Interactional Competence

Interactional Competence


Interactional Competence (IC) focuses on language use as
1) action,
2) context sensitive, and
3) inescapably co-constructed by participants.
Within this framework, the focus is on the resources (linguistic and otherwise) and practices (ways of conducting an action) that participants use to understand each other and to meet interactional goals. Teaching materials designed for IC generally include the use of authentic/unscripted interactional data, and tasks that require students to interact in meaning-focused ways.