Developing learners’ communicative competence : a comparative study

Abstract EN

This paper unpicks some of the conceptual and philosophical assumptions made in two research articles published and how these affect the nature of the research reported.

The first article is Teacher Cognition of Pronunciation Teaching: Teachers Concerns and Issues by Graeme Couper, and the second is “I Prefer Not to Text”: Developing Japanese Learners’ Communicative Competence with Authentic Materials by Alex Gilmore.

After a summary of both articles, the paper goes on to discuss four important areas of concern: i) The paradigmatic nature of both research papers; ii) The relationship between theory and practice; iii) Ethics; iv) Socio-political contexts.

The paper concludes by a discussion session to examine what has been learned from the comparison and discussion of the two articles.