92-pages-GUIDELINES-FOR-SECONDARY-SCHOOLS-All-Streams-and-Sections

for different functional purposes reflects the view that considers ‘communicative competence as not so much rulegoverned
as it is ‘rule-referenced’. Learners’ attention should be drawn to the communicative value of what they are
learning, not simply its formal aspects 34 . Learning opportunities should be arranged in such a way that they benefit the
development of pragmatic competence 35 in English, too. Two types of functions must be present in both speaking and
writing tasks; i.e. social and rhetorical functions 36 .
Social functions
Social/ communicative functions involve expressing one’s thoughts or feelings, expressing agreement and
disagreement, apologizing, complaining, asking for information, etc. It is necessary to further focus on the learners
developing the ability to use social/communicative functions accurately (correctly) and appropriately (in the right
contexts). Social/communicative functions at Level Four involve the following:
1. Making and responding to requests;
2. Responding to good and bad news;
3. Expressing regret;
4. Complaining;
5. Apologising;
6. Asking for and giving advice;
7. Expressing opinion;
8. Agreeing and disagreeing;
9. Expressing certainty and uncertainty;
10. Expressing lack of understanding and asking for clarification, etc.
Social / communicative functions can be focused on through either dialogues or exchanges or conversations. These
should fulfill these requirements:
• The interaction between speakers should be as realistic as possible within the assumptions about the
interactants and situation ;
• The setting and social relations between the interactants should be indicated ;
• The target function (s) should be naturally-occurring one(s) in that particular context/situation.
The teaching/learning of functions can follow the pattern below:
• Have the learners discover instances of the target function (its linguistic exponents) ;
• Draw their attention to ‘appropriateness’; that is, the language forms related to social parameters in the
situation;
• Have them use the exponents in different situations through communicative activities, where the focus is
on meaning/communication/ and achieving a communicative goal.
Sample communicative activities/ tasks :
34 Exponents whereby a language function is realized can be learnt as ‘chunks’ of language.
35 Pragmatic competence which includes sociolinguistic and illocutionary competence is simply the ability of knowing what
to say to whom(see, Bachman 1990).
36 Social/ communicative functions and rhetorical functions do overlap (e.g. expressing degree of certainty). Yet, for
pedagogical purposes, we view rhetorical functions as being language functions that are used in academic text, be it spoken
or written. In academic texts, it is often necessary to define terms and concepts, for example.
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التوجيهات التربوية وبرامج تدريس مادة اللغة الإنجليزية س ت ث ت