Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2004. Vol. 4. Eger Journal of English Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 30)

KARIN MACDONALD Promoting a Particular View of Learner Autonomy Through an English Language Syllabus

Promoting a Particular View of Learner Autonomy 141 • uses activities that are fluency-focused rather than simply accuracy-focused; • limits the use of exercises on the language and encourages the achievement of communicative task objectives through the language; • emphasises student interaction and limits teacher-centred approaches (Maley 1986: 88-89). In addition, two types of learner competence are to be developed through the proposed syllabus: communicative competence and study competence. The notion of communicative competence has a number of different definitions but for the purposes of the new syllabus it is based on the categories identified by Canale and Swain (1980) and summarised by Celce-Murcia and Olshtain as follows: (1) Linguistic or grammatical competence, which consists of the basic elements of communication: sentence patterns, morphological inflections, lexical resources, and phonological or orthographic systems. (2) Sociolinguistic competence, which consists of the social and cultural knowledge required to use language appropriately with reference to formality, politeness and other contextually defined choices. (3) Discourse competence, which involves the selection, sequencing, and arrangement of words, structures, and sentences/utterances to achieve a unified spoken or written whole with reference to a particular message and context. (4) Strategic competence, which includes the strategies and procedures relevant to language learning, language processing, and language production. It activates knowledge of the other competencies and helps language users compensate for gaps or deficiencies in knowledge when they communicate. (2000: 16) Communicative competence is therefore interpreted as involving the use of language as well as aspects of grammatical accuracy. The importance of dealing with language at a discourse level is an essential element in the interpretation of communicative competence here. As Celce-Murcia and Olshtain state, "it is in discourse and through discourse that all of the other competencies are realised. And it is through discourse that the manifestation of other competencies can best be observed, researched, and assessed" (2000: 16). Study competence, on the other hand, is intended to address the particular needs of students in higher education. In a recent study of Hungarian university students studying English to degree level, it was found that students mainly use their English for study purposes during their degree course (Kormos et al. 2002). Although the research relates to university