This paper explores about the usage of communicative
competence learning in SMK N 1 Limboto which had been researched to Mrs. Yanti
Mohamad, S.Pd for four meeting in four classes. Communication competence
actually focuses on the way of understanding the discourse instead of pay more
attention on the rule of grammar and structure of the language, however, both
of them are needed in order to understand the discourse well. An example, when a
teacher ask the students “is there any board marker in this class? I need to
write something”, a student who has a good communicative competence will
automatically go to find a board marker instead of answering “Yes sir, there is
no board marker here since two days ago”. In order to teach the communicative
competence, the teacher is required to be more creative and active so that the
students will give a good feedback in learning process. Especially in learning
English, there are many ways of teaching English to build the communicative
competence.
According to xxx , Spitzberg (1988) defined communication competence as
"the ability to interact well with others" (p.68). He explained the term
'well' refers to accuracy, clarity, comprehensibility, coherence, expertise,
effectiveness and appropriateness" (p. 68). A much more complete
operationalization is provided by Friedrich (1994) when he suggests that
communication competence is best understood as "a situational ability to
set realistic and appropriate goals and to maximize their achievement by using knowledge
of self, other, context, and communication theory to generate adaptive
communication performances."
Note that communicative competence is dependent on the
context in which the interaction takes place (Cody and McLaughlin, 1985;
Applegate and Leichty, 1984; Rubin, 1985). Communication which is successful
with one group in one situation, may not be perceived as competent with a
different group in another situation.
An
English teacher who was observed in SMK N 1 Limboto used situational strategy
in order for increasing the communicative competence skill especially speaking
English. In four meetings, she performed four different ways to teach the same
material. The material was about invitation. For the example, she divided the
students into two groups and decided one member of group would invite another
member of group. Because it was Saturday, so she gave the topic about inviting
someone to have a date or have a dinner for tonight. All of the students used
their own sentence. There were no students that speechless because grammar was
ignored and no comment for the mistake. They were free to express their idea.
Learning based on situation will be more attractive and interesting for the
student because the learning process seemed like in a real activity.
By
the illustration about communicative competence above, it can be concluded that
in order to achieve the more attractive learning process, the teacher should
perform learning process based on situation. When the students have fun in
learning process, it cannot be argued that reaching the goal of learning
process will be easier.
