Throughout history, foreign languages have been taught and learned taking into account different approaches and methods making emphasis at the beginning on the teaching of vocabulary and grammatical structures. These days new approaches and methods suggest that more emphasis should be given to the use of language for communication. That is why in Colombia and other countries efforts have been made to try to teach the foreign language (in our case English) for communicative purposes. However, there has not been a significant change in getting that purpose. A lot of importance is still put on the linguistic competence. About it, Nunan says: “while linguistic competence is necessary, it is not sufficient for someone who wants to communicate completely in another language” (Nunan, 1999, P 226). As we can see, both sociolinguistic and conversational skills are equally important to succeed at communicating. In this essay we do not pretend to compare or decide whether linguistic competence is more important than sociolinguistic competence and conversational skills or vice versa. We pretend to show the characteristics and positives features of the aspects of languages that are not being emphasized in the teaching of languages in order to have clearer and broader criteria in the design of tasks that enable us to enhance the sociolinguistic and conversational skills on the students.

To understand all this better, some definitions of what communicative competence is?, and some concepts of speaking, and its nature will be presented in the following paragraphs. Also, some conclusions and implications of these theories on the teaching of languages will be presented at the end of this paper. For many years, teachers and other people involved in the teaching of languages have talked about communicative competence, making it one of the most important aspects to take into account in the design of tasks. Sandra Savignon offers a clear and complete definition of communicative competence. Savignon define it as: “the ability to function in a truly communicative setting-that is, in a dynamic exchange in which linguistic competence must adjust itself to the total informational input, both linguistic and paralinguistic, of one or more interlocutors…it is also context-specific, which means that a competent communicator knows how to make choices specific to the situation” (Savignon cited in Nunan, 1999, p 226) As it can be seen above communicative competence is not conformed only by knowledge about grammar and vocabulary as many people wrongly believe. But also, by knowledge about how to use the language properly. That is, to use all the components of language to accomplish a communicative purpose. One of the most important aspects of Communicative Competence is speaking.

Many definitions of speaking (some of them clearer and more complete than others) have been presented by different authors. One of this concepts is pointed out by Sari Luoma (n.d., P12 ) She states that “speech can be consider to consist of idea units, which are short phrases and clauses connected with and, or but or that or not joined by conjunctions at all but simply spoken next to each other”. A more complete definition is given by Loannou and Pavlou (2003, p 7). For them “speaking…consist of a number of elements such as pronunciation, intonation and turn taking. But the overall aim of speaking is to achieve oral communication.” Different definitions of speaking can be found some of them offer a broader explanation and are expressed in linguistic terms and other can be found in a simpler way. But all of them have something in common which let us understand that speaking is both a skill (formed by different elements like: pronunciation, intonation…) and also something inherent to the nature of people and their daily activity of interacting. Speaking is a skill consisting of different elements which make its nature a little complex. Then, it is highly necessary to have at least an idea of its nature in order to be more successful at the moment of designing tasks oriented to the development of this skill. In general terms, it is necessary to have clear that aspects like: speed, pausing, variation in pitch, volume and intonation are features of this skill. Also, it is very important to have clear that there are many differences between written and spoken grammar being the last one simpler than the other.

Regarding speaking we also should keep in mind that depending on different situations there exist differences within spoken language which make of this social activity something complex(Luoma, n.d). If we continue presenting other features on the nature of speaking and giving more details about the ones mentioned before, we could write many pages. What is really important about the nature of speaking is to bear in mind that when designing a speaking task these features need to be taken into account due to the fact that designing a task is not a matter of selecting or creating any activity but one in which the students, the situation, the purpose, the objectives and other aspects of the activity are analyzed before selecting or creating that specific communicative activity. There have existed different approaches and methods for the teaching of languages. Nowadays, according to the characteristics of this globalized world the most important thing in terms of languages is to be able to communicate successfully in a foreign language. Therefore, efforts in this sense have been made at schools not only in Colombia but in the whole world. Then, having clear aspects like what exactly communicative competence is? What is speaking and how it is conformed are fundamental to be successful in the design of communicative activities depending on the different situations that can be found, and the different aims teachers can have. Having this kind of knowledge also helps us to establish clearer criteria to assess in a better way the communicative activities developed by the students which is something positive in the teaching-learning process of languages. Milton Bird…