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cross the threshold and begin real communication Jack C. Richard, 2006:11. In addition, a teacher should be able to generate students’ confidence and
awareness of learning to acquire new language. Appropriate classroom situation that can make the learners feel safe and confident to learn a new
language is suitable for supporting the process of learning a new language. A teacher should play relevant roles that suits to the learners need and the
purpose of learning process to ensure the learning process is on the right track. The situation should be able to encourage students to speak English
with providing many opportunities in which learners take part in real English communication regardless the communication takes place in classroom-
border. Actually, the process of learning should not stop in classroom-border.
The learning process is mainly the learners’ responsibility rather than the teacher’s responsibility. Teachers’ roles in learning process are as facilitator,
manager, controller, and other roles. Therefore, the teacher provides suitable inputs and media, plays many roles which are relevant to the learners’ need,
manages situation in which learners feel safe and confident to train their selves with English are aimed to make students feel close to the success of
acquiring English so that they encourage themselves to explore their own competence and skill in English communication.
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C. Communicative Competence in Relation to Learning Language
Verbal communication and interaction consists of the process of delivering proposition in the form of speech, speaking, or writing and the
process of accepting codes and interpreting them into meaningful information. Communicative competence implies a set of strategies for
getting a message sent and received and for negotiating meaning as an interactive participant in a discourse, whether spoken or written Brown:
2000, DoughtyLong: 2003, Grugeon, et al.: 2005, Littlewood: 1981. The process of delivering proposition is done by the speaker or writer and the
process of conveying meaning is done by the listener or reader. In practice, people use oral communication more than written communication. It is the
reason of the importance of oral skill acquisition; i.e. both listening and speaking by language learners..
The ability of conveying and interpreting meaning between a speaker and a listener shows the level of success in communication. Since language is
used as means of communication, it carries the content of communication which consists of the information or knowledge the speaker wants to deliver
and the grammar to chain the words in order to make the information understandable Brown: 2000, Littlewood: 1984, Celce-Murcia: 1995. When
a speaker is speaking, he actually intends to build interpersonal communication with a listener or to affect listener’s mind. In this case, he
wants the listeners to have new information about what the speaker intends him to know.
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However, in order to make the listener understand to what the speaker utters, the speaker also should compile the information that is represented
with words in good order. In this occasion grammar take roles. It needs to emphasize that the message is the main content and the grammar is the
supporting content. The speaker should also support the main message with appropriate non-linguistic device, for example intonation, mimics, gestures,
and other non-linguistic device. Non-linguistic devices play important role in the success of communication. In order words, the process focuses on the
function and meaning of communication instead of the form of communication. It is the communicative competence that a speaker should
master. Hymes in Brown 2000: 246 states “communicative competence is the aspect of our competence that enables us to convey and interpret
messages and to negotiate meaning interpersonally within specific context.” Furthermore, Littlewood adds that there are three corresponding aspects of
the skill involved in understanding meaning Littlewood, 1981: 3: 1
The ability to understand linguistic structures and vocabulary; 2
Knowledge of the potential communicative functions of linguistic forms; 3
The ability to relate the linguistic forms to appropriate non-linguistic knowledge, in order to interpret the specific functional meaning intended by
the speaker.
Therefore, I agree with the experts that in order to be good speakers, language learners should learn to focus on the content of the communication
more than on the grammatical features. However, it is not an easy process to focus on the content while speaking in foreign language, especially for the
learners in non-English speaking countries because they do not get enough exposure to do so. Therefore, they have to train themselves to get used to
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understand and use as many as language expressions with their function in different situation. They also should train themselves to use non-linguistic
devices along with the linguistic devices. The purpose is to make them communicative when having interaction with other without showing many
and long hesitations because of lack of understanding to appropriate expressions should be used which results on the success of delivering the
message of the communication.
D. Functional English
Since speaking is a way to convey meaning orally, the process of teaching speaking focuses on both meaning strand and language strand. This
is aimed to build communicative language. A speaker can convey meaning through speaking because the speaker has the knowledge about the topic of
speaking and is able to communicate or share the knowledge using appropriate language that suits the situation or context. The speaker is to be
said of having good communicative competence because he can deliver appropriate functional language. Richard 2006:7 proposes that
communicative competence includes some aspects of language insight: 1.
The learners know the use of language for different purposes and functions.
2. The learners know the variations of language for different contexts and
participants. 3.
The learners know the way to produce and understand text types.
4.
The learners know the way to improve communication although of facing limitations in one’s language knowledge.
