The Contribution of Classroom Interaction to the Development of Students’ Communicative Competence in EFL Classes

Abstract

One of the most important keys that can lead EFL learners to develop their communicative competence is the effective and appropriate use of classroom interaction, in which they can be more exposed to the target language. Classroom Interaction can be of great importance based on the fact that it is considered to be a productive teaching technique that provides learners with maximum exposure to the target language in the different interactive learning contexts that can improve their learning achievement and develop their communicative competence. The present research aims to define whether or not the students’ communicative competence can improve through classroom interaction. It presents the relation between classroom interaction and the students’ communicative competence showing that classroom interaction can be a best pedagogical strategy to develop not only the learners’ speaking skill, but also to foster their capacity to develop their communicative competence. In the practical part, we used two questionnaires conducted for both students and teachers in the Section of English at the University of Ibn Khaldoun-Tiaret. All the participants have been randomly selected. In this study, we drew several conclusions and suggestions in order to get information about the impact of classroom interaction on developing the learners ‘communicative competence. we find that through an effective and well organized use of classroom interaction we can have students who are able to know the grammatical patterns of the language, and also to utilize these patterns in real world interactions, which result in the development of their communicative competence. The purpose of this study focused on investigating the effects of classroom interaction in enhancing the students ‘communicative competence.