8 Conclusion
The present dissertation aimed to explore the way communicative competence is conceptualized in secondary EFL classrooms in Hungary. To achieve this aim, a mixed-methods research project was designed, including the analysis of EFL coursebooks, a qualitative interview study with a group of Hungarian secondary school teachers and a questionnaire study with a sample of Hungarian secondary school students. This concluding chapter of the dissertation starts with a summary of the research findings in relation to the individual research questions, followed by the synthesis of the results.
Then, the pedagogical implications of the findings are discussed. Finally, the limitations of the research project and avenues for future research are considered.
On a general level, the results of the analysis reiterated the stated aims of the coursebooks. New English File was observed to contain a high number of communicative activities. New Headway included a large proportion of mechanical practice tasks, while Solutions, reflecting the nature of exam task types, was found to include a high number of contextualized meaningful practice tasks.
The results of the analysis revealed that while each of the three coursebooks under inspection dedicated the highest number of activities to the development of linguistic and discourse competence, the percentages mirrored the primary nature of the coursebooks. The findings also indicated that although New English File and Solutions were excellent resources to target actional, sociocultural and strategic competence, active contribution was required from the teacher during the lessons to foster the development of these competences.
8.1.2 Q2 How do secondary school EFL teachers aim to develop their learners’ communicative competence?
The first conclusion drawn from the interview data and data coming from the classroom observations was the fact that each of the participants acknowledged the multifaceted nature of communicative competence, and dedicated a varying degree of attention to its distinct components. The respondents all had firmly-grounded orders of preference, which reflected their teaching styles and were influenced by the coursebooks they used.
Considering the individual components of communicative competence, the majority of the participants indicated their preference for strategic competence and actional competence. Linguistic competence and discourse competence received mixed rankings, most likely due to the fact that these two components included two
dimensions, vocabulary and grammar, and spoken and written discourse competence, respectively. The variation in the judgement of these two components might be due to this complexity.
The place of sociocultural competence was also somewhat varied, though for different reasons. While some of the participating teachers regarded it as s highly important component of communicative competence, others considered it the least important. Interview data revealed that those respondents who had assigned last position to sociocultural competence did acknowledge its importance; however, they did not feel the need to include it in their daily teaching practices. They were of the opinion that the input offered by EFL coursebooks was sufficient to achieve a high level of sociocultural competence.
Considering grammar and vocabulary building, the teacher participants demonstrated their preference for meaningful and communicative activities, and questioned the usefulness of mechanical practice tasks. Their opinion echoed the findings of the coursebook analysis, which indicated that only New Headway was observed to contain a large proportion of mechanical practice activities. New English File and Solutions placed the most emphasis on communicative activities and meaningful practice tasks, respectively.
Only about half of the participating teachers recognized the importance of correcting different types of mistakes. Most of the participants paid the most attention to the correction of linguistic mistakes. This finding is all the more concerning given the fact that there is empirical evidence indicating the negative attitude to pragmatic and sociocultural mistakes (Bardovi-Harlig, Hartford, Mahan-Taylor, Morgan &
Reynolds, 1996; Bardovi-Harlig & Dörnyei, 1998).
8.1.3 Q3 What importance do intermediate Hungarian secondary school EFL learners attach to the components of communicative competence?
The questionnaire study with secondary school students shed further light on the multifaceted nature of communicative competence. Descriptive statistical values demonstrated that students gave priority to the spoken aspects of language use, such as vocabulary, strategic competence and actional competence. Written aspects of the language, such as grammar and written textual competence, were considered to be significantly less important.
The Pearson correlation analysis of the questionnaire data also demonstrated the comprehensive and multi-layered nature of communicative competence. Several significant relationships were identifiable between the oral facets of the construct, such as actional, strategic, sociocultural and spoken discourse competence. A closer inspection of the effect of the frequency of different types of contact on the perceived importance of communicative competence indicated that even though there were strong relationships between Direct spoken contact, Cultural contact and the oral dimensions of communicative competence, no such correlation was observed between Direct written contact and the written aspects of the language.
Considering the perceived importance of the different components of the main construct, significant differences were observed between students learning English as a first foreign language and as a second (third, etc.) foreign language, with significantly lower mean values in almost all scales in the latter sub-sample. This observation is in accordance with previous empirical research (Csizér, 2003), which also indicated that learning a second foreign language might have a negative influence on the first foreign language learnt.
8.1.4 Synthesis of the findings
The first general conclusion to be drawn from the various sources of data is a certain mismatch between the content of EFL coursebooks and teachers’ and students’
expectations in terms of developing communicative competence. Both teachers and students indicated the importance of the oral facets of language use, strategic competence and actional competence in particular; nevertheless, coursebooks seemed to be lacking in this respect. Even in the more communicative coursebooks, New English File and Solutions, the explicit development of strategic competence hardly received any attention.
Two of the evaluated coursebooks, New English File and Solutions, were also found to be excellent sources for the development of sociocultural competence, on condition that an active role in the development is assumed by the teacher. However, neither the interview data nor the data coming from the classroom observation sessions revealed supplementary awareness-raising or other practice activities included in the lessons. Even those participants who acknowledged the importance of sociocultural competence did not feel the need to bring additional explicit cultural activities in the language classroom.
Finally, another issue worthy of note concerns the development of the writing skill. Each of the three coursebooks under inspection introduced one written genre to be mastered in every unit. Considering the average number of lessons per week and the number of units in the coursebooks, it can be estimated that students have to write one longer written text per month, which is normally preceded by one preparatory lesson.
This estimate was reinforced by data coming from the interviews. However, most of the
tasks throughout the coursebooks. The fact that students perceived written discourse competence as the least important component of communicative competence might be a reflection of the way EFL coursebooks address writing.