Strategic competence and how to teach it

Abstract

Abstract Applied linguists have for some time suggested that communicative competence includes a major component, usually termed strategic competence, the development of which largely determines the learner's fluency and conversational skills. Practising teachers, however, are usually unaware of the significance of this competence, and hardly any activities have been developed to include strategy training in actual language teaching. The aim of this article is to bridge the gap between theory and practice by first describing strategic competence and then presenting language exercises to facilitate its development.