Competence-Based Curriculum and Its Practical Implications
Helena I. R.Agustien
Universitas Negeri Semarang
THE CURRICULUM
Indonesia is now in the process of changing its school curriculum into a competence-based
curriculum (CBC) aimed at equipping school graduates with sufficient knowledge and life skills so
that they can survive, academically and socially, in modern societies. With regard to language
education, the government’s decree, No 19, 2005, (Depdiknas, 2005) states that language
education should develop language competence with special emphasis on reading and writing
according to the literacy level set up for every level of education. In other words, language
education in Indonesia is aimed at developing competence that enables school graduates to
communicate orally and, especially, in writing. This is certainly not a simple task given that the
ultimate goal is not only speaking the language, but writing as well. A CBC needs to be designed in
order to help language educators see very clearly what competence they try to develop. A CBC for
Language education also needs to clearly define what competence to be achieved if the aim of
language education is communication.
Communicative Competence
Putting language in the perspective of communication means viewing language as a means of
getting along with others, that is, to make one a part of a society. This is one valid way of looking at
language. Within this tradition, the combination of knowledge and skills that enables someone to
communicate in language is called communicative competence (CC). The term CC was coined by
Hymes (1979) and since then several models of CC have arrived in the international literature
including models proposed by Canale and Swain (1980), Canale (1983), Celce-Murcia et al (1995)
and other scholars who have proposed theoretical concepts of CC according to their research
purposes (Munby (1978), Weinmann and Backlund (1980), Corder (1973), Savignon (1983),
Bachman and Palmer (1996). Although CC has not received an agreed interpretation, various CC
models do share substantial compatibility, that is, communicative competence is discourse
competence (DC).
One model of CC that explicitly addresses language pedagogy is the one proposed by CelceMurcia et al. (1995).
Presented at UTB International Seminar, Bandung 22 February, 2006
Sociocultural
competence
Discourse
Competence
Linguistic
Competence
Actional
Competence
Strategic Competence
Diagram 1: Schematic representation of Communicative Competence (Celce-Murcia et al.
1995:10)
The proposed model has been motivated by their “belief in the potential of a direct, explicit
approach to the teaching of communicative skills, which would require detailed description of what
communicative competence entails in order to use the sub-components as a content base in
syllabus design” (1995:6). It is also developed from an L2 perspective but a great deal of it is
assumed to have validity for describing L1 use as well. Their model proposes five types of
competence: linguistic competence, actional competence, sociocultural competence, strategic
competence, and at the heart of the model is discourse competence. In Celce-Murcia et al.’s
words:
Thus our construct places the discourse component in a position where the lexicogrammatical building blocks, the actional organizing skills of communicative intent, and the
socio-cultural context come together and shape discourse, which, in turn, also shapes
each of the other components. (Celce-Murcia et al. 1995:9)
The quotation suggests that looking at language education as an effort to develop language skills
(listening, speaking, reading, and writing) involves so much more than providing exercises in the
four skills involving different themes. Celce-Murcia et al.’s (1995) article provides lists of what each
sub-competence covers that can be referred to as well-defined targets when one tries to develop a
Presented at UTB International Seminar, Bandung 22 February, 2006
curriculum. These well-defined targets need to be seen and understood by language teachers so
that they know exactly what they try to develop, and based on this understanding, they can think
about what learning experiences needed by the learners, teaching materials, and methods
needed by the teachers. Celce-Murcia et al.’s lists can be regarded as a translation or elaboration
of a “not-so-easy-to-understand” construct called discourse.
In order to understand the technical terms and the items on the lists one needs to have sufficient
background knowledge about language as communication, or as discourse, otherwise it would be
very difficult to make sense of the lists and how the items there are interrelated. For that reason,
our CBC book provides information regarding the relevant language theories to help language
teachers read the lists including discourse, linguistic, actional, socio-cultural, and strategic
competences.
One very relevant theory used by Celce-Murcia et al. is that of M.A.K. Halliday who sees language
as a means of communication, or as social semiotic (1978). Under Discourse Competence list, for
example, they group the items into five sub-headings: Cohesion, Deixis, Coherence, Generic
Structure (formal schemata), and Conversational Structure (inherent to the turn–taking system in
conversation but may extend to a variety of oral genres). In Hallidayan systemic functional
linguistics, these sub headings and their respective items do not belong to the same level of
abstraction. The four other lists, together with the discourse list, need to be comprehended as a
holistic discourse construct that involves different levels of abstraction according to Halliday’s tristratal model of language. One way of understanding how these competences systematically relate
to each other is by reviewing Halliday’s model of language and other supporting theories.
Halliday’s Model of Language
To start discussing Halliday’s relevant theories to the CC model proposed by Celce-Murcia et al.
(1995), their statement is worth contemplating:
Discourse competence concerns the selection, sequencing, and arrangement of
words, structures and utterances to achieve a unified spoken or written text. (CelceMurcia et al. 1995:13)
Explicit in the statement is that communication happens in text, spoken or written. Thus
communicating is creating text, and this involves more than simply creating grammatical
sentences.
Derewianka (in Hammond et al. 1992: 1) illustrates Halliday’s model of language in a diagram
involving different strata. This model and its explanation is also presented as an appendix in
the CBC book in the hope that curious teachers will have some background knowledge about
the basic philosophy of the current CBC.
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CULTURE
Genre
(Purpose)
SITUATION
Who is involved?
(Tenor)
Subject
Channel
Matter
(Field)
(Mode)
REGISTER
TEXT
Diagram 2: Derewianka’s Model of language (in Hammond et al., 1992:1)
The diagram suggests the centrality of text which is understood as semantic unit. It means that
an exchange or a piece of writing can be considered as communication or a communicative
event only when it makes sense. When people talk or write, and the talks and the essays make
good sense, they create texts. Therefore, when two insane people talk or write, and their talks
or writing do not make sense (although they may make good sentences), they do not create
texts; they do not communicate. By the same token, when English learners talk in English and
the interlocutors do not understand them, they do not create text; they do not communicate.
When we talk, we exchange meanings; we try to mean; we try to create texts. In other words,
CC is the competence of creating different texts in different contexts of situation.
Text is recognized through its physical forms, that is, through the phonological and the
graphological systems of a language. Every language use involves one of these systems and
within the CC framework these systems fall into linguistic competence area. No text can be
communicated or realized unless language learners master at least one of the systems.
In addition to that, the configuration of meanings, which “reside” in people’s minds, can only be
understood by others if they are realized according to the conventions used by the community,
and these conventions are represented in the lexico-grammatical system of language. Thus,
when a person is capable of pronouncing English sounds, for instance, s/he still needs to learn
the lexico-grammatical system of a language. The words and the grammar a person chooses
are realized in sounds or characters. Within the CC framework, lexico-grammar also falls into
the area of linguistic competence. Without grammar, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to
create meanings or text because to be called a text a piece of language needs to be
meaningful. In short, phonology, graphology and lexico-grammar are the basic systems that
can make meanings physical and observable, and, thus, communicative or understandable. In
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L2 context, a CBC considers lexico-grammar an important element to develop learner’s ability
to communicate in real sense. The kind of lexico-grammatical system exposed to the students
is the one that helps them realize different kinds to texts that are most relevant to their
academic and daily lives as formalized in the government regulation mentioned earlier.
The smallest box in Diagram 2 represents text that is always created a context of situation
(represented by the larger box). Language teachers need to have clear ideas about what
context of situation involves. Context can be defined, by layman, as things that are around us.
This definition, however, is not good enough if we want to discuss to what extend context of
situation determines language choice. Halliday’s (1985a) concept about context of situation
and how it relates to language choice provides sound explanation to Celce-Murcia et al.’s
notions of competence.
There are at least three important elements of context of situation (COS) that constrains
people when they make language choices under certain physical and social circumstances.
The first element is the field or subject matter or the topic of communication. Every
communicative event involves subject matter and, therefore, involves lexis typically related to
the topic under discussion. Without mastery of certain “sets” of vocabulary, learners will not be
able to represent concrete and mental things or ideas. Without vocabulary, they cannot
express ideational meaning (according to Halliday’s metafunction). In the CBC it is suggested
that the topics covered are those that are relevant to the learners’ daily and academic
communications.
The second element is the tenor or the kind of interpersonal relationship established by people
when they are involved in communication. This relationship is established through the
exchange of roles which is very obvious in conversations. The exchanges of roles are made
possible by appropriate choice of lexico-grammar that expresses speakers’ Moods, modality,
and even the English appraisal system (Martin and Rose 2003).
My research (Agustien 1997) suggests that this is the most problematic area for the
Indonesian learners under study. Throughout the sustained casual conversations, Indonesian
learners tend to exchange ideational meanings (focused on lexis), which is unlike English
native speakers under similar circumstances (Eggins 1990). Exchanges of interpersonal
meanings made by language learners were limited to bare “yes” and “no” responses and
occasional “maybe”. The tenor established during the conversations was mainly demanding
and giving information with the Indonesian learners taking the role as information provider. As
a result, like other non-native speakers’ interactions, the conversations are coloured with many
topics (ideational meanings) and very few exchanges of interpersonal meanings. Very likely,
this tendency is caused by the complexity of the lexico-grammatical system (Subject, Finite,
Modality etc.) that realizes interpersonal meanings. Many students “hate” interpersonal
grammar; they do not like learning tenses, aspects and so on. Unfortunately, this area of the
clause is the one that expresses interpersonal meanings and, thus, the very means that
establishes role relations or tenor. The findings clearly demonstrate that in the foreign
language context lexico-grammar cannot be taken for granted. FL learners need to notice the
grammar and eventually acquire it. This can happen if the learning process encourages focus
on form (Doughty and William 1998).
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In Celce-Murcia et al.’s CC framework, this issue falls into actional competence, a subcompetence that enables learners to convey and understand communicative intent. They state
that this competence is the ability to match “actional intent with linguistic forms based on the
knowledge of an inventory of verbal schemata that carry illocutionary force” (1995:17). In the
CC model actional competence is placed at the same level of abstraction with linguistic
competence. However, in Halliday’s stratification, interpersonal intent is realized by lexicogrammar and, thus, in the CC terms, the relationship between actional and linguistic
competence is that of realization. This, again, supports the idea that language learners will not
be able to establish the right tenor unless they master the interpersonal grammar. This means
that if they want to establish role relations conveniently, they have to “love” what they “hate”.
To raise awareness about this issue and to provide easy access to resources for teachers, the
CBC includes examples of basic role exchanges (adjacency pairs) and discourse regulating
gambits (Keller and Warner 1988) in its appendix. These gambits are very useful for FL
learners because they do not hear English being used in the community. Noticing gambits, and
other conversational features such as backchannels and pre-fabricated or formulaic
expressions can be very beneficial to help them express interpersonal meanings in various
contexts of situation.
The third element of context of situation is the channel or mode of communication. Channel of
communication has huge impacts on what kinds of language style we adopt under certain
contexts of situation. Spoken channel “forces” people to use the spoken style and written
channel makes people use the written style. Obviously, the two modes of communication serve
two different contexts of situation; spoken language is used when people talk face-to-face or
when they are in direct contacts such as phone conversations. In such situations they share
the contexts of situation; many things are clear and are not necessarily mentioned during the
conversations. Many meanings are recoverable from the contexts, and if speakers try to
mention everything that is recoverable, there is a risk of being over explicit.
Communicating in written language requires different understanding about the contexts of
situation in which written style is used. This style is usually used when people do not have the
opportunity to meet and talk; they do not share the contexts of situation; there are things that
are not recoverable so that nearly everything has to be written down. A fiction such as Harry
Potter (Rowling 2005) is a good example of how contexts of situation are described in great
details. This poses a great challenge in English education in this country especially because
the government regulation says that school graduates are expected to be able to write in
English (Depdiknas 2005).
There are other issues involved due to the different modes of communication: spoken and
written. Detailed account of the issue can be found in Halliday (1986). Celce-Murcia et al.
(1995:14) take up this issue under the discourse competence umbrella. The striking difference
between spoken and written language is the way they are structured; spoken language is more
dynamically structured compared to written language whereas written language is usually
synoptically structured. This gives rise to the issues of conversational structure and generic
structure of written texts. The pedagogical significance of text structure is that when we try to
develop speaking ability, or to write a syllabus, we need to be aware of what kinds of
interaction we give priority to so that the students will be able to survive in the target language
Presented at UTB International Seminar, Bandung 22 February, 2006
communication. The same thing holds for written communication. When we teach how to write
English texts, we need to address generic structures; the structures usually used by native
speakers to write with different communicative purposes. In fact, text structure is not only a
discourse issue; it is a socio-cultural issue too because every language has its formal
schemata (Carrell 1984). This illustration is only a small fraction of the whole issue of what
impacts mode of communication can have in language education.
In the CBC, transactional and interpersonal conversations are explicitly addressed since they
display rather different conversational structures. With regard to generic structures, the CBC
also recommends several basic generic structures that are relevant to the learners’ daily and
academic lives. These structures need to be noticed when the students create monologues or
write with different purposes for different audiences.
Understanding context of situation in this way raises a lot of pedagogical issues that need to be
addressed in writing an English education curriculum. There is, however, another important
issue to be discussed in order to understand the CBC in its total picture. It is the issue of
context of culture and how relevant it is to the present CBC and the concept of CC.
The model of language used here shows that every context of situation is embedded within a
larger context called context of culture. Every culture produces, so to speak, many text types or
genres (Swales 1990). Every genre is characterized by communicative purpose, text structure
and linguistic features. Every communicative event that creates a text is purposeful and to
achieve the purpose the text needs to be organized or structured in such a way so that the
structure matches the expectation of the language users in the culture. It can be said that the
structure of the text is some kind of convention used by a community to organize messages
although most of the time people do not realize that they follow a convention. Usually people
start to question text organization when they find that the messages in a text are not organized
according to their expectations. People feel that something “goes wrong” in the sense that
something does not match their cultural expectations or schemata.
Genre is also associated with linguistic features. A descriptive text, for example, is
characterized by the use of the simple present tense, relational clauses, adjectives, and so on.
These linguistic features are used to achieve the communicative purpose. Thus, addressing
genre in language education is an attempt to raise awareness about how important it is to
communicate with a sense of purpose and how to achieve the purpose.
In the CC framework, this issue is discussed under the discourse competence umbrella, but, to
my mind, this is very much a cultural issue. If we intend to develop the ability to write English
texts, then the resulting texts should be written the English way or according to the English
schemata. This is necessary because when we write in English, the text is supposed to be
addressed to those who do not speak our language; those who do not necessarily share our
schemata. To communicate in English successfully, we do not only create grammatical
sentences, but also organize messages in such a way so that we achieve our communicative
purpose.
The ability to write different genres does not develop automatically even among native
speakers of English. From childhood, native speakers learn how to write different texts with
Presented at UTB International Seminar, Bandung 22 February, 2006
different communicative purposes. The ability to write does not develop out of the blue as long
as the learners know how to produce grammatical sentences. Then, there is a good reason for
us, in FL context, to learn to write some basic English genres to develop English literacy up to
functional level (for junior high school) and informational level (senior high school) (Wells
1987). Junior high school graduates are expected to reach functional literacy level in the sense
that they are able to participate in daily ‘survival’ communications such as conducting
transactional conversations, simple monologues, read manuals, popular science, and write
short functional texts (i.e. greeting cards, notices, etc.) and basic genres such as descriptive,
procedure, narrative, recount, and simple report. Senior high school graduates are expected to
be able to conduct more formal transactional conversations, sustain interpersonal
conversations, read and write short functional text (i.e. announcements, advertisements, etc.)
and genres that prepare them to access information at universities. Those genres include
descriptive, news item, report, narrative, discussion, explanation, exposition and review. More
capable students may experiment with combining genres to create more extended texts.
By introducing genres into CBC, curriculum writers, materials developers, teachers can work
together to develop discourse competence or the ability to communicate with different
purposes in different contexts. By introducing genres we can control the kinds of basic texts we
expect our students to master and, therefore, we can be sure that at the end of the day, our
students can describe something, report something, recount past experiences, present news,
discuss important issues, and explain something and so on. Any topics relevant to these
genres can be used in teaching. This is different from a situation where topics are used as the
basis in developing materials or learning activities. Uninformed writers may use topics as the
starting points in developing text books, but when we examine those books, most of the texts
are of descriptive, report, recount or other “random” texts of which communicative purposes
cannot be confidently identified. A colleague of mine did a research (Rukmini 2003) on the
genres used in reading passages for the third year senior high school textbooks, and she
found that 53% of the passages belong to anecdote genre. This shows that failure in
controlling genres may deprive students from obtaining learning experiences that prepare them
to read academic genres they are likely to be exposed to at the university. In CBC, senior high
school students are introduced to genres such as descriptive, report, recount, narrative,
explanation, discussion, review, and exposition. These genres are likely to be developed
together with topics that are relevant with what students usually talk about in and out the
schools.
This discussion indicates that this curriculum brings literacy education perspective into the
picture (Kern 2000, Holme 2004, Grainger (ed.) 2004). The goal is to make students literate in
English. A literate person is one who can participate in English speaking society through oral
and written communication. This means that the person is able to participate in discourses that
exist in the society, and this also means that the person has achieved communicative
competence: the ultimate goal of language education.
Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory
Vygotsky’s theory of learning that is relevant to the current CBC is the zone of proximal
development (ZPD) defined as “the distance between the actual development level as
determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as
Presented at UTB International Seminar, Bandung 22 February, 2006
determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more
capable peers” (Vygotsky 1978:86). For Vygotsky, “every function in the child’s cultural
development appears twice: first on the social level and later on the individual level” (Vygotsky
1978:57).
Obviously, Vygostsky suggests that the presence of more capable others in a child’s learning
environments enables a child to be involved in cultural events at social level that eventually
develop the child’s individual cultural identity. In the process, when children do tasks involving
speech and hands, they combine language and thought that lead to their cognitive
development. Vygotsky also provides us with a model of learning “which emphasizes the role
of talk and places social discourse at the centre” (Corden 2000). Thus, while individual
potential is acknowledged, this potential can only develop to its maximum capacity when a
child undergo learning processes involving more knowledgeable others that create social
interaction, negotiation, and shared learning. In classroom context, Corden (2000:8) suggests
that “classroom learning can best be seen as an interaction between teacher’s meanings and
those of the pupils, so what they take away is partly shared and partly unique to each of them”.
This implies that classroom activities need to be carefully organized in order to provide learning
experiences that trigger a child’s development as an individual and social being. This ZPD
concept is represented in the following diagram.
Zone of Proximal Development
Independent
Learning Zone
Teacher
Intervention
Peer
Intervention
Interactive
Discourse
Diagram 3: Independent and potential learning zones (Corden 2000:9)
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Together with the pedagogically motivated model of communicative competence, the sociocultural model of language, this socio-cultural theory of learning (Holme 2004) has far reaching
implications in the implementation of CBC.
PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS
To implement the CBC successfully, everyone involved in language education in Indonesia
needs to fully understand the nature of the curriculum and the theories underlying it. The levels
of understanding may vary according to the kind responsibility one bears within the system of
education. The bottom line is that everyone needs to adopt a mindset in order to make
concerted efforts to achieve the ultimate goal.
Teacher Training Institutions
The first party that needs to respond to the CBC is the universities that prepare English
teachers. In my opinion, until today, teacher training institutions (TTIs) have done so many
things about how to teach, how to develop materials, how to test, and so on, but they have not
done enough on WHAT (the competence) they try to develop. The competence issue tends to
be overlooked or taken for granted probably because people assume that it is automatically
understood. We, lecturers at TTI, tend to assume that we know the kind of competence we are
aiming at, so the teaching and learning processes are carried out mostly by personal beliefs or
intuition. This by no means saying that intuition is wrong; this is to say that language teachers
need to look at the theoretical advances happening in different fields so that reflection can be
done with solid theoretical grounding. This is especially true since language education is not a
subject that stands on its own; the decisions made in language education are very much
informed by advances that happen in applied linguistics and other areas.
A subject called Issues in Applied Linguistics is now in the TTI curriculum, but an important
issue such as communicative competence has not had any effects on TTI and school curricula.
Now that the Indonesian government recommends that school curricula be based on
competence, TTIs need to comprehend the definition of language competence or CC by
referring to a CC model that is directly relevant to language education. This paper suggests
that the subject called Issues in Applied Linguistics be focused on current issues that have
direct relevance to language education such as CC and its implications in language teaching.
By definition, CC is discourse competence. However, TTI’s curriculum does not seem to have
included discourse as a separate subject. Some universities have started incorporating
discourse in their curricula, but not all TTIs realize the centrality of discourse in language
education. Clear understanding of what discourse is may open the teachers’ and students’
minds to a new horizon of what their main tasks are. At Semarang State University (UNNES),
for example, a subject called Grammar Meaning and Discourse has been introduced. This
course is aimed at raising awareness about the relations of grammar, meanings and discourse
so that later, when students teach grammar, they too can show their students how important
grammar is in communication. With this understanding, grammar will not be taught as ways of
putting words together, but as ways of conveying different meanings: ideational, interpersonal,
and textual meanings (Halliday 1994). Considering that TTI’s main job is developing discourse
competence, TTIs need to put discourse under the spotlight.
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Another issue TTIs need to address is the linguistic subjects they introduce to the students. For
so many years we have been studying general linguistics involving phonology, morphology,
syntax that give students knowledge about units of language that might be useful for those who
will carry out research on the phonology, morphology or syntax of languages in the future.
However, when we prepare students who will teach communication, our students need
linguistics that sees language as communication or language that is used by people to
exchange meanings. Language teachers need to understand that in communication we do not
only exchange information; we exchange feelings; we express styles; we create logical
relations. All of these are expressed in the lexicogrammar of language. When teachers are well
informed about the relations between lexicogrammar and the nuances meanings, the teaching
of grammar can be more meaningful. It is about time that this kind of linguistics, that is,
Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), be introduced in TTI curriculum.
The introduction of SFL will shed lights to practical issues addressed by TTIs. For example,
when lecturers teach conversation, they need to know exactly what competencies to be
developed throughout the course. To converse is to create texts, to participate in a discourse,
to create utterances that make sense. To do this, students need to negotiate interpersonally
and logicosemantically (Eggins and Slade 1997, Martin 1992). Lecturers need to plan learning
experiences that allow the students to perform interpersonal negotiations smoothly such as:
A: I came here yesterday, but you were out.
B: Did you?
Then, they can move to logicosemantic negotiation such as:
A: What’s your name?
B: Ani.
A: Where do you live?
B: Jalan Diponegoro.
There are other competencies to develop in basic conversations and these are developed
together with the chosen topics. The bottom line is that teaching conversation is not mainly
about discussing different topics, it is mainly about developing competencies to negotiate
meanings. The topics are used as the “vehicles” to develop the competence.
SFL also addresses spoken and written language and the practical implications in language
education. Similar with teaching conversation, teaching writing is also a matter of negotiating
meanings. Writing is not mainly about writing with different topics; more than that, writing is
about conveying different meanings, negotiating meanings, creating cohesiveness and
coherence, establishing text structure etc. All of these can be planned and systematically
taught. SFL helps language teachers identify the competencies of different subjects so that
TTIs’ syllabi can be written based on competencies.
SFL also gives impetus to literacy education in the sense that teaching English as a first,
second or foreign language can be seen as developing literacy in English. Being literate in
English means being able to participate in modern societies where English is used and this
Presented at UTB International Seminar, Bandung 22 February, 2006
involves oracy and literacy. In Indonesia, where access to knowledge and science is mainly
available in written form, the skills in reading and writing need to be well developed. To be able
to develop them properly and systematically, TTIs need to examine what literacy education has
to offer. In UNNES, there is a course called Introduction to Literacy Education that provides
students with experiences of planning and carrying out classroom activities that lead to the
development of the four skills integratedly.
Since the curriculum is also based on Vygotsky’s ZPD and the importance of negotiation and
sharing meanings in the classroom, TTIs need to re-examine the students’ ability to scaffold
the lessons. Apparently, speaking courses in TTIs nowadays are not sufficient enough to make
the graduates carry out scaffolding talks in the classroom. In UNNES, we introduce a course
called Speaking for Instructional Purposes that gives experiences to students to do scaffolding
talks including opening and closing, reinforcing, explaining, basic questioning, and so on. Our
observations indicate that our speaking courses do not automatically guarantee the ability to
scaffold lessons, and, therefore, TTIs need to consider this subject in their curricula.
Secondary Schools
At school level, English teachers need to adjust their mindset to the new way of looking at
language and language teaching. The biggest challenge seems to be teaching writing that
involves some basic genres. This means that teachers need to address competencies in
writing such as writing with different communicative purposes, with different text structures and
using certain linguistic features for different texts. When this idea was first introduced, teachers
were confused, but after they attended some proper training, many find teaching writing
through genres helpful because now the teachers can show the students how to write and not
only what to write.
With regard to spoken language, teachers need to be familiar with transactional (especially at
junior high school level) and interpersonal conversations (especially at senior high school
level). Transactional conversations are those that are aimed at getting something done and
this kind of conversation employs certain structures. Interpersonal conversation is conversation
that is aimed at establishing interpersonal relationship and the focus is how to sustain
conversations. With this knowledge, hopefully teachers can select or develop teaching
materials that help students develop the competence.
To provide students with systematic learning experiences, teachers need to be familiar with the
spoken and written cycles and the four stages (Building knowledge of the Field, Modelling of
Text, Joint Construction, and Independent Construction) that integrate the development of
listening, speaking, reading and writing skills. The proposed framework is as follows:
Presented at UTB International Seminar, Bandung 22 February, 2006
Diagram 4: Cycles and Stages of Learning (Hammond et al. 1992:17)
In planning the lessons, teachers need to go around the cycle twice. In the first cycle, they start
from the first stage called Building Knowledge of the Field (BKOF) where teachers and
students build cultural context, share experiences, discuss vocabulary, grammatical patterns
and so on. All of these are geared around the types of spoken texts and topics they are going
to deal with at the second stage. The second stage is called Modelling of Text (MOT) where
students listen to statements of short functional texts, conversations, and monologues that are
geared around a certain communicative purpose. For example, if students are expected to
produce procedural texts, then, the short functional texts, conversations, and the monologues
are developed with one main communicative purpose, that is, giving instruction or direction. In
short, at the second stage, students listen and respond to various texts with similar
communicative purposes. After listening, students enter the third stage called Joint
Construction of Text (JCT). At this stage they try to develop spoken texts with their peers and
with the help from the teachers. They can create different announcements, conversations on
showing how to do things, monologues on how to make something and so on. They need to
demonstrate their speaking ability and to show confidence to speak. After having the
experience of collaborating with friends, they enter stage four called Independent Construction
of Text (ICT). At this stage, students are expected to be able to speak spontaneously or to
carry our monologues that are aimed at giving directions or showing ways to do things such as
how to make a kite, how to make a paper cap, and so on. Thus, the first cycle integrates the
development of speaking and listening skills.
The second cycle is aimed at developing the ability of using written language. The teachers
and students go through all the four stages, but in MOT students are exposed to written texts.
Presented at UTB International Seminar, Bandung 22 February, 2006
Here students develop reading skills, followed by joint construction in writing texts, and finally
they write texts independently. Like the strategies employed in the first cycle, activities in this
cycle are also geared around the same communicative purpose. Students read short functional
texts and procedural texts, and then they write texts similar to what they have read. In this way,
the integration of the four skills is created by the communicative purpose(s) of texts. Students
speak what they have heard, read what they have talked about, and write what they have read.
To carry out activities at all stages, teachers need to use various teaching techniques they
have already learned, known and used. Those techniques are still needed and relevant to this
approach. What needs to be remembered when teachers prepare their lessons is that every
activity they design has to be aimed at providing learning experiences to use language and,
thus, to achieve communicative competence. There are some literacy principles offered by the
New London Group (Kern 2000) that can be used by in planning language classes. They are:
interpretation, collaboration, convention, cultural knowledge, problem solving, reflection and
self reflection, and language use (Kern 2000:16). Kern suggests that “These principles,
although they are framed in terms of reading and writing, are not unique to literacy, but can be
applied broadly to human communication in general” (Kern 2000:17). The implication is that
when a teacher plans an activity, s/he needs to keep in mind that the activity needs to engage
students in activities that involve as many of these principles as possible. Since this literacybased approach is something rather new to many teachers, systematic trainings need to be
conducted across the country.
Such trainings should address substantial issues including the basic philosophy and theory
underlying the CBC, the suggested approach to implement the curriculum, selecting and
developing materials, assessment, and teachers’ scaffolding talks. Proper trainings will
hopefully help teachers understand why the curriculum is the way it is, how to implement it,
and what skills are required in order to conduct the teaching as expected.
School Management
School management and other related parties need to learn the changes happening in English
education. This is important so that English teachers can focus their attention on and use the
energy for teaching without being disrupted by irrelevant administrative tasks such as filling out
different forms which is not recommended by the curriculum. School management needs to
understand the nature of language education and gives allowances to English teachers to
carry out teaching and administer tests in their own ways. Possibly, school management needs
to have a package that explains how English teaching based on the CBC to be conducted.
Textbook Writers
Many publishers have jumped to the first opportunity of writing textbooks claimed to be based
on the CBC. These publishers employ writers many of whom are not graduates of TTIs, or
TTIs’ graduates but without teaching experiences, or teachers who have never been
introduced to the new CBC. It is not surprising that the textbooks written by uninformed writers
create confusion. Publishers need to give proper orientation to their writers regarding what the
CBC is about and implications it has in the selection, development and organization of
materials in the textbooks.
Presented at UTB International Seminar, Bandung 22 February, 2006
One crucial issue about developing conversational texts in textbooks is the awareness that
Indonesian learners are usually weak at conducting interpersonal negotiations. This kind of
negotiation involves the use of Finite, a grammatical item that does not exist in Indonesian
languages. Textbook writers need to make students notice the importance of interpersonal
negotiations by providing exercises geared around interpersonal exchanges. This kind of
exercise does occur in many textbooks including those written by native speakers of English.
However, for native speakers, interpersonal exchange has become a part of their intuition so
that no special mention or exercise about it is regarded as necessary. It is suggested that
Indonesian textbook writers seriously address interpersonal negotiations in their textbooks to
make that kind of exchange a part of our students’ intuition.
CLOSING REMARKS
Celce-Murcia, Thurell and Dornyei (1995) have outlined what communicative competence
entails. Their detailed description includes a lot of concepts that emerge from different
disciplines such as general linguistics, discourse, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, conversation
analysis, language acquisition. Halliday’s systemic functional linguistics (SFL) appears to be
very resourceful if one attempts to obtain good understanding of communicative competence
as suggested by Celce-Murcia et al. The high compatibility of the CC model and SFL lies in the
motivation to shed light to language education especially regarding what issues to address.
This is the time for language education to clarify the function it serves among the community.
This paper leaves us with a huge agenda covering different issues and theoretical advances in
related disciplines that can be taken into account in order to improve our understanding about
what good language education is. Such an enriched perspective is badly needed to raise
awareness that paradigms do shift, that language education is not self sufficient, and that we,
language teachers, need to be open to changes.
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