Working with Competences in the ESL

Working with Competences in the ESL

A good English teacher is actually one who searches for such techniques and methods to improve not only their own performance and delivery in class, but also helps students improve their competencies.

Students’ skills can be shown in the process of completing a task to develop a required competency. Such tasks can be shown or illustrated by a teacher and assessment expectations can be shown in a rubric or checklist for the student. Teachers should carefully create the checklists to represent each of the expected tasks and accomplishments. They should also show and discuss the rubric with students in order to provide a clear view of what students must do to successfully complete a task and demonstrate mastery of a given competency.

In competency-based instruction, the entire classroom is student-centered and students receive content appropriate to their level of need. While a passerby may peek their head in the classroom and think the students are doing all the work, this could not be further from the truth. Students must demonstrate an ability to perform. It is no longer enough to fill in blanks or do scripted activities that may have little relevance outside the classroom. Instead, students need to show that they can actually communicate well enough to perform a real world task.


Another useful technique in competency-based instruction is borrowed from an area of language instruction known as Communicative Language Teaching. The tenets of CLT include peer communication and interaction as a means of learning, the use of authentic artifacts.