Saber Test and the Communicative

ApproachBy Lorena Mosquera García

• What are your main concerns when teaching eleventh graders?• What comes to mind when you read the words Saber test and

Communicative Approach in the same sentence?

Colombia Bilingüe

• The objective of Plan Nacional de Bilingüismo is “lograr ciudadanos y ciudadanas capaces de comunicarse en inglés, de tal manera que puedan insertar el país en los procesos de comunicación universal, en la economía global y en la apertura cultural, con estándares internacionalmente comparables”

About Saber 11 Test

• It is part of the same program• Based on the CEFR • Colombia Bilingüe by 2019

About Saber Test (cont’d)Parte Porcentaje (%)

1 11

2 11

3 11

4 18

5 16

6 11

7 22

Total 100

Parts of the TestParte Énfasis

Parte 1 – Pragmática Propósito comunicativo del lenguaje y el lugar en que puede aparecer, según ese propósito.

Parte 2 – Léxico Relación de un grupo de palabras con su descripción.

Parte 3 – Conocimiento comunicativo Participación en una conversación. Coherencia. Pertinencia del lenguaje usado en situaciones particulares recreadas en pequeñas conversaciones.

Parte 4 – Conocimiento gramatical Uso adecuado de estructuras en un texto.

Parte 5 – Lectura literal Comprensión de lectura. Paráfrasis.

Parte 6 – Lectura inferencial Intención del autor y los aspectos generales y particulares por destacar de un texto.

Parte 7 – conocimiento gramatical y lexical Selección de las palabras correctas para completar un texto.

“…Ciudadanos y ciudadanas capaces de comunicarse…”

Communicative Competence

• Introduced by Dell Hymes (1966)• Ability to use gramatical and

social knowledge performing in real life situations.• Basis for the Communicative

Approach.

Communicative Competence (cont’d)

Communicative Approach for You

• What do you understand by Comminicative Approach? • If you could summarize it in two words, what would those words be?

(Taboo words: communicative, communication, and approach)• Describe a class activity that fosters communication

Communicative Approach

“…language is interaction; it is interpersonal activity and has a clear relationship with society. In this light, language study has to look at the use (function) of language in context, both its linguistic context (what is uttered before and after a given piece of discourse) and its social, or situational, context (who is speaking, what their social roles are, why they have come together to speak)“(Berns, 1984, p. 5)

Saber and the Communicative Approach

Can Reading be communicative?

• Communication suggests interaction • Direct communication between

the reader and the author • Communicate to others • Collaborative Reading

Pre-Reading Tasks • Think-pair-share• Tell your partner what you know

about the topic• Do a quiz in pairs to find out

what you know about the topic• Look at some pictures related to

the topic• Skimming the first paragraph for

gist and then predicting

While-Reading Tasks • Jigsaw Reading• Cut up texts• Running and Reading • Pair Reading• Reading/Speaking gap activities• Expert Reading

Post-Reading Tasks • Think-pair-share• Discussions about the text• Summarizing texts• Reviewing texts• Using a 'follow-up' speaking task

related to the topic• Looking at the language of the

text (e.g. collocations)• Comprehension games

Reading Strategies

• Previewing• Predicting• Skimming and scanning• Guessing from context• Paraphrasing

Strategies to Teach Text Comprehension

• Monitoring Comprehension• Metacognition • Graphic and semantic organizers• Answering questions• Generating questions• Summarizing

Test-Taking Strategies Strategies used before answering the test such as: • Read all questions first to start with the easy one/s • Write an outline for each question first• Read instructions carefully • Budget time (i.e. allocate specific time to each question according to

its difficulty or length)• Form a mental image of the answer• Underline key words in the questions.

Test-Taking Strategies (cont’d)Strategies used during answering the test such as: • Answer questions in chronological order • Revise each question immediately after answering it • Use all available test time • Immediately write what comes to mind• Answer all questions even the one/s I do not know

Test-Taking Strategies (cont’d)Strategies used after answering the test such as:

• Revise answers to correct spelling and grammatical mistakes• Re-read all questions to make sure I understood them correctly • Revise both content and language• Avoid last minute changes

To Sum up• Saber English test assesses language use• Reading can be communicative • There are plenty of ideas we can bring to class to work with Reading

tasks communicatively• We should focus on each step of the process: pre, while, and post• Students need some Reading strategies• Students need text comprehension strategies • Communicative competence is about the use of the language. We do

not need to focus on Grammar and Vocabulary