSE
 
COMPETENCE. 
DEALING
 
WITH
 
TEXTS
 
IN
 
THE
 
EFL
 
CLASSROOM 
Fernando Trujillo Sáez y José Luis Ortega Martín 
(Faculty of Education, University of Granada) 
1. INTRODUCTION 
2. COMMUNICATIVE AND DISCOURSE COMPETENCE 
 
2.1. Definition of Discourse Competence 
2.2. Definition of some important concepts 
2.2.1. Cohesion
2.2.2. Coherence
 
3. DEVELOPING THE DISCOURSE COMPETENCE 
4. EVALUATION OF THE DISCOURSE COMPETENCE 
5. INNOVATIONS ABOUT THE DISCOURSE COMPETENCE 
 
5.1. Content-based language teaching 
5.2. Critical thinking 
5.3. Culture and discourse: contrastive rhetoric
 
6. SUMMARY 
7. FURTHER READING 
8. TASKS FOR PAPERS 
9. BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Introduction
 
The integration of the four skills in relation to texts, one of the basic tenets of modern 
language teaching, depends on the development of the discourse competence in the 
classroom. There is a direct relationship among the three concepts as only through the 
use of texts can we integrate skills and only through an integrated, holistic approach to 
text can we develop the discourse competence in the classroom. 
In this chapter this relationship is studied. First, the discourse competence will be 
defined in relation to the most relevant models of the communicative competence. 
Second, a number of teaching procedures will be discussed to develop the discourse 
competence in FLT. Third, evaluation will be considered as an important aspect in the 
learning and teaching process, providing criteria and procedures to evaluate the 

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discourse competence. Finally, some further issues related to the discourse 
competence will be studied which represent innovations for research and avant-garde 
language instruction.