Differences in the Communicative Orientation of L2 Classrooms

In recent years, the development of communicative competence has become the explicit focus of numerous second language teaching programs. Although models of communicative competence and principles of communicative language teaching have been discussed extensively in the literature and a variety of communicative materials have been developed, very little research has been carried out to examine the relationship between actual classroom practices and the development of communicative competence. This article reports on the results of a study which was intended to validate an observation instrument designed to capture differences in the communicative orientation of L2 classroom interaction in a variety of settings. Thirteen classes in four different L2 programs were observed. The observation scheme used in the study contained categories derived from theories of communicative competence, from the literature on communicative language teaching, and from research in first and second language acquisition, which suggests a number of factors thought to influence the language learning process. These observation categories include features of communication typical of classroom interaction as well as of “natural” language outside the classroom. An analysis of the observation data revealed differences in the communicative orientation of the four types of classrooms.