What is communicative competence and how can it be acquired?

Abstract

The commentary deals with the question of what constitutes communicative competence (or communication skills) and to what extent findings regarding motor and social skills are transferable to the domain of communication. After a proposal for a definition, the commentary considers how learners acquire communicative competence and what needs to be considered from the trainers’ perspective in order to support learners in their competence development. The commentary does not claim to present all definitions of the concept of competence or communicative competence in a comprehensive way. Nor does it aim to present the current state of research. Our aim is to provide teachers and interested individuals in medical education with a pragmatic guide to how communicative competence can be taught and learned based on a skills model.

Keywords

• communicative competence
• communication skills
• learning theory
• acquisition of communication skills
• transfer