An Exploration Of Communicative Competence Of Chinese EFL Learners At College Level

This study was designed to explore possible ways to achieve the ultimate pedagogic goal of developing English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' communicative competence. Specifically, the purpose of this research was to discover the current EFL classroom problems and to search for possible solutions.Chinese educators have been practicing communicative language teaching for several years. But whether students' communicative competence has been developed as expected is unknown. This research investigated this question via a questionnaire. Evidence indicated that students' communicative competence is still very weak. Superficially, the students' communicative deficiency is due to a lack of the knowledge of communication rules of the target language. Originally, it is caused by the improper language teaching method. Also, this study explored some communication rules from a socio-pragmatic perspective and made suggestions that educators include this knowledge in their teaching to enhance students" communicative competence. In additioa in order to improve students" communicative competence in a non-English-speaking environment this study offered guidelines for compromising the Communicative Approach with the traditional Chinese approach and sought the harmony from their differences. Some concrete techniques were also provided for teaching practice. It is hoped that the implications of the major findings of the study will benefit EFL educators in terms of developing students' communicative competence, thus sparking more interest in research on this aspect.