The Role Of Task-based Interaction In Improving Communicative Competence

Language is a bridge for people from different cultures to communicate. Communication in a second language should be the ultimate goal of learning a second language.In 1970s, Hymes introduced his theory of communicative competence. Then Canale and Swain developed it further and summarized it in four aspects: grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence and strategic competence. Linguistic knowledge is not enough for people to communicate. All communication occurs in a context which determines the rules that govern how speakers communicate or the structure of communication.Communication is the interaction between people who have something to share. In interaction, students can use all they possess of the language - all they have learned or casually absorbed - in real-life exchanges where expressing their real meaning is important to them.In the experiment, eleven tasks were designed to provide the students with an environment in which they could freely and naturally communicate with each other. During the course of the performance of the tasks, interaction between speakers took place spontaneously. It is interaction that helps improve learners' communicative competence, which has been tested by the result of the experiment.Two classes, one experiment group and one control group, took part in the experiment. In the experiment group, the activities which emphasized the interaction...