Strategic Competence
Strategic competence is the ability to compensate for breakdowns or limitations in communication, maintaining the flow of interaction when linguistic resources fall short.
Evolution of the Concept
The concept has been defined differently across Communicative Competence Models:
| Model | Definition |
|---|---|
| Canale & Swain (1980) | Verbal and non-verbal Communication Strategies used to compensate for breakdowns due to insufficient competence or performance limitations |
| Canale (1983) | Expanded to include strategies used to enhance communicative effectiveness, not just repair failures |
| Bachman (1990) | Reconceived as a set of metacognitive processes — goal-setting, assessment, planning, execution — that manage the interaction between language knowledge, context, and world knowledge |
Bachman's reframing was significant: strategic competence is not just a compensatory crutch for weak speakers but a cognitive capacity used by all communicators, including highly proficient ones. A skilled negotiator choosing when to be indirect is exercising strategic competence, not compensating for a gap.
Communication Strategies
In teaching, strategic competence is most often operationalised through Communication Strategies:
| Strategy | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Circumlocution | Describing a word you cannot recall | "the thing you use to open bottles" for corkscrew |
| Approximation | Using a near-synonym | "animal" for horse |
| Word coinage | Creating a new word | "air ball" for balloon |
| Appeal for help | Asking the interlocutor | "How do you say...?" |
| Mime/gesture | Non-verbal communication | Pointing, acting out |
| Code-switching | Inserting L1 word | Using the L1 term and hoping the listener knows it |
| Avoidance | Changing the topic | Steering away from a topic that requires unknown vocabulary |
| Stalling | Buying time | "Well, let me think..." / "That's a good question..." |
Teachability Debate
There is ongoing debate about whether strategic competence can — or should — be explicitly taught:
- Teachable view (Dörnyei, 1995): Learners benefit from awareness-raising and practice with specific strategies, especially circumlocution and appeal for help.
- Sceptical view (Kellerman, 1991): L1 communication strategies transfer naturally to L2; teaching strategies is unnecessary and time is better spent developing linguistic competence itself.
The practical consensus: raise awareness, model strategies, and create tasks where strategy use is necessary — but do not teach strategies as a substitute for building underlying language proficiency.
Classroom Implications
- Information-gap and Negotiation of Meaning tasks naturally elicit strategy use
- Teach useful stalling and time-buying phrases explicitly
- Practise Circumlocution as a productive vocabulary strategy
- Encourage risk-taking — learners who avoid communication miss opportunities to develop
- Fluency-focused activities (e.g., 4-3-2, timed talks) push learners to deploy strategies under pressure