The evaluation of individual components

6.2.3.1 Actional competence

There was a general agreement between the participants about the importance of actional competence, Anna and Márk ranking it as the most important component, and Emma, Hanna and Nóra assigning second place to it. The participants were also of the opinion that EFL coursebooks did not dedicate sufficient attention to its development, especially at higher levels of proficiency.

Anna and Hanna noted that EFL coursebooks did provide an adequate amount of input in terms of the development of actional competence; however, more types of communicative activities were needed. They agreed on the fact that most of the communication activities found in coursebooks were focusing on a limited set of speech acts, being mostly discussion activities, expressing opinions or agreeing and disagreeing with a statement. More activities concentrating on spoken interpersonal exchanges, such as making engagements, asking for and giving information or making complaints would be necessary.

Emma also noted that even though the acquisition of direct speech acts received considerable attention at elementary and pre-intermediate levels, using less direct speech acts in oral communication at more advanced levels should definitely be paid more attention to. This lack of attention dedicated to indirect speech acts has already been observed (Levinson, 1931; Preston, 1989), and it has also been stated that non-native speakers of English usually experience difficulties using and understanding such speech acts, therefore, it is vital to incorporate them in the teaching and learning process.

The participants’ overall opinion about the place of actional competence in EFL coursebooks was relatively unanimous. They were in agreement that whereas at lower proficiency levels the acquisition of different linguistic functions and speech acts got sufficient attention, at higher levels of proficiency it was a neglected component of communicative competence. They claimed that whereas in activities developing writing skills certain linguistic functions were indeed incorporated, more oral communication activities were necessary to master a concomitant level of spoken actional competence.

On the other hand, though they did recognize the importance of actional competence, none of the participants admitted to using additional materials to compensate for the lack of such activities, and neither was any such activity used in the classes observed.

6.2.3.2 Strategic competence

The overall ranking of strategic competence was the second most significant, and the teacher participants were also in agreement as to its importance, assigning it first or second places in the individual orders of preference. The only exception in this respect was Eszter, who did acknowledge the importance of communication strategies, however, she perceived it as a kind of knowledge, which can be acquired, and not as a competence which needed constant development and practice:

You can teach them some phrases, but those are very limited, you use them up really quickly, it’s not a process. (Eszter)

It can also be seen from the interview data that all the participants except for Nóra interpreted strategic competence in its narrower sense (Canale & Swain, 1980; Corder, 1981; Faerch & Kasper, 1983), seeing it as a verbal and non-verbal inventory which can be employed when participants in a communicative situation encounter difficulties in expressing their thoughts. Nóra, on the other hand, shared Tarone’s (1981) and

Canale’s (1983) point of view in defining strategic competence as a means of improving the efficacy and fluency of communication:

It’s really worth teaching them to use hesitators and fillers so that they can gain time while they think through what they really want to say. These are expressions they can know to such an extent that they can insert them into the conversation, making it flow better. So there are no pauses and errrs and staring at the other person, but the conversation is smooth and silences are filled. And in the meantime, they can come up with what they want to say. (Nóra)

In a nutshell, it can be concluded that most of the participants perceived strategic competence as an essential skill to be mastered if someone wanted to achieve effective communication. The teachers all encouraged their students to use communication strategies to overcome breakdowns in communication and to get their message across.

However, they were not observed to incorporate specific tasks aiming at the development of communication strategies, nor did they mention such activities in the interviews. This standpoint is in accordance with the attitude of the evaluated coursebooks, which did not offer direct strategy training tasks either.

To summarize, even though the teacher participants did recognize the importance of the use of communication strategies, both the evaluated coursebooks and the teachers failed to dedicate sufficient attention to the development of strategic competence. This tendency is in accordance with the findings of Dörnyei and Thurrell’s (1991) research article, which concluded that strategic competence was the most neglected component of communicative competence by both EFL coursebooks and teachers.

6.2.3.3 Linguistic competence

The development of linguistic competence received a somewhat varied perception from the participants. Eszter and Nóra regarded it as the most important aspect of communicative competence, claiming that knowing the basic grammatical structures and rules and building a sufficient volume of vocabulary were essential for effective communication. The other four participants, on the other hand, ranked linguistic competence as the fourth or the least important component of communicative competence.

Several reasons were listed by the teachers for this attitude towards this component. Hanna, for instance, admitted that she did place great emphasis on vocabulary building, since to be able to communicate it is essential to know at least a fair amount of words, but grammar did not receive such great importance in her teaching practice:

You cannot talk without words, without vocabulary because you are not able to express yourself. That’s why I try to put more emphasis on developing vocabulary. I also deal with grammar and grammatical accuracy, but I think that if a student is already able to express what they want, it doesn’t necessarily have to be completely perfect. (Hanna)

Márk was of the same opinion, claiming that he always prompted his students to talk somehow first, and only then to speak correctly.

Anna shared Hanna’s mixed opinion on linguistic competence, due to its complex nature covering pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar and syntax. She acknowledged that she, too, consciously placed more emphasis on vocabulary building, counterbalancing the fact that on the whole, EFL teaching was still more

grammar-oriented in Hungary, and not only by the teachers. She thought that students also required learning grammar to be able to communicate correctly:

I think I put more and more emphasis on vocabulary. If for nothing, else but to try to compensate for the fact that in Hungary everything tends to be very grammar centred. But of course grammar also get a lot of attention because language learners seem to have this need to be able to speak correctly and accurately. I think this has been instilled in them through generations. (Anna)

Emma also placed linguistic competence as the component receiving the least attention in her classes for two reasons. First, she claimed that linguistic competence was the basis of foreign language communication, and consequently it received a great deal of attention in EFL coursebooks. She noted that the development of at least one aspect of linguistic competence was embedded in every coursebook activity; therefore, she did not have to pay special attention to its development. Emma admitted, though, that at lower levels of proficiency linguistic competence did receive more attention.

The respondents described linguistic competence as a two-faceted construct, either considering it as the most significant component, or regarding it as the least important due to its ubiquitous nature in coursebook activities. The importance of linguistic competence was indeed reflected in the results of the coursebook analysis, confirming Emma’s opinion that in EFL coursebooks a great deal of attention was devoted to the development of linguistic competence. Due to the complexity of the component, it might be useful in future research projects to separate the different dimensions of linguistic competence.

6.2.3.4 Discourse competence

The way discourse competence was regarded by the teacher participants was also ambiguous. However, in this case the reason for the ambiguity lay in the fact that spoken and written discourse competence was regarded differently by the teachers.

Each of the participants asserted that it was difficult to assign a place in the rank order to discourse competence, since it received much greater emphasis in writing than in speaking.

Hanna, for instance, claimed that the language use of secondary school students did not normally include longer utterances, in which a high level of spoken discourse competence would have proven to be useful. Unless students took part in debates or gave presentations, it was not necessary for them to be very competent textually.

Discourse competence and text cohesion are important in writing but not necessarily in speech. Obviously, what we say needs to be somewhat logical, but unless they want to give a presentation, it’s not really a priority. Extended speech is not really common at this age, so it’s not really significant. (Hanna)

However, all participants agreed that in writing discourse competence is one of the most important, if not the most important, competence.

The distinction between the importance of spoken and written discourse competence was also demonstrated in the evaluated EFL coursebooks. As mentioned earlier, the three coursebooks all tended to place emphasis on the acquisition of more comprehensive pieces of writing, such as emails, informal and formal letters or different types of essays, and hardly any less complex pieces of writing were included among the writing activities. That being said, in the presentation and practice of the different written genres, the development of written discourse competence was always included, focusing on general text organizing expressions as well as genre-specific

cohesive devices. Specific spoken discourse competence building activities, however, were very scarce throughout the coursebooks.

6.2.3.5 Sociocultural competence

In the synthesized order of preference sociocultural competence ranked the lowest. However, similarly to linguistic competence, its judgement was again somewhat varied. Emma, Hanna and Márk were of the same opinion, claiming that to be competent socially and culturally was of crucial importance, especially when immersing in the target language environment:

It’s of utmost importance to learn how I can sell the little knowledge I have to someone from a different culture in a way that makes it digestible for them.

That’s why politeness expressions are so important. Even if I know a language, if I am not competent socially and culturally, then I can come across as completely rude and offensive. (Emma)

Anna, Eszter and Nóra, on the other hand, ranked it as the component receiving the least attention in their language classrooms. Anna placed it in the lowest position due to the fact that she felt that sociocultural competence received enough attention in the coursebook she used, the New English File, and not because she regarded it as unimportant. Eszter and Nóra, on the other hand, also maintained that it was important to incorporate sociocultural activities in the lessons; however, owing to the limited number of language classes per week, this was the component which got slightly neglected.

That being said, both Anna and Eszter did incorporate activities which were intended to develop the sociocultural competence and awareness of the students. In the interview Anna mentioned that she organized a poster-presentation contest every

Possible topics in connection with the British and American culture were proposed by the students and then voted on to choose the final topic for the posters. In the previous years, topics included Charles Dickens, the royal family, Ireland and Hollywood, among others.

In one of Eszter’s classes observed by the author the topic of the lesson was unusual festivals. As a starting point, the coursebook provided an article with a reading comprehension and a vocabulary building task, and a follow-up discussion activity.

Eszter, however, felt the need to supplement the coursebook activities with a listening task, bringing in videos and interviews on her tablet about further unusual festivals from around the world. When the use of extra videos was asked about in the interview, Eszter revealed that she often used videos from the internet to complement the coursebook materials, because she said that apparently students greatly enjoyed them and consequently became much more motivated and willing to do the regular coursebook activities.

The fact that sociocultural competence received a great deal of attention in the three EFL coursebooks was reflected in the teacher participants’ attitude, either regarding it as hugely important, or as an evident competence which is reinforced by the coursebooks. However, the varied perception of sociocultural competence might also be attributed to its multifaceted nature. The interview data revealed that each of the participants emphasized a different aspect of it. Hanna and Márk considered cultural factors and cross-cultural awareness as the most important facet, Emma emphasized politeness conventions and registers, whereas Anna and Eszter seemed to place emphasis on providing students with sociocultural background knowledge of the target language community.

6.2.4 Summary of the interview data on the components of communicative