WHAT ARE COMMUNICATIVE TOOLS?
F
or
any person who comes to a foreign country the challenge of communicating with the inhabitants of that country is of the utmostimportance. Without any doubt, the effectiveness of thiscommunication depends first one the level of the arrival’s language.The better the command of the foreign language, the more fluid thespeech the more grammar known, the richer the vocabulary – theeasier the process of communication with the native speaker will be.In other words, the degree of the foreigner’s knowledge of thelanguage determines the process of communication between theforeigner and the native speaker. The knowledge of the language of the host country is the primary foundation upon which the quality of language communication depends.What is necessary for an individual to know a foreignlanguage? Naturally, either one must be taught this foreignlanguage by someone else, or one must learn it independently.Most frequently, we see a combination of both of these processes.A student studies at school, or at an university, or in a speciallanguage course; The student goes over a series of textbooks;memorizes many rules, completes a certain number of exercises’participates different colloquial situations; writes; reads; translates;listens to foreign radio; studies independently; shows interest in theculture of the target language; and so on –
the student acquires theforeign language
.Yet everything discussed above – the acquisition of thelanguage, the knowledge of the language – have
nothing
to do withcommunicative tools.
Communicative tools are the combination of skills which allow a speaker to use most effectively the level of foreign language in his or her command
. To make this definitionmore clear, let us imagine a group of students with the same level of knowledge of foreign language. Let us imagine also that thesestudents have come to the host country, and are capable of observing the quality of their communication with native speakers.The result of our observation could be striking: Some studentscould communicate with the inhabitants of the host country withgreat difficulty; they cannot maintain a conversation, they answer questions very abruptly, they are afraid of making mistakes, theyawait the next question from their counterpart with fear, in theprocess of speaking they think extensively in
WHAT ARE COMMUNICATIVE TOOLS? 1
