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Communicative Competence Components Analysis in Using English through

English Interaction Room

Ayu Silvana Faradilla Rochim, Dwi Rukmini 

English Department, Faculty of Languages and Arts, Universitas Negeri Semarang, Indonesia

Article Info

________________
Article History:

Received in 17 December

2018

Approved in 29 July

2019

Published in 29 July

2019

________________
Keywords: Communicative
Competence; Using English;
English Interaction Room
(EIR).

____________________

Abstract

___________________________________________________________________
This study was aimed to explain the communicative competence components of the

fourth semester English Department students through English Interaction Room (EIR).

The communicative competence components in using English were analyzed based

on the grammatical competence, discourse competence, sociolinguistic competence

and strategic competence.

This study used qualitative method which means that the data of this study were

explained by using descriptive analysis method. The result showed that (1) Mostly,

the utterances of the participants were ungrammatical in syntax, while some were in

morpheme, but those were acceptable (2) Mostly the utterances were appropriate

with the topic discussed. the participants were able to construct a unified discourse,

(3) Mostly, the utterances seemed natural and used less formal language, and (4)

Most participants used achievement strategy to hold the conversation.

In conclusion, most of EIR participants are communicative in using English viewed

from the discourse competence, sociolinguistic competence and strategic

competence. They need to increase their competence of using English grammar.

© 2019 Universitas Negeri Semarang

 Correspondent Address: ISSN 2252-6706
B3 Building FBS Unnes

Sekaran, Gunungpati, Semarang, 50229

E-mail: ayusilvanafaradilla@gmail.com

ELT FORUM 8 (1) (2019)

Journal of English Language Teaching

http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt



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79

INTRODUCTION

This study is related to the goal of English students learning English. They acquire English as their second

language in order to be able to communicate using English. We know how necessary communication in

people’s life is. As stated by Rickheit and Strohner (2008) that the ability to reach people goals in social life

depends on their communicative competence. It means that people communication is important and

people must have competence to be communicative. In this case, the ability to communicate using English

is necessary for English learners to compete in this modern era.

The purpose of communication is to convey or to exchange the message to others. To reach the goal

of communication, English learners need to have communication skill. It is the tool in communication

process which are used to remove barriers to reach effective communication. While Brian Spitzberg in

Rickheit and Strohner (2008) defined,

“Communication skills are generally thought to be manifestations of some underlying ability, which
is a capacity for action. This capacity is typically conceptualized as a function of numerous
motivation (e.g. confidence, goals, reinforcement potential, etc.) and knowledge (e.g. content and
procedural knowledge, familiarity, etc.) components.”

But the fact is that, mostly, English students are difficult to use English daily. Some reasons stated

that they are ashamed of making mistakes when they use English. They are afraid of making mistakes in

grammar which make the listener do not understand what they mean. They are also afraid if they are not

interactive and let the conversation stuck in a moment. Therefore, this study was aimed to analyze the

communicative competence components in using English by explaining their grammatical competence,

discourse competence, sociolinguistic competence and strategic competence.

In this modern era, there are many easier and simpler applications with high technology which is

used as communication system for people. One of those application is Whatsapp. Whatsapp Application is

an easier and well-known modern application in recent years. It seems like SMS (Short Message Service),

Facebook, BBM (Blackberry Messenger), and email. Especially Whatsapp Application which provides not

only text message service, but also audio call, video call and voice note service. Whatsapp application also

can be used to transmit and receive any kinds of document, such as pictures, videos, musics, recording,

and also kinds of file in form of Microsoft Word, Power point, Excel, PDF, etc. We can also make a group

in this application, which means that we can have a chat room with more than two people.

In case of using English, English learners need to train their communicative skills by practising

more in order to make their habit until they feel confident to use English, whether spoken or written. It is

important for them to practise, because the goal of learning English is that they can communicate using

English. While, the goal of communication is to convey the message. Therefore, EIR was created to be

functioned as their chat room to communicate using English in semi spoken communication. Then I

analyzed the components of communicative competence in order to know their quality in using English.

It is necessary for English learners to be able using English as a communication purpose. Which

means that English learners are required to communicate using English as their learning result. As stated

by Ellis (2003) that the goals of learning English as the Second language are to know the learners’ ability to

communicate and the fluency in using English.

Akilandeswari, Kumar, Pavithra, Maryam and Banu (2015) defined that communication is the

main to the success of people to convey the message to someone or a group of people. It is fact that

communication is deal with the process of understanding and being understood through ideas, facts,

thoughts and emotions. In addition, Richards and Schmit (1993) defined that communication is

functioned as the exchange and negotiation of information between at least two persons through the use of

verbal and non-verbal symbols, oral and written/visual modes, and production and comprehension

processes.

According to Rickheit and Strohner (2008: 24), communicative competence is related to practical

application needed in social interaction including interpersonal relationships, academic, professional

success, psychological and also health problems. Effectiveness and appropriateness in using language



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80

become the criteria of being communicative. While, Brown (2000, 246) defines communicative

competence as the way of how people use language based on the context considering the subject, audience,

occasion, and purpose of communication.

From the concept of ‘communicative competence’ above, in my view, communicative competence

is the functional knowledge to indicate the succesful communication ability of the participants in order to

reach the goal of being communicative. If the participants in communication process do not able to use

their communicative competence, they would not reach the understanding of the exchanged information

in the communication process.

There are four components of communicative competence. Those are grammatical, discourse,

sociolinguistic and strategic competence. According to Cuellar (2013), grammatical competence is the

ability to produce and recognize well-formed phrases and sentences. In line with those definitions,

Andrasyah (2009) connected the grammatical competence with acceptability. He categorized into

pragmatically acceptable, syntactic ungrammaticality and morphological ungrammaticality.

According to Marta (2016), discourse competence is the appropriateness of linguistic resources and

rhetorical strategies in order to reach effective communication in specific context. Trujillo (2010) defined

discourse comptence is the ability to make logical connection of sentences into meanigful utterances

whether spoken or wrritten which are appropriate with the given social context. He underlined with the

appropriate cohesion, coherence and rhetorical organization to combine ideas.

Ritchie (2011, p. 123-141) defined sociolinguistic competence as the ability to produce socially

appropriate speeach in context. In his research, he analysed the sociolinguistic competence including the

markers of social relations, politeness conventions, expressions of folk-wisdom, and register differences.

Mariani (1994) defined strategic competence as the ability to solve communication problems despite

an adequate command of the linguistic and sociocultural code. This competence refers to the ability to

cope with unexpected problems in communication process while the speakers do not have ready-made

solutions. He also mentioned two kinds of strategic competence, those were: 1) Reduction or avoidance

strategy : It means when the speakers avoid the problem by keeping the message within the

communicative resources, 2) Achievement strategy : it is used to express the meanig of a word when the

exact term is not available.

In this globalisation era, there are huge advances of new technology. We almost use any kinds of

technology in our daily lives. We often use technology at campuss, at school, at home, in the office,

wherever and whenever we are. We use technology for communication, education, transportation,

manufactoring, business, and so much more. One of technology used in this study was Whatsapp

Application or also called WhatsApp Messenger.

According to Rouse (2013), “WhatsApp Messenger is a freeware and cross-platform instant

messaging and Voice over IP (VoIP) service which allows the sending of text messages and voice calls, as

well as video calls, images and other media, documents and user location. The application runs from a

mobile device though it is also accessible from desktop computers; the service uses standard cellular

mobile numbers.” While Ryanto in Awada (2016) claimed that WhatsApp is a social and cultural medium

for learners to communicate with others as same as studying by obtaining a new language through

exchanging WhatsApp messages.

From the definition of WhatsApp Application stated above, I conclude that WhatsApp Application

is a modern application for communication system which can be used easily to exchange information

personally or even in a chat room group through text messaging, voice calls, video calls, images, and also

documents. WhatsApp Application was chosen as the media for interaction using English in this present

study.

In this study, WhatsApp was used as the media for English learners to communicate using English.

By using WhatsApp Application, it was created a group labelled English Interaction Room for the English

learners as the media for them to interact and discuss using English, even spoken or written.

WhatsApp Application gives people an easy way to communicate and share any kinds of

information such as text message, audio, video and also document even personal or in a group. Follows



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were some steps to make a group labelled “English Interaction Room” in WhatsApp Application: first, save

the contact number of the English learners who would be the participants of discussion. Second, In chat

option, create a chat room group named “English Interacation Room”. Then, add the contact number of the

participants to the English Interaction Room group. Add an icon by tapping on the empty photo box. The

last, tap the green check mark.

The term ‘chat room’ in Oxford dictionary (2010) was categorized into a noun which is referred to

an area on the internet where people can communicate with each other, usually about one particular topic.

Chat room is almost the same with online dicussion that had defined by Beal (2008) as an online

communication space where participants can post and read messages from other participants about certain

issues discussed.

Chat room in my personal view is a service of certain communication application that is used to

exchange any kinds of information to other users that need to be connected on the internet. Chat room in

this present study was a service on the WhatsApp Application and used as a room for English learners to

exchange any kinds of information, ideas and opinions using English.

In using internet, there will always be some rules that need to be obeyed. In case, to interact with others

there must be a set of rules to respect others. It is called nettiquette.

Beal (2008) mentioned some nettiquette as follows: 1) Do stay on topic, which means that the

participants need to read the topic of a particular discussion and keep the posts related to the topic, 2) Do

turn theat caps lock key off. Capital letters are considered as shouting and rude in communicating online,

3) Do search before posting. It means to make sure that the questions or asking for help on a particular

topics are not repeated.

In addition, Ryan (2013) suggested for the instructor to organize the chat room should consider

some criteria: 1) The educational level and background of the participants, 2) The size of the groups

participating in the online discussion, 3) The period of time that is available to participants, and 4) The

ability of the participants to access the internet

Chat room functioned as the room for the learners to interact using English was organized similar

to online discussion. There were some steps clarified by Ur (1981:18-24) to hold a discussion: 1)

Presentation is to make participants completely clear how the discussion arranged, 2) Process refers to the

way the discussion is held, 3) Ending is to draw the discussion to a close, 4) Feedback refers to valuable

information about what language is actively known, what is used rightly, and what needs correction and

practice.

Thus, chat room that became the communication media in this present study would be

implemented as follows: 1) Made some rules to be followed by the participants of English Interaction

Room., 2) Made an appointment with all the participants related to the time off discussion, therefore the

participants could be online to join the discussion, and 3) Organized the discussion by preparing the topic

of discussion, introducing the topic to the participants, holding the discussion, giving feedback, making a

conclusion of the discussion to end the discussion.

For many English learners, especially English Department students, to reach the goal in learning

English which is to be able using English is quite difficult. It needs high efforts to communicate using

English written or spoken; mastering the vocabulary, the pronunciation, the grammatical rules. The big

obstacle is when learners do not have any courage to try or practice their English skills. By practicing over

and over will help learners to be more fluent in using English, indeed.

This study was aimed to explain how the communicativity of English Department students in using

their English knowledge and communication skills. The activity of this group was held online through

WhatsApp chatroom group which labelled as English Interaction Room (EIR). This chatroom group was

used as a room to interact and discuss using English for all participants.



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METHODS

This study used a qualitative research approach which was categorized as a descriptive case study. It

focused on explaining the communicativity of English Department students through English Interaction

Room, which the result was analysed based on the four competence of communicativity. In short, this

present study used descriptive qualitative research approach.

The population of this study was English Department students, while participants of this study were

the fourth semester of English Department students. The sample was taken randomly eight students. This

study focused on the communicativity in using English. Therefore, the object of this study was to explain

the communicativity in using English through English Interation Room.

This study used qualitative data to explain the communicativity of English Department students.

The result of the chatroom group labelled English Interaction Room would be analysed based on Brown’s

communicative competence theory (2000). In analysing the data, this study used the book entitled

Principles of Language Learning and Teaching by Brown (2000).

In collecting the data, the researcher made a group on WhatsApp named English Interaction Room. I

inputted the participants’ number into the WhatsApp group. There will be third activities in EIR. As the

instructor, firstly I held the first activity in EIR as the introduction. I introduced myself, gave the rules of

EIR and asked the participants to introduce themselves. Then I would make an appointment related to the

time that all the members could be online and joined the group discussion before I held the next activity.

The second activity we would talk about their hobby and their achievement from their hobby. And the

third activity would discuss about modern technology.

The findings of this study were analysed in order to explain the communicative competence

components of English Department students in using English through EIR based on Brown’s

communicative competence. Follows were some steps to analyse the data after holding the discussion: 1)

Transcribing : The researcher would transcribe all the utterance from the first until the third activity of

English Interaction Room, 2) Classifying : The researcher would classify four categories, those are grammar,

discourse markers, the understanding of social context, and the ability in negotiating with other

participants. 3) Analyzing : The utterance of English Interaction Room would be analyzed by describing

based on four criteria of communicative competence: 1) Grammatical competence referred to the ability to

use the phonological rules, morphological rules, syntactic rules, semantic rules and lexical items, 2)

Discourse competence referred to the ability to arrange sentences related to the context discussed by

considering the topic, style, logical ordering, coherence and cohesion, 3) Sociolinguistic competence

referred to the ability to use the understanding of language used in the social context by considering the

role of the participants, the shared information, the function of the information, politeness and naturalness,

and 4) Strategic competence referred to the ability to enhance the effectiveness of communication.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

The research findings were explained based on students’ communiative competencies. First, the

grammatical competence : It focused on how the participants used their English grammar knowledge in

English Interaction Room which was referred to the phonological rules, morphological rules, syntactic rules,

semantic rules and lexical items. Thus, the utterances ofthe participants were analyzed based on the

grammaticality and acceptability. Based on the research findings, the utterances of the participants were

acceptable, eventhough those were ungrammatical. The reason is because the grammaticality relies on the

rules of a language. While acceptability is determined by the grammaticality and the meaningfulness of the

sentence or the discourse.

Second, the discourse competence : It explained the communicativity of the participants based on

their ability to the participants’ ability to arrange sentences related to the context discussed by considering

the topic, style, logical ordering, coherence and cohesion. It focused on the cohesion and coherence of the

utterances of EIR. Based on the research findings, most of the participants responded appropriately with

the instruction given by the instructor in the first activity. The participants responded to introduce



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themselves. In the second activity, there were three participants who were out of the topic discussed. In the

third activity, the participants responded based on the topic discussed in EIR. The participants’s ability to

construct a unified discourse were developed. In the first activity, the utterances of each participants were

similar. In the second activity, some utterances of the participants did not showed the cohesion and

coherence. While, in the third activity, the participants’ utterances were more cohesive and coherent.

Third, the sociolinguistic competence which refers to the markers of social relations, politeness

conventions, expressions of folk-wisdom, and register differences. Therefore, in the term of sociolinguistic

competence, the utterances of EIR participants were analyzed by considering the role of the participants,

the shared information, the function of the information, politeness and naturalness. In the first activity, the

participants started with greeting before introduced themselves. It showed the naturalness in the

conversation between the instructor and the participants. The language used less formal, therefore it

seemed to be casual interaction. In the second activity, the interaction between instructor and participants,

and also each participants were developed. The language used was still less formal which formed casual

interaction. Some participants held the conversation by using jokes and giving encouragement. In the third

activity, the interaction between the participants was more formal than the second activity. In delivering

the opinion, some of them used the expression, “In my opinion” and “In my view”. They turned taking to

convey their argument showed their naturalness in using language.

Fourth, the strategic competence : it refers to the participants’ knowledge strategies related to the

enhance the effectiveness of communication. The utterances of the participants were analysed bassed on

the participants’ strategies in order to the reach the effectiveness of communication. There are two basic

strategies used in holding interaction: avoidance strategy and achievement strategy. The result showed that

most of EIR participants’ utterances used achievement strategy.

The communicative competence of the EIR participants in using English based on four components

were explained as follows: 1) P1 was communicative viewed from the competence of discourse,

sociolinguistic, and strategic. She was responsive, interactive and dominant. She could interact and make a

simple conversation with other participants. She could construct cohesive and coherent ideas. She could

also present her ideas attractively and persuasively using her experience and jokes. But some of her

utterances were ungrammatical in syntax and morpheme. 2) P2 was responsive and interactive. She could

construct cohesive and coherent ideas by using varied discourse markers. She stated her ideas using her

own experience to convince other participants. Mostly, her utterances were syntactical ungrammatically.

3) P3 could construct cohesive and coherent ideas. He was responsive, becuase he only responded what

the instructor asked. He stated his ideas using achievement strategy by stating his own experience and

knowledge to convince other participants. Grammatically, his utterances were good and easy to

understand. Only a few number of utterances were ungrammatical. 4) P4 could construct coherent ideas

by using varied discourse markers. She was responsive. She stated her ideas using her own experience to

convince other participants (achievement strategy). Her utterances were less ungrammatical 5) P5 could

construct coherent ideas. She was responsive. She stated her ideas using her own experience to convince

other participants. Her utterances were less ungrammatical; 6) P6 was responsive. She stated her ideas

using her own experience and made it coherent bu using discourse markers. Ungrammatical in syntax and

morpheme were found in her utterances. 7) P7 was responsive, interactive and dominant. He could

interact and made a simple conversation with some participants. He could also present his ideas

attractively and persuasively by using hiw knowledge and experience. But he was less cohesive in

constructing his ideas. He overused a certain discourse marker in his utterance. His utterances were quite

difficult to understand. Most of his utterances were ungrammatical both in syntax and morpheme, and 8)

P8 was responsive and interactive. She could make a simple conversation with other participants. She

stated her ideas using her own experience to convince other participants and responded by giving certain

jokes in order to make the interaction flow. She could construct cohesive and coherent ideas by using

varied discourse markers. The ungrammatical utterances were mostly in syntac.



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CONCLUSION

According to the research findings and discussions, the communicative competence of the nine

participants English Interaction Room (EIR) were explained by analysing their four competencies in

communication: grammatical, discourse, sociolinguistic and strategic competence. The most problem

found in their utterances was their grammatical competence. Mostly the ungrammatical was found in the

syntax and some were in morphology.

The discourse, sociolinguistic and strategic competence of the participants were developed from the

first activity until the third activity. In the beginning, the interaction between all the participants were

monotonous. The utterances were also quite simple. While in the second activity, the participants began

more communicative and interactive by giving encouragement, making a joke, talking about a certain

movie and also giving response to others’ argument.

To sum up, most of participants of English Interaction Room tend to be communicative. Their

communicative competence were good viewed from the discourse competence, sociolinguistic competence

and strategic competence. In term of grammatical competence, they seemed to improve their competence

in grammatical.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The researcher would like to give the special honor to the advisor Prof. Dr. Dwi Rukmini, M.Pd. who

guided me to conduct this study. The researcher would also give special honor to the participants of

English Interaction Room, as the result I could collect the data for my study.

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