Teaching and Learning Sociolinguistic Competence: Teachers’ Critical Perceptions

Sociolinguistic competence has been an integral part of communicative competence in that it includes learning pragmatic and sociolinguistic knowledge about how to use language linguistically and socially appropriately. However, a number of studies highlight the lack of such communicative skills among EFL learners regardless of their proficiency level of linguistic knowledge. More specially, learners may not be able to develop socio-pragmatic knowledge of language as much as grammatical knowledge of the language being learnt. Informed by this critical inconsistency and learning challenge, this study reports the perceptions of English teachers about the development of sociolinguistic competence in language classrooms. The purpose is to explore their perceptions about learners' as well as the non-native EFL teachers' knowledge of sociolinguistic competence along with any difficulty they may face with the integration of this particular competence in their classroom practice. Both native (n=35) and non-native (n=35) English teachers were administered a questionnaire and were asked to submit written reports revealing their perceptions underpinning the knowledge and practice of sociolinguistic competence as part of communicative competence. The results revealed that the development of sociolinguistic rules can guide learners in the choice of appropriate forms which should be closely integrated in language teaching and learning curricula.