The Question of Proficiency - Essay Example

Proficiency Inserts His/Her Inserts Grade Inserts 11 April 2008 Proficiency Language is an integral part of human life as it is the tool for communication which helps in self expression. It is a deliberate and conscious control by an individual and hence every language exhibits a structure dependency and a number of speech sounds. A student practicing second language learning could acquire a deliberate strong hold over the phonological, grammatical and lexical patterns of the area of concern through a systematic study and analysis of the body of knowledge. ‘Traditionally …. “knowing” or “having proficiency in” a language was seen as a matter of knowing grammatical rules and vocabulary and could be measured by measuring the learner’s grammatical and lexical knowledge.’ (Manfred 219). Philosophers and Psychologists have often debated appropriate ways of conceptualizing the nature of language proficiency and its relationship to other constructs like intelligence. ‘Proficiency is a definite, if intuitively held, concept and not just a formal construct.’ (Manfred 219). The question of proficiency in language is central to the resolution of a variety of applied educational issues. Expertise in a language develops as a function of ‘different class rooms treatments different experiences in the environments and different social contexts.’ (Harley 7). Proficiency, which is a recent concept in second language teaching, could be defined as the learner’s ability to use language for specific communicative purposes – oral or written The question that remains is ‘what constitutes sufficient proficiency for the student to survive academically in a regular English language classroom.’ (Harley 8). To assess proficiency, tests have been designed that have descriptors for various levels of achievement and is usually expressed as a number on a scale. ‘The level of correlation between tests of formal knowledge and tests of practical proficiency seems to depend on the nature of the course or environment in which the language has been learned.’ (Manfred 219). According D E Ingram, Darwin Institute of Technology, Casuarina, Australia, ‘the term “test” – refers to any activity in evaluating or measuring some part or all of a learner’s language proficiency.’ (Manfred Introduction 215). A five point scale such as the International Second Language Proficiency Rating (ISLPR) formerly called Australian Second Language Proficiency Rating (ASLPR) used the + symbol to make distinctions between the fine points on the scale. There have been considerable developments in linguistic and second language teaching. The evaluation of the concept of proficiency changed the linguistic theory of Chomsky with competence in performance. Reactions against Psycholinguistic distinctions made by Chomsky made people think of competency as not only linguistic but also communicative i.e. use was considered as important as language usage. As a result of questioning a wholly psycholinguistic approach to language, sociolinguistic factors began to be considered. It would be interesting to note that within the notion of proficiency itself there are two different concepts – standard or generalized proficiency and variable definition of proficiency. The standard proficiency is the setting of tests by some central body. It assumes a certain amount of uniformity of teaching of learning outcome. The variable definition of proficiency is a syllabus that is more difficult to specify. Allowance has to be made in the goals and purposes for which the learner undertakes tasks as well as their individual characteristics. Earlier, Hymes proposed a theory of communicative competence in terms of what a speaker needs to know in order to be counted communicatively competent. He suggested that a person who acquires communicative competence acquires both knowledge and ability of language use with respect to (whether and to what degree) something is formally possible, (whether and to what degree) something is feasible in virtue of the means of implementation available, (whether and to what degree) something is appropriate (adequate, happy, successful) in relation to a contact in which it is used and evaluated, (whether and to what degree) something is in fact done, actually performed and what its doing entails. New circumstances arouse when the types of learners began to change with greater mobility provided by air and road transports, talks about a common European markets and projection made about the language needs of a businessmen and tourists for example. The type of learning proficiency would be different from a student in school system who studied language as a subject. Though changing circumstances meant that the type of language which was hither to use in teaching a second language began to be questioned, a greater range of language varieties genres began to be used in class rooms and changes in the goals of language learning - leading to the idea of needs analysis. All these factors resulted in a radical rethinking of the nature of language proficiency. At the same time the causes of studies in second language classroom began to be questioned. Let us now examine some of the concepts of communicative proficiency and some key developments in the development of the notion of communicative proficiency. Earlier the emphasis in second language learning was on structure and vocabulary. Then Chomsky’s distinction between competence and performance and the emphasis on being competent came up. Dell Hymes and Halliday emphasize language use. Halliday completely rejected Chomsky’s ideal listener and speaker. In Europe the Counsel of Europe formulated a syllabus which emphasized language use. The syllabus was drawn up based on function that learners would want to perform in second language in what has become known as a notional syllabus. Therefore, due to these developments the writer began to discuss how exactly competence can be described. Canale and Swain in a detailed discussion of the notion of communicative proficiency put forward three factors which they claim constituted communicative competence. Canale latter subdivided one of them further to yield four components – grammatical component (mastery of language code), sociolinguistic competence (appropriateness of utterance with respect of meaning and form),discourse competence (mastery of ways of combining form and meaning to achieve coherence in spoken and written texts and strategic competence (mastery of verbal and non verbal communication, strategies used to compensate when break downs in communication occur and to make communication more effective. ‘Bachman and Palmer’s work drew on the theoretical model of communicative competence developed by Canale and Swine. (Harley 8). Savignon suggested that all four components of communicative competence interact with one another. She further stated that there was some socio linguistic and strategic capacity in all learners and that to the latter was more in evidence at the early stages of second language learning, but less so as the second language was acquired. Another notion that was not taken into account sufficiently was also discussed – fluency V/s accuracy. The discussion was centered on the extent to which a second language program emphasizes each of these two features of language in use. ‘Historically, changes in language testing (at least in the research and development aspects if not in educational practice) have accompanied changes in our understanding of the nature of language, of how it is learned, and of how it is most desirably taught.’ (Manfred 216). The scope of the discussion is brief. The understanding of the complex nature of communicative proficiency and the related problems of how we will evaluate each proficiency is treated similarly. It is assumed that communicative competence is a goal of second language learning seen through behaviorist language learning theories, structuralist linguistic theories and stimulus response habit formation. While formulating rating scales to suit second language learning theories one must bear in mind that there are learners whose goals may be more limited and for very good reasons. Work Cited Harley, Birgit. The Development of Second Language Proficiency. Cambridge University Press. Google. 1990. 11 Apr. 2008. . Hyltenstam, Kenneth, and Manfred. Modeling and Discussing Second Language Acquisition --------- Ingram D E Assessing Proficiency: An Overview on Some Aspects of Testing Read More